Manos: Something Really Awful This Way Comes

I’m in the business of watching movies. And if there’s anything I like more than a good movie, it’s a bad movie.

Now, I’m not talking about bad as in “salacious and problematic” bad. I’m just talking bad. As a kid, my best friend and I would rent schlocky horror movies and make fun of them all the way through. And when that proved to be too much work, my sister introduced me to Mystery Science Theater 3000, cementing a certain affinity for cringe-worthy cinema. If I was to spend the rest of my life on a desert island with just one movie to watch (using, presumably, the desert island’s rudimentary entertainment system), I’d be far more likely to take Plan 9 From Outer Space than, say, Birdman.

So I was pretty excited when I learned that fellow Colorado blogger Philip J. Reed was partnering with a Denver-area theater to bring Manos: The Hands of Fate to the big screen again. It’ll play at AMC Highlands Ranch 24 on April 2, assuming enough folks show interest.

A quick primer: Manos was released in 1966 and watched, I’m assuming, by about four people during its theatrical run (mercifully sequestered to one theater in El Paso, Texas, and a handful of Southwest drive-ins). The entire movie (according to the never-wrong archives at Wikipedia) was the result of a bet its producer/director/writer/star Harold P. Warren made with a stranger in an El Paso coffee shop one day, and he started scrawling out a script right on a coffee shop napkin. The movie was made for $19,000, and in watching it, you wonder how it cost that much: He promised his unpaid actors a share of the profits and had to race through scenes in order to get his rental equipment back on time.

I’ve never watched Manos, but from what I gather it involves a cult leader and his many cultish wives. And a satyr. And a couple making out in a car for no apparent reason. And while admittedly I’ve never watched the movie, I don’t know if anyone who has could give a better recap.

It premiered in El Paso Nov. 15, 1966, and a local paper mercifully described it as a “brave experiment.” It quickly left self-respecting theaters and would likely have been forgotten altogether … had not the geniuses MST3K brought the thing back from the dead (as it were) in 1993. It has since gained a measure of immortality as one of the worst films ever, rivaling even Plan 9.

And now, thanks to Reed, Coloradans will have a chance to relish in its legendary badness—remastered, apparently, for our enjoyment.

“You can learn a lot from a great artist, but when you find something like Manos, which is so completely inept on every level, it’s fascinating,” Reed says. “It’s a corpse you don’t even need to dissect, because its innards are just spilling out everywhere.”

Why inflict this film on the good people of Colorado? Reed says it’s all for a great cause. Proceeds will benefit The Trevor Project, which helps prevent suicides amongst gay, lesbian and questioning youth. And while it might seem odd for a guy employed by Focus on the Family to express support for an LGBTQ-centric charity, I don’t see it that way: Whatever we think about homosexuality or gay rights or any related issue, I’d like to think that we can all agree—every one of us—that no one should be considering killing themselves over it. (And since I was bullied under the suspicion of being gay when I was a kid, maybe I can relate a little.)

Given what Reed’s trying to do here, there’s an undercurrent of redemption at work. It’s taking something horrifically flawed and turning it to a better use—just like what God would like to do with each of us. And that’s pretty cool.

So if you want to catch a really bad movie and happen to be in the Denver area April 2, click here and buy a ticket or two to Manos: The Hands of Fate (since tickets won’t be available at the door). Then, stop by AMC Highlands Ranch 24 (103 West Centennial Blvd. in Highlands Ranch) at 8:30 p.m. and find yourself a seat. I can’t say you’re in for a treat, exactly—not with Manos as the main attraction—but you’ll certainly be in for a memorable experience.