The Manor (2018)

(On Cable TV, July 2020) Movie reviewers often get a pretty good idea of a movie from its first few minutes. Not always, mind you—there are famous cases of slow burns delivering final deflagrations, but the craft and style in which a film is conducted are usually obvious early on. In The Manor’s case, it takes a surprisingly short time to realize that the film is going to be unusually bad. From the opening credits onward, as they try to ape an early-1980s style through synth music and in-your-face lettering, the familiar sinking feeling of a terrible low-budget production sets in. Despite a few visual flourishes, the film is so ineptly put together than we lose the suspension of disbelief essential to a movie viewing: we’re not watching a film as much as we’re watching people acting, a director framing his shots and an editor splicing the result together. The elements of The Manor’s awfulness are cumulative and go far beyond simply a bad script: overacting, awkward staging, bland cinematography, direction that can’t give a sense of space, editing that’s just a little bit too slack (or annoys though useless subliminal images), cartoonish special effects and so on. Even the titular manor just looks like a big country house. Those issues compound a script that already doesn’t make a shred of sense or decency, with stock elements jammed together in a whole that becomes increasingly bewildering the longer it goes on. Surprisingly enough, asylum outpatients, rednecks, cousins-on-cousin incest, monster puppeteers and religious nuts don’t make as interesting a blend as you’d think when in the wrong hands. And that’s not even talking about the terrible dialogue, which even the best actors wouldn’t be able to make believable—and these are not the best actors. While The Manor may aim for style, it ends up detached from reality in such a way that you seriously start wondering what everyone involved was thinking. Struggling to find anything nice to say about the film, I have to admit that I like seeing Rachel True even in the worst dreck (although I feel sorry for her), and I do think that director Jonathon Schermerhorn has a good eye from time to time. Danielle Guldin’s character would have worked better in a comedy, but that goes for much of the film in general. Alas, The Manor is not a comedy—it’s really meant as a horror film, but it fumbles its way there. Films like this one are why I don’t take the Razzies or any other “worst movie of the year” lists seriously when they focus solely on big-budget studio productions, because this is far worse than anything on the most irritating Razzie shortlist. The universe of bad movies is far bigger than we can imagine, and The Manor is like opening a door to cinematic horrors beyond any imagination.