"Worse than Manos: The Hands of Fate" is a pretty bold claim, but it's one I heard recently on the Badasses, Boobs, and Body Count podcast. So, being a lover of bad films, I was immediately curious. The argument on the podcast was that Manos is probably the best known "worst movie," but there are others out there that are in fact objectively worse. A Night to Dismember was Exhibit A. And now, having watched it, I would have to agree. While Dismember and Manos have a lot in common (they both really crappy looking, ineptly shot, and entirely dubbed over), at least Manos has a semi-coherent plot. I'm not totally even sure what A Night to Dismember is even about.
So there is very little actual dialogue to be found in the film. It's just this guy, telling the whole story - and badly. He's a pretty boring voice actor, and I'd say he grinds the film to a halt - but it never had any momentum to begin with. The other BIG thing about the movie? Apparently, the party responsible for developing the film lost about a third of it - so what you've got is essentially two-thirds of a movie masquerading as a whole one. There has got to be a lot missing, because there are hardly any characters in the film - other than our dear narrator, no one sticks out in anyway. The whole thing is just a haphazard blur. It's hard to pick out any examples of things being super bad, because the whole thing is bad. Just pick any random scene and you'll see what I mean.
A Night to Dismember feels like a baffling experimental film with some cheap gore and occasional nudity, rather than a standard narrative film. It's essentially incoherent. The title makes you perk up, but that's about as exciting as it gets.
I'm really at a loss as what to even say about it. It's just a wreck in every sense of the word. It looks really bad - just about every shot looks totally washed out, and there is zero uniformity in terms of look from scene to scene. Unless you count bad lighting. At least Manos is relatively consistent in its badness.
Like some wrecks, you experience a kind of rubbernecking effect with A Night to Dismember... you just have to witness this thing for yourself. And if you don't mind being perplexed, it can be hard to look away from at times (if you're like me, with a confused look and a slightly tilted head). But unfortunately, there isn't one outstanding character (a la Torgo) or a consistently entertaining presence. The overdubbing from the cop is such an obnoxious way to tell a story that it's kind of entertaining, but most of the film is simply impenetrable.
And as you might expect, the horror returns here are iffy. There is some gore/nudity that has a scuzzy peepshow feel. But when you get no real setup with any of the characters it really loses a lot of its punch. And despite the fact that the narrator spends a lot of time telling us about the "psychopath," there is never any one scene that is terrifying... and really, it's hard to generate tension when you pretty much just have one guy telling the story. You often hear people say "show, don't tell" in regards to script writing - A Night to Dismember pretty much does the opposite. And while knowing the backstory behind the film (the big chunk that went missing) makes me want to cut it a little slack, it's still a pretty rough one to sit through. While I'll probably check out little pieces here or there (I think the incoherence could be fun in bite-sized chunks), I doubt I'll ever watch the whole thing again.
One thing it does have going for it is that it's very short. So while it's rough to sit through, at 68 minutes it could be a lot worse. But that's about the best thing I can say about it.
A Night to Dismember does have to go up on the list of potential "worst movies ever," so if that's your thing, it's worth checking out. Despite having a hard time watching it, now that I've got that notch on my belt I'm glad I did. Although it *is* worse than Manos.
I would not recommend this film.
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