The Manitou (1978)

• Year: 1978
• Released: 15 Apr 1978
• Country: United States
• Adwords: 3 nominations
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077904/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_manitou
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-manitou
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English
• MPA Rating: PG
• Genre: Horror, Sci-Fi
• Runtime: 104 min
• Writer: Graham Masterton, William Girdler, Jon Cedar
• Director: William Girdler
• Cast: Tony Curtis, Susan Strasberg, Michael Ansara
• Keywords: based on novel or book, revenge, super power, possession, native american,

	5.3/10
	47/100

The Manitou Storyline

Karen Tandy enters a San Franisco hospital suffering from a tumor growing in her neck. Her surprised doctors think it’s a living creature, a fetus being born inside the tumor. Fortune-teller Harry Erskine dismisses it — until one of his customers begins speaking in tongues and fatally throws herself down a flight of stairs, and Karen’s surgeon attempts to cut off his own hand rather than excise her tumor. Erskine finally seeks help from another fortune teller, Amelia Crusoe, and her husband, to try to learn the cause of these supernatural events. When Karen’s tumor gets larger, Dr. Snow speculates that within her tumor lives vengeful 400-year-old Indian spirit. Erskine travels to South Dakota to enlist the aid of Indian medicine man John Singing Rock to force the evil spirit out of Karen and back where it came. The Indian spirit is driven from Karen’s tumor, but will it take over others before Singing Rock can send him back?

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The Manitou Movie Reviews

Why was this brushed off???

This is a lost 70’s horror classic.

The whole idea itself was great. Although the whole ‘growing on her back’ bit was a tinge too dodgy.

Tony Curtis basically played a comedy role for the first half, then showed how good he can be.

Michael Ansara did an excellent job playing the medicine man as well. And I liked his mention of how the Indians were treated.

The best part of this film was the monster. A great ugly Indian demon. Scary looking with that whole ‘you can’t stop me’ glare.

The final scene in the hospital almost got betrayed by its low budget. And why so many outer space backgrounds? But the look on the Manitou’s face when Singing Rock figured it out was priceless.

This one’s worth remembering.

What’s a girl without a tumor, or… what’s a tumor without a woman?

I’m starting to really like William Girdler and I’m eager to check out more of his films. After having immensely enjoyed his “JAWS With Claws” feature GRIZZLY, next up on my plate was this insanely amusing ride into suspenseful senility. THE MANITOU is as crazy as, let’s say, Uli Lommel’s THE BOOGEYMAN, but it’s also a better, more entertaining movie. A girl grows a tumor on her back which is in fact the reincarnation of an ancient evil Indian medicine man. We get: A spooky séance, possession, Indian mumbo-jumbo, Manitou machine spirits, an exploding body and a hole hospital that turns into a hellish frozen inferno of cosmic proportions near the end with a topless Susan Strasberg floating on a bed in space. Totally bonkers, baby! And that midget Manitou creep looked evil as *beep*. Throw your sense of logic out the window and come fly with this spirited B-movie of an epic grandeur unlike others.

William Girdler’s final and most gloriously outrageous horror film

Prolific 70’s drive-in horror hack William (“Grizzly,” “Day of the Animals”) Girdler really outdoes himself with this delightfully berserk Native American variant on “The Exorcist,” which Girdler had previously done a lowdown funky blaxploitation spin on with “Abby.” Sweet young Karen Tandy (the ever lovely and beguiling Susan Strasberg, the daughter of legendary acting teacher Lee Strasberg) has a large mysterious tumor growing on her neck. Said tumor turns out to be the rapidly developing fetus of evil and all-powerful Indian medicine man Misquamacus, who’s using Karen as an unwitting host so he can be reborn into our dimension after a 400 year dormancy. It’s up to blithely bogus charlatan psychic Harry Erskine (an admirably sincere Tony Curtis) and good-hearted modern-day Native American medicine man John Singing Rock (an engaging performance by Michael Ansara) to stop the wicked otherworldly entity before it’s too late.

William Girdler directs this divinely absurd, energetic and slickly mounted mystical supernatural horror demonic possession mumbo jumbo with galvanizing panache and self-assurance, maintaining a constant brisk pace throughout, relating the wonderfully wacky story in a taut, involving manner, and staging the shock set pieces with considerable go-for-it gusto. Michael Hugo’s glossy cinematography, Lalo Schifrin’s stirring full-bore orchestral score, and the dazzling special effects by Tom Burman, Frank Van Der Veer and Dick Tate are all likewise excellent and impressive. Moreover, the cast seriously smokes in no uncertain terms: Burgess Meredith as a flaky old anthropologist, Stella Stevens and Ann Southern as helpful mediums, Jon Cedar and Paul Mantee as concerned doctors, Lurene Tuttle as a wizened old bag Misquamacus throws down a flight of stairs, and midget actor Felix Silla (Cousin It on “The Adams Family”) as the hideously ugly and malformed Misquamacus. WARNING: Possible *SPOILERS* ahead. And the crazed pull-out-all-the-stops shoot-the-fireworks over-the-top last third is an absolute corker: Misquamacus tears his way out of Karen’s back, an enormous lethal lizard materializes in Karen’s hospital room, Misquamacus turns an entire hospital floor into what looks like a giant meat locker, and for the boffo climactic confrontation with Erskine and Singing Rock the nasty little bugger sends Karen’s hospital room into a remote corner of the universe complete with stars, lasers and asteroids (!). This fabulously flipped-out freaky flick unquestionably qualifies as William Girdler’s schlock horror masterpiece and serves as a worthy closer for Girdler’s sometimes erratic, but often immensely entertaining trash exploitation cinema career.