If these Hands of Fate come a-knocking, don't open the door (Mystery Science Theater 3000: Manos - Hands of Fate (DVD))

Member Name: thereddragon

Product:	Mystery Science Theater 3000: Manos - Hands of Fate (DVD)
Date:	09/05/09 (126 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: One of the funniest MST3K episodes ever, Mike Nelson as 'Torgo'

Disadvantages: None except having to experience possibly the worst film ever made

Starring:

MST3K Cast (this episode):
Joel Hodgson as Joel Robinson
Kevin Murphy as Tom Servo
Trace Beaulieu as Dr Forrester and Crow T Robot
Frank Conniff as TV's Frank
Mike Nelson as Torgo pizza delivery man

Manos Cast:
Tom Neyman as The Master
John Reynolds as Torgo
Diane Mahree as Margaret
Hal Warren as Mike

I absolutely love Mystery Science Theater 3000. I regret that I never got to see it when it was still running. Living in the UK and not having satellite TV, I had just vaguely heard of it but didn't know what it was until I finally stumbled across some episodes a few years ago on YouTube and Google Video. I was quickly hooked and set about obtaining as many episodes as I could find, to feed my new addiction.

For those who don't know, Mystery Science Theater was a hysterically funny cult TV series that ran from 1988 to 1999, debuting for its first year on a small local station in Minnesota and then later on The Comedy Channel and The Sci Fi Channel. It was in the format of a comedy show with hosts who presented a cringemakingly bad old movie each week, usually of the Sci-Fi genre, sometimes also with a short feature (often a really corny educational short from the 1950s) preceding it.

The premise of the show was that it was about a man who had been unwillingly shot into space in a satellite as part of an evil experiment by two mad scientists, Dr Clayton Forrester and Dr Laurence Erhardt (in Series 2, 'Dr Erhardt' left and was replaced by 'TV's Frank', evil henchman to Dr Forrester). The experiment consisted of forcing the unwilling victim to watch really bad movies in order to monitor his reactions to them.

As the captive man in the satellite, Joel's only companions were two small robots he created from various spare parts around the ship, whom he named Tom Servo and Crow T Robot. He also created two other robots to help maintain the ship: Gypsy the navigator, and Cambot who sent and received visual transmissions to and from his captors. When the week's movie is screened, Tom Servo and Crow accompany Joel into the screening room and share his torture, and the three of them appear onscreen in silhouette sitting in a row of cinema seats superimposed over the bad film of the week while it is playing. While watching the film, the three of them heckle it mercilessly with a continual stream of the wackiest and most off-the-wall remarks, and this is where the zany rolling-on-the-floor humour element comes in that makes this show so hilarious.

As Episode 24 of Series 3, this is one of their finest and most inspired, a real classic Joel-era episode. 'Manos: The Hands of Fate' (1966) has definitely got to be a strong contender for the very worst film ever made, possibly even surpassing such turkeys as 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' and 'Robot Monster'. This film is just completely crazy, with some of the most amateurish acting, roughest editing, most inept direction, badly-focused camerawork, mind-bogglingly lame dialogue, incoherent script, stupidest and most pointless story, and incredibly dumb characters who do or say really stupid things that people just wouldn't do or say in real life.

A limp and unfrightening villain ('The Master'), his bizarre half-man half-goat henchman Torgo, and random completely gratuitous scenes of young women in flimsy gowns wrestling each other (The Master's several wives) and of a young couple making out in a car who really have nothing to do with the story, make for an incomprehensible laugh-fest that doesn't even need MST3K to do it justice. But, Joel and the bots take it to a whole new level.

This episode includes a 1950s short, a promotional film by Chevrolet called 'Hired', which stars, amusingly enough, Dick York who played Darren on the old 'Bewitched' 1960s TV series as a young salesman. This incredibly corny film gets suitably heckled by our boys with some fine sarcastic remarks.

As soon as 'Hired' ends, we go straight into our main feature. We see a thirty-something couple pull over in their nifty 1960s convertible, and the wife, Margaret, turns to the back seat of the car to tell their little girl, 'We're almost there honey, just a little while longer.' 'We should be pretty close by now,' hubby Mike confirms. Margaret expresses her doubts, but Mike says indignantly 'Look, I never got us lost before.'

After some very dull and interminably lengthy driving scenes, Mike has now managed to get them really hopelessly lost. They find themselves passing a large old ramshackle house, and pull up to ask directions of a man standing in front. An odd-looking young man, stooped posture, holding a strange-looking staff, wearing a wide-brimmed hat. There's something not quite normal about his legs - they look a bit ... goat-like. He has a strange twitch. 'I am Torgo. I look after the place while The Master is away,' he announces in a shaky voice.

They ask directions to their destination, Valley Lodge. 'There is no place like that around here,' Torgo says, twitching like a good'un. 'Mike, I'm scared,' Margaret whines, and I can't say I blame her. 'Well Torgo,' says Mike, 'which way is out of here?' 'There is no way out of here,' Torgo says. 'Well,' Mike says cheerfully and, as far as any sane viewer is concerned, totally stupidly and implausibly, 'we could spend the night here!' Neither Margaret nor Torgo is keen on this idea, obviously having more sense than Mike. 'The Master won't approve,' Torgo declares. But after much persuasion from Mike, Torgo relents. 'Very well. But The Master will be very disturbed.'

Torgo shows them to a front room and shuffles off to prepare a spare bedroom. In the front room is an altar with statuettes of hands (the hands of fate, I guess) and a creepy portrait of a guy with a remarkable resemblance to Frank Zappa: it's The Master. 'Mike, I'm scared,' Margaret starts snivelling again, 'he has the MEANEST look.' Torgo returns to show them to their bedroom. And, well, as you can probably expect, it's going to be a bumpy night.

This really is one of the very best MST3K episodes ever. The riffing by Joel, Crow and Tom Servo on this movie is way above and beyond the call of duty. If you love MST3K or love zany, cheesy humour with a bit of sarcastic wit thrown in, you should love this. The scenes with Torgo in them inspire the funniest heckling in the movie, and if you share my sort of silly sense of humour, you will be laughing out loud, a lot.

The host segments are particularly good in this episode, too - especially the last one at the end of the show, where Dr Forrester and Frank order a pizza from 'Torgo's Pizza'. The pizza is delivered by 'Torgo' himself, played by Mike Nelson, who was the lead writer on the show and later took over as host after Joel Hodgson left. Mike's portrayal of Torgo is disturbingly convincing!

This is a real must for MST3K fans, and also for so-bad-it's-hilarious movie fans, where you can have the added bonus of the 'additional dialogue' supplied by our three space captives. I also have 'Manos: The Hands of Fate' in its original form, and I can tell you that MST3K makes it so much more watchable - the original film is filled with long, slow pauses in the dialogue and really poor pacing which makes it tedious to watch, but Joel and Co fill in those pauses brilliantly with their own 'special' added dialogue.

Highly, highly recommended if you want a really good laugh. If you've never heard of MST3K, this is a great place to start. One guy on Ciao, after reading this review and not having heard of MST3K before, obtained this and a couple of other MST3K episodes to check out and is now trying to acquire them all! (Check my copy of this review on Ciao for some screenshots if that may help entice you!)

Please not that my ratings for this product apply to the MST3K episode as a whole, and not the awful movie contained within!

Also on ciao.com as EsmeraldaDragon and ciao.co.uk as thereddragon.

Summary: A must for MST3K fans and connoisseurs of very bad films