The Manitou
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Movie Reviews of The Manitou
Movie Review: Great movie!
Summary: 5 Stars
Especially for an older movie, this one is great.
Again, for its day, the special effects are very good.
Michael Ansara and Tony Curtis do well together.
Movie Review: back in the day one of the scariest movies for me.
Summary: 5 Stars
the manitou ia a movie unique in its plot unlike any movie since.this movie made the hair on my neck stand up back in the day.still holds up after all thyese years.Movie Review: The Manitou
Summary: 5 Stars
For a steady state of tension that will make you cheer give this little gem a try. You will not regret it.Movie Review: Gouda Cheese.
Summary: 4 Stars
The Manitou is an unbelievable film experience, in that it astounds me that a film as cockamamy as this one even exists. To truly grasp the level of absurdity to The Manitou's film plot, try doing this experiment. Next time you are hanging out with your friends, have them think of the silliest ideas they can come up with for a horror film, then when they have submitted their ludicrous offerings, tell them the story of The Manitou. Once you have finished telling the story, have everyone vote on which story is the silliest, chances are, The Manitou is going to beat their ideas six ways from Sunday.
Sorry to spoil the plot, but a story as trifling as this one has to be told to be believed.
Basically, you have a woman in her 40's who develops a cist on the back of her neck. The cist grows very rapidly and starts to resemble a fetus. Within just three days of her discovery of the cist, it is already the size of a door knob and shifts positions four or five times a day. Around that time her boyfriend, ( played by a then 50 something year old Tony Curtis who needed the work ) gets a concerned phone call from her, and for around five minutes of film time, the viewer is puzzled by watching a rekindling romance with a middle aged couple walking hand and hand along Fisherman's Warf. But all is not lost, for that night as the two love birds sleep side by side, the cist-lady starts mumbling " Panna Witchi Salatou." in her sleep, which both concerns and puzzles Tony Curtis. The next day as Tony's babe is about to get her cist surgically removed, his elderly client Mrs. Herz stops by for her weekly tarot card reading. " Did I forget to mention that Tony Curtis's character makes a living by being a fake fortune telling mystic?" Well as he lays out her weekly cards and swills a load of BS, he pulls a card out of the deck for her personally to finalize her week. You can guess what card it is. Mrs. Herz passes out dramatically, pops back awake and starts yelling "PANNA!!" Then she breaks out into an Indian war dance in front of the recliner she was just passed out in. Tony Curtis is now calling the operator, but before he could finish frantically asking for help, Mrs. Herz posture snaps completely erect, and she quickly turns and hustles out of his apartment. At the doorway as he runs to help her, she screams " PANNA!!" at him, making him jump back. Outside his apartment, she floats in standing position down the hallway and tosses herself down the stair well. In surgery his babe wakes up and chants the magic words and the doctor takes the scalpel to his own hand rather then cutting the rapidly growing cist off of her neck. Its now a familiar drill, the cist is growing like a weed, while exuding mind control and dominance over anyone that can threaten its rebirth. At the same time the audience gets to see The Manitou's awesome scary powers.
The next act of the film is where we learn just what the cist really is. We also learn that the cist is going to kill the host that it grows on. Lastly we learn that the only way to prevent her death, is to stop the rebirth of the creature in her cist. This is a very common story process, especially in the outrageously far out horror films of that time period. Everything is going to be explained to us, as if the very act of explanation will in some way make us buy this wacky concept. And what is this wacky concept you ask? Well its none other then a 400 year old native American medicine mans spirit using her life essence to be reincarnated for another existence on Earth. Once he is born, she will be dead, that is unless Tony Curtis can persuade a present day South Dakota native American medicine man to come back to San Francisco with him, and draw a circle around her bed with sacred sands and do cosmic battle with the unwanted entity. Of course the sacred sand circle will make it so that she wont die after giving birth to this thing, just so long as the creature doesn't break the circle and get past it. In this way, we get to see MR. Manitou in the flesh.
"Manitou's got a big butt!"
As the second act progresses and The Manitou nears its due date, the cist on her back becomes absurdly gigantic. Just before its birth it grows to the size of a rucksack. By now our South Dakota medicine man, John Singing Rock, ( At least his name wasn't John Blowing Rock ) learns that The Manitou is none other then the most powerful and legendary medicine man to ever grace the native tribes. He was a person of such extreme power that he could make mountains grow and topple at will, and cause rivers to flow in reverse ( They always say that about powerful Indian lore characters ). As the cast of characters take a breather, and John Singing Rock naps in the next room, our Manitou starts to hatch out of its egg. First, right as Tony Curtis heads to the room to check on his woman, a freshly skinned intern is thrown by telekinetic power through the glass pane of her hospital door head first. Tony Curtis screams, ( it runs in the family ) and everybody gathers to watch The Manitou stretch the skin of her back out like pizza cheese, and emerge from her groaning writhing body where it slithers and flops onto the floor under her hospital bed. It then hoists itself up onto its feet and faces us spectators for the first time. You should see this sawed off little runt, you wont believe what you're looking at. He stands all of two and a half feet tall, has a giant block head with clouded over milky eyes, a cruel twisted mouth, and a huge butt jutting out from its tiny stubby little legs. Believe me, just seeing this creature is worth the low price of buying a DVD copy of the film.
