1978 manitou movie
Rating: 4/20
Plot: A woman has a tumor on her upper back checked out and discovers that it's actually a fetus. Somehow, Tony Curtis finds out that it's an evil Indian medicine man attempting to come back into the world to probably do evil things. Curtis and that guy who may or may not have been in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest do everything they can to stop it! Based on a chapter in my autobiography.
Well, if nothing else, this movie can teach you what a manitou is. Maybe. I'm not sure the people who wrote this movie did much fact checking actually. Why would they need to? They had star power (Tony Curtis) and dazzling special effects. And a little fellow who looks kind of like an Indian medicine man who's made from caramel. Actually, I'm pretty sure he was supposed to be a cigar store wooden Indian medicine man. This doesn't work as a horror film. Nothing happens for the longest time unless you count a pulsating tumor's out-of-control growth while Tony Curtis runs around trying to figure out what movie he's in as something. Then, the little titular manitou makes his appearance and just kind of stands there looking like something you'd melt and put on your ice cream. And then at the end, there's some movie-makin' magic as things turn completely insane. I don't want to spoil it, but the ending involves outer space, bitchin' lasers, and explosions. It's like the makers of the movie discovered they still had a buttload of money in the special effects budget since they only spent about twenty dollars on generic-brand caramel to dump on a dwarf in order to make their horrifying monster and decided to go nutsy. I saw The Manitou, I figured Chief Wahoo, the Cleveland Indian perpetually grinning mascot, was as offensive as a pop culture creation could be to Native Americans. I think this might top it though. My favorite part of the movie, by the way, doesn't even have much to do with the medicine man tumor. No, that would be the hilarious scene where a floating old woman takes a tumble down a flight of stairs and smashes the banister like her head's a wrecking ball. That scene would make even that Indian who cries in that pollution public service announcement from the 1970s giggle uncontrollably.
By the way, as big as the manitou tumor gets, I'd like to point out that I've had cysts that are bigger. Not that I'm bragging or anything.
4 comments:
I can vouch for the cyst.
Ah yes.....the Manitou. One of my very favorite bad movies.
I love that the makers of this film were trying to elicit the horrors of the Exorcist while at the same time putting a bed in space for a big final battle scene...to include the Star Wars geeks, I guess.
I love the concept that a super computer has a spirit, and that spirit can fight other spirits. I love the idea of trampling and ridiculing native American beliefs. I even love the fact that the daughter of the worlds foremost acting teacher has this movie as her one and only major starring film role.
But what makes this movie...what puts it in the ultimate stratosphere of bad movies, is the inclusion of a snarling, over the hill, in his full glory of bad acting Tony Curtis in the title role. I always thought that Curtis was the worst major actor in Hollywood history and this film only helps that perception.
This movie is hilariously, offensively bad in only the way that cheap rip off 1970's films can be. I have not seen it in a few years, but I am going to as soon as I finish this review...which means right now.
There's one of those sentences you probably never thought you'd say, Kairow...
So, Barry? How was it? For me, it's that ending that makes this a classic. The rest of the movie is really bad, but it gets absurdly bad at that point.
It was even WORSE THAN I REMEMBERED.
God I love this film.
By the way, it was the first film I ever saw on a premium movie channel. Showtime, sometime back in the very early 80's had this on, and it was there that I watched it.
I give it a 4 for regular people. But for fans of BAD movies, its a 19. Its a hidden classic of bad.
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