Movie review. The Hands of Fate film

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Worst film

Mock awards have emerged to enhance art by humiliating certain entertainment productions such as film and music (Mathijs and Sexton 38). In spite of the idea that cinema thrives on cultic views, mock awards have gained authenticity and seriousness. It is this seriousness that MST3K placed Manos: The Hands of Fate film into public scrutiny by highlighting the serious flaws that the movie entailed.

In 1966, Harold Warren produced and directed the American horror film, thereafter, acquiring the status of the worst movies ever produced. By peering into the background of the director, it is not surprising that he availed the world a ludicrous film for the rest of the decades. Warren was a dealer in farm’s products, in Texas, and he decided to produce the movie as a result of a bet. The producer also had a role in the movie with notable El Paso theater actors. The independent production crew possessed limited background and experience in filmmaking. In addition, they faced a constrained budget at their disposal. On its debut, the film had little performances in the local theatres until MST3K discovered the movie and sparked its two DVD releases (Weiner and Barba 106).

An overview of the movie reads about a vacationing family who venture on a road trip and loses the way. The encounter by a pagan cult triggers the flaws that dominate the rest of the movie. The film possesses several technical deficiencies, continuity flaws, poor visuals and soundtracks, inexplicable scenes and shoddy acting.

The first flaw that indicates in the movie concerns with the production. The film begins by showcasing objects such as the car instead of the characters. This serves to divert the attention of the audience by failing to create curiosity into the later happenings. The movie is slow paced as the family drags its belongings into the car. A better way of launching the actions would have been to let the child stare into the camera. Since the child is sullen, the parents hum an irrelevant song into the child’s ears. As the family drives for a short distance, a sheriff pulls the vehicle over and asks of a tail-light problem. The father responds that the child is exhausted. There is a disconnection between the exhaustion of the child and the tail light failure (Trombo 52). The introductory part also entails landscape shots that exhaust the scene.

An additional problem with the movie regards its lighting. The producer chose most of the movie’s scenes at night. Given the scenes were to occur for several days, it does not create sense that the movie should majorly entail night scenes. The movie possessed inadequate electricity that helped develop a crudely lit and a murky effect. This effect of darkness emanate from the beginning of the movie whereby there is inadequate depiction of the day. The audience strives to make out the faces of the family members as they enter into the dwellings of Torgo. In spite of the idea that the movie entailed considerable night scenes, the audience did not have to struggle making out the characters’ faces.

In addition, the movie entailed inclusion of animals that did not augur with the direction of the script. The first animal is the family’s puppy that is supposed to travel with the family on a road trip. The child plays with the sullen animal that yearns to move out of the car. The puppy attains mild later scenes while the movie does not indicate the disappearance of the animal. In the Torgo’s cave, the child struggles playing with an uncooperative dog. This occurs regardless of the idea that the animals were supposed to accord a horror effect into the movie.

Another problem regards how the actors attain cue for actions. The film did not coordinate the camera movements with the actions of the actor. A shot begins by the actors consuming a long time in order to carry out their roles (Saltzman 47). This suggests that the actions could begin long after the camera had focused on the actors. The scenes comprised of actions whereby the actors could stare into the cameras before performing any significant thing. In the scene of question, the sheriff looked dead and hesitated before questioning the family. In addition, there is a scene in the car whereby the woman stays in absolute silence while staring at a nondescript object.

The car drives and stops at a seemingly abandoned house. The house does not approach the scene thereby appearing from nowhere. Instead of asking for directions, they are fearless of spending with the satyr. In essence, the satyr should possess scary features such as hooves or horns. The satyr is surprisingly warm instead of projecting a horror look onto the settled family. In addition, satyr is a wiry fellow that triggers the audience into sympathizing with him.

It is discernible that the Manos’ movie entailed terrible flaws that make it pale. To begin with, there is a whole idea of disconnection as pertains to the reason for getting lost because the characters should be familiar with their environment. The movie has other disconnections in terms of inappropriate soundtracks such as jazz in night scenes. This is coupled with poor lighting and sluggish actors that do not depict the required effects of a scene.

Works cited

Mathijs, Ernest, and Jamie Sexton. Cult cinema. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2012. Print.

Saltzman, Marc. DVD Confidential 2: the Sequel. New York, NY: McGraw Hill Professional, 2003. Print.

Trombo, Tony. Sueno the dream of Hal Warren: the director of fate creates space. New York, NY: Independent Publishing Platform, 2011. Print.

Weiner, Robert, and Shelley Barba. In the peanut gallery with mystery science theater 3000: essays on film, fandom, technology and the culture of riffing. New York, NY: McFarland, 2011. Print.