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Manitou
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List Price: $14.98
Our Price: $13.49
Your Save: $ 1.49 ( 10% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Starz / Anchor Bay
Starring: Tony Curtis, Michael Ansara, Susan Strasberg, Stella Stevens, Jon Cedar
Directed By: William Girdler
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
Brand: STARZ HOME ENTERTAINMENT
EAN: 0013131332292
Format: Closed-captioned
Label: Starz / Anchor Bay
Manufacturer: Starz / Anchor Bay
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Starz / Anchor Bay
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2007-03-06
Running Time: 104
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
Theatrical Release Date: 1978
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Editorial Reviews:
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What surgeons thought to be a tumor growing on the neck of patient Karen Tandy (Susan Strasberg of PSYCH-OUT) is actually a fetus growing at an abnormally accelerated rate. But when Karen reaches out to former lover and phony psychic Harry Erskine (Academy Award® nominee Tony Curtis), he discovers that she is possessed by the reincarnation of a 400-year old Native American demon. Now with the help of a modern-day medicine man (Michael Ansara), Erskine must survive this ancient evil’s rampage of shocking violence, and forever destroy the enraged beast known as THE MANITOU. Stella Stevens, Ann Southern and Burgess Meredith co-star in this infamous horror shocker produced and directed by William Girdler (GRIZZLY, DAY OF THE ANIMALS) from the best-selling novel by Graham Masterton Features:Theatrical Trailer,TV Spot
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Midget that'll put you to sleep............
Comment: This is one boring movie. Even with the decent acting it's still boring. Once the little Indian guy hatch from her back. He don't do munch, but stay in the circle. I read the book it's far more better then the movie. It's a shame that the movie wasn't as good. Pass this one up, save your money.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Schlock horror
Comment: How can you not love a film where the invitations to the South African premiere were printed on barf bags? Especially when it has a pitch as insane as The Manitou, which sees Susan Strasberg growing the foetus of a 400-year-old reincarnated Native American medicine man in her neck and calling on Tony Curtis' psychic for help. Of course, Curtis being a phoney he seeks help himself, first from Stella Stevens' gypsy and then, deciding to fight fire with fire, Michael Ansara's medicine man. Ansara gives a surprisingly good performance considering the material, but even his Indian magic isn't enough to fend off an evil Felix Silla from summoning the Devil himself, who can only be defeated by turning on every computer in the hospital at the same time and Susan Strasberg getting her bits out in a vaguely New Age Meets 2001 finale. Despite the synopsis, unintentional laughs are in short supply, although a sequence where one of Curtis' elderly customers is possessed, floats down the hallway and throws herself down the stairs is a mini-masterclass in ineptitude as it fluctuates between failed attempts at humor and laughable attempts at drama. Still, any film where the co-writer is blown up onscreen and where a frozen nurse is accidentally decapitated isn't entirely without some merit.
Not much in the way of extras - just the trailer and a TV spot - but an acceptable 2.35:1 widescreen transfer.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Gouda Cheese.
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: worst movie ever
Comment: I had heard this movie was awful from Rue Morgue radio... it is worse than awful if that is at all possible. please do me andmore importantly, yourself a huge favor and do not watch this. the whole premise is so awful. i think i would rather watch a chick flick marathon than another minute of this movie (it is on tv right now and i can't change the channel).
do not buy this for yourself, buy this for your worst enemy and force them to watch it in a very clockwork orange sort of way.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Welcome The Devourer...
Comment: "Manitou: a supernatural being that controls nature; a spirit, deity, or object that possesses supernatural power." - American Heritage Dictionary.
When a fetus grows on the back of his girlfriend's neck, it is up to Harry Erskine, a psychic scheisster, to find help for her. Seems he began to meddle in certain occult practices that he could not handle, and so his problems surmount, amusingly displayed when an elderly client is possessed and floats out the door and tumbles down the stairs. Despite all attempts to help her condition using "white man's medicine", he realizes he must consult alternative methods including a seance where an "evil spirit" manifests as a black head rising from the table.
While researching, he finds the name of professor Dr. Snow {Burgess Meredith} who recommends he fight fire with fire, leading him to a reservation where he meets reticent Medicine Man John Singing Rock, who takes on the challenge for a generous donation to the Native American education fund and some tobacco. When he discovers the fetus is the reincarnation of a legendary powerful shaman named Misquamacus {played by Felix "Cousin Itt" Silla and Joe Gieb}, his reticence grows but nonetheless decides to attempt a fight, despite a warning by Misquamacus to not help the palefaces. Every effort is met with defeat as Misquamacus summons everything from a lizard demon, the zombified body of a dead orderly, to the elements themselves, transforming the floor level into a veritable cave. Unfortunately, Misquamacus is deformed and diminuative due to profuse X-radiation while attempting to decipher the mysterious growth.
When John Singing Rock explains that all things have a manitou, even seemingly inanimate objects, and when all else fails, Harry conceives of an idea to use the manitous of all the hospital's computers, hoping to amass their combined energy to combat Misquamacus, who at that point has summoned forth "The Devourer", a supposed equivalent to The Devil, which leads to a surprisingly impressive phantasmagoric ending.
With subtle shades of Koyaanisqatsi, the plot seems to convey a message of the progression of technology at odds with the natural world, although in the end, a cooperative balance can be found.
"Mighty be the powers of the old medicine man
Whispers of his rain dance flow across the desert sands
Guardian of the elder spirit summoning the storm
Awaiting his arrival, Manitou of flesh is born..."
~ 'Manitou' by Venom; At War With Satan.
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