Help keep Manos: The Hands of Fate public domain!

The master demands it.

Manos: The Hands of Fate is literally one of the worst movies ever. Like, it is the 5th worst rated movie on all of IMDB bad.

You might not think it, but this fact has made it something of a genre treasure and the film sort of defines the term “so bad, it’s good.” Think of it as the horror genre’s “The Room.” The film, lost to obscurity for decades, gained its cult following after the series Mystery Science Theater 3000 reminded us of it existence, with Mike (or with it Joel in that ep?) and his robot pals lampooning the film brutally. Now, though, Manos is in danger and only we can save it. From the press release:

One of the children of the director of B-movie classic “Manos: The
Hands of Fate” is attempting to trademark the title of the film 50
years after its debut. Jackey Neyman Jones, who stars in the film as
Debbie, and Ben Solovey, who recently restored “Manos”and made it
available on Blu-Ray, have established a legal defense fund to oppose
the trademark. 

The trademark has been approved for publication on April 11th. After
that date there is a 30 day window to either file an opposition or an
extension for such an opposition. As word emerged the trademark had
been granted a publication date, the legal defense fund, hosted on
crowdfunding site GoFundMe, saw a surge of new donations from those
wishing to keep Manos free of legal restrictions.

“Manos: The Hands of Fate,” a low budget horror movie made by
locals in El Paso, Texas, was called by Entertainment Weekly the
“worst film ever made.” “Manos" fell into the public domain in
1966 due to Hal Warren, the film’s director, not having the film
copyrighted. The film appeared on Mystery Science Theatre 3000 in
1993, which led to its current cult movie status and a vigorous fandom
that has spawned fan art such as stage shows, coloring books, and even
a video game.

“Should this trademark go through - even if it could not hold up in
a court of law - it poses a very big threat,” said Solovey. “The
many legitimate and creative uses of ‘Manos’ that we have been
accustomed to seeing will disappear.”

“Before its appearance
on MST3k, ‘Manos’ was just another low budget film that fell into
obscurity,” added Jones “Only because the film was in the Public
Domain did it have an opportunity to be rediscovered in the first
place.”

We must protect the Master! A GoFundMe has been launched to raise legal fees. At time of posting, the campaign has been going for roughly a month and has raised nearly half of its goal. If you love to hate (or hate to love) Manos, please consider contributing.

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