Eboreg

(The first thing that must be said, is that I think MST3k is totally pointless. I love watching cheesy old oddball B-movies, but not with a bunch of silly robots ruining the experience. I treated "Manos" as it should be treated -- I let it speak for itself.)

There's not much to be said that's already been said about this movie's lack of... just about everything. I saw it for the first time just now, and I'm still baffled. This is not a case of "so bad, it's good". It's not even a case of "so bad, I want to spew my run screaming into the woods, using my own hand for a torch".

This movie reaches beyond "bad", and comes out on the other side. It's set entirely in a parallel universe, where time and logic are twisted beyond recognition for mortals. What looks like Texas is actually the other end of a worm hole, where the fabric of space has turned itself inside-out.

It HAS TO be this way. How else could a movie be so indescribably... not "bad", that word is to simple and two-dimensional... mesmerising, but yet so extraordinary painful and genuinely creepy... you feel the movie slowly pressing a pole into your blackened heart, and you make sure to keep the remote control near in case you should feel a psychosis coming... but still you're always on the verge of laughing your head off... and at the end, you can almost feel your brain suppressing the whole experience, and you will never, never be sure what actually happened during these 80 minutes.

THIS MOVIE IS EVIL. If you're looking for a great turkey experience, something out of this world, that leaves you with a smile on your face and a somewhat altered way of relating to movies in general, I suggest "Glen or Glenda".

I guess I will never look upon more ordinary B-movies the same way again. The thought isn't pleasant, but I still don't regret watching "Manos" for a second. It had to be done.

Filthy bikers, sleaze, rednecks, blood, devil worshipers, werewolves - this one's got them all! The script writers obviously had a problem with not being able to limit themselves to ONE genre - I prefer to call this a biker movie, though it's also very much a cheesy early-70's horror flick, complete with sacrificed cats, devil-worshiping monks (!) and naked, dancing women (well, one actually - but she's the Bride of Satan herself!). The biker gang ("Devil's Advocates") are SO over-disgusting (you always sit there wondering why these guys aren't serving a life sentence), and the 'horror' scenes (especially the werewolf ones) bring many unintentional laughs. See it!

This total flop is probably the best-known Swedish turkey. It's Ragnar Frisk's (director of the Åsa-Nisse movies) scuba-diving into the world of 'hot -rod teenagers' (couldn't find a better translation, 'raggare' seems to be kind of a local Swedish concept), and if you've seen some Åsa-Nisse movies I guess you can imagine what this one is like. It's stuffed with hot-rod teenagers who talk like 50-year-olds, teens who get drunk on Coca Cola (I swear! They really do!), painfully bad acting, unnecessary and really bad song numbers and unintentional laughs. And of course a totally uncalled-for ("let's go bathing!") rear nudity scene. As if this wasn't enough, it's also Ernst-Hugo Järegård's movie debut! His threatening "Sssstick!" is classic. I COULD imagine a better way to start a long movie career. To cut it short; if you've ever wondered if there are any worse Swedish movies than the Åsa-Nisse ones, you don't need to wonder anymore. To quote some other review; these youths are misunderstood - by the director! This is great fun for a Bad Movie freak, like me.