The logic of cheese.
What fallows has to be one of the most ridiculously contrived moments in horror movie history. Much like in The Exorcist, ( which this film is copying in case you haven't figured that out already ) our cast of Manitou fighters are taking a breather in the waiting room, so of course they leave another intern to guard the horrors inside The Manitou room. So what does this intern do? Why, he does what any of us would do if we were left in a room where a patient was left unconscious and uncovered on a bed, with all the skin on her back pulled and ripped so that it looks like a popped and deflated hot air balloon. He does what any of us would do in the presence of a naked two and a half foot tall meditating chanting humanoid creature, thats coated in birth fluids and blood, while looking like some sadistic demonic dwarf. And he does what any of us would do in the presence of another intern just like us, lying on the floor in a pool of their own mess, minus their skin. He nods off of course.
Saddle bags, stretch marks, and an inappropriate question I would of asked the director.
I wont bore you with describing the cosmic battle that takes place itself. Suffice to say, that this is a popcorn variety croud pleaser, so all the good people that matter live, John Singing Rock gets his tobacco, and The Manitou is expelled back into the spirit realm from whence it came. What puzzles me however, is the future life of Tony Curtis's character and his girl friend. Would their love life be adversely effected by the fact that she gave birth to a monster out of her back? Also, I can't help but think that no amount of plastic surgery in the world could ever repair her back and make it look normal again. So would Tony Curtis have to resort to missionary possition during sex in order not to see it, or would he develope an unsavory fetish for unnatural looking stretch marks and scars? I told you that I had an inappropriate question, but darn it! I gots'ta know?
All and all, this is a fun little watch that would amuse anyone who craves a bit of cheese now and again.
Movie Review: Naked chick. Laser Beams. Demonic Midget. Brilliant.
Summary: 4 Stars
To describe this movie in great detail would take away its charm and rob you of the roller coaster ride of fun that is awaiting you in William Girdler's cult classic 1978 'epic' The Manitou. As I am still giddy with laughing myself stupid from a recent screening - I'm gonna give it a good shot at giving you a basic outline of the flick yet still tease at the level of kookiness and sheer misguided brilliance that awaits.
To begin with, The Manitou is not a good movie. However, on the other hand it is brilliant. I know, I am contradicting myself already - but, it really is that kind of flick: Both awful and great in equal measure.
The story has Tony Curtis play fortune teller Harry Erskine. Hooking up with old flame Karen (Susan Strassberg), she informs him that she has recently had a strange growth form on the back of her neck. Thinking nothing of it, Harry informs her to get it checked out and he goes on about his business reading cards and conning old ladies. Until that is, a bizarre incident when one of his clients goes haywire midway through a fortune telling and throws herself down a flight of stairs (believe me, you have to see this to believe it. Its brilliant) and 'ol Harry starts to get suspicious. Across town, Karen's hospital check up has also gone wrong where the growth is deciphered to be not a growth at all . . . but, an unborn fetus.
Following a strange stop off at Burgess Meredith's house (who I swear is acting in another movie) and begging a native indian to help him save Karen, Harry returns armed with a medicine man (John Singing Rock who has obviously got a few days to spare) intent on battling the unborn child which has been revealed to us as the rebirth of an ancient indian shaman hellbent on revenge and world domination. (Stick with me, it gets better).
Now, the movie kicks into high gear and all kinds of drugs seem to have been consumed by the screenwriters and production crew as what follows not only makes no sense it also . . . er, makes no sense.
The shaman is born and is depicted as an evil midget with bad acne and greasy hair. Strange deaths follow and now our friend Singing Rock has to battle this rather short force of evil with all his might, whilst Mr Curtis' toupee also puts in a particularly frightened and convincing performance - culminating in one of cinema's best sequences ever! You haven't lived until you have seen Susan Strassberg in her birthday suit shooting cartoon laser beams from her hands at a midget dressed as a demon on a fake star field background. Its as if the film makers wanted to combine the space sequences from the old Buck Rogers TV show with the demonic possession scenes from The Exorcist and then decided to give it a Saturday Night Fever disco feel - I guess all they left out was the kitchen sink, but at least they tried.
I cannot recommend how good/bad this movie is - but, it excels as both and demands to be seen. Its strange that it hasn't had the notoriety that it so richly deserves as it is seriously a lost gem. Its a shame that director William Girdler died shortly after its completion - because, I am sure he would have had an interesting career after this. However, he has left us this movie that once watched, will surely never be forgotten. Highly recommended.