This is one of my favorite list on Wikipedia: The Worst Movies Ever, which details movies that "have achieved a significant level of infamy through critical and popular consensus as being among the worst films ever made." Oh, yeah!
Of particular significance is this film, called "Manos" The Hands of Fate (1966), made by an El Paso fertilizer salesman Hal Warren [wiki], who made the film on a bet.
Dalton Ross of Entertainment Weekly wrote an in-depth yet entertaining article on why Manos The Hands of Fate sucks the big one:
During the conversation, Warren boasted that making a movie wasn't so hard. Anybody could make a movie. Heck, even he could make one. Warren bet Silliphant that he could take a film all the way from conception to completion. Tellingly, the first outline for his master script was written right then and there on napkins. The story was standard B-grade horror — family (husband Michael, wife Margaret, and daughter Debbie) gets lost en route to a vacation and stumbles upon a horrifying fate. Less standard, however, was a half-man, half-goat character named Torgo, or the mysterious cult leader known simply as the Master who walked around sporting a robe with giant red hands on it. Perhaps the film's first sign of ineptitude was the title itself, Manos: The Hands of Fate, which translates a tad redundantly to Hands: The Hands of Fate.
http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/manos/default.php
I....take care...of the place...while the Master...is away....
A god among men!
There is however a modern myth circulating about this movie about actors comitting suicide after the release of the movie. While it is correct that the guy playing Torgo (John Reynolds) killed himself prior to the release he did have some other problems like depression and drug addiction, so it was hardly because of Manos.
Further more, there are, at least in my opinion many worse movies (especially if you weigh in how much money are spent on them). "Manos" is at least a good bang for its buck, which is more than you can say for (for instance) Santa with Muscles or Battlefield Earth.
Great, just what the Net needs. More blogging about someone else's ideas, with no credit given.
I always thought that title was funny though since "Manos" in spanish translates to "hand". So the title actually reads "Hands The Hands of Fate".
MST3000 is a funny show and has a large cult following, but just not me. I can't stand all that talking over everyone else. It's like watching The View.