Harold P. Warren wrote, directed, produced and starred in his only feature, Manos: The Hands of Fate. We find little to recommend beyond John Reynolds’s disquieting performance in a horror film that otherwise tests our patience.
Fi1m perspective
John Reynolds’s Torgo is awkward enough to make the next moment difficult to predict in Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966). We were briefly unsettled by him, because his uncertainty suggests behaviour we cannot anticipate. The performance holds our attention without much explanation. Warren seldom builds on it, and the rest of the film gives us little reason to stay.
As a producer, Warren did at least get his sole feature made and released, after a bet with screenwriter Stirling Silliphant that he could finish one. He also wrote, directed and played Michael, taking responsibility for much of what fails to work on screen. Seeing it through deserves acknowledgement, but it is a small comfort during scenes that do so little to involve us. The script leaves the actors with too little to work with, and the direction does not turn their unease into sustained fear.
The production used a hand-cranked 16 mm camera and post-dubbed sound, with minimal editing resources. The problems with continuity and sound synchronisation make the basic business of following a scene harder than it should be. Yet the more damaging failure is Warren’s inability to make us care about the people in those scenes. Tom Neyman’s Master supplies too little authority, while Diane Mahree as Margaret and Jackey Neyman as Debbie cannot make the drama involving. Better synchronisation would not have solved that.
The film’s later cult reputation, following its appearance on MST3K in 1993, can encourage the hope that its mistakes will at least be funny. Our experience offers little support for that hope. At 74 minutes, it makes us far too conscious of the time. Its technical failures become tiring long before they become entertaining. For an evening’s horror, or even a dependable laugh at a film’s mistakes, look elsewhere.
Biography
Harold P. Warren was an American writer, director, producer and actor. He was born on 23 October 1923 in New Haven, Connecticut, and died on 26 December 1985 in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Warren worked as an insurance manager and fertiliser salesman in El Paso, Texas, where he was active in local theatre. He made his only feature film, Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966), after a bet with screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, whom he had met on the set of the television series Route 66. Warren wrote, directed, produced and starred in the low-budget independent horror film, which was shot with non-professional cast and crew.
