The Manitou

Directed by William Girdler
Jon Cedar, William Girdler, and Thomas Pope
From the novel by Graham Masterton
Starring Tony Curtis, Michael Ansara, Susan Strasberg, Jon Cedar, Ann Sothern, Stella Stevens, Burgess Meredith
Original release: 1978
DVD release: 3/6/2007
Anchor Bay

The career of Tony Curtis was based largely on his looks. Though stunningly handsome, he showed very little range over the years and was never able to shake his New Yawk accent, no matter what the role. “Yanda lies da castle of my fodder”, an actual line from an historical epic Curtis did in the 50's, has become one of Hollywood's legendary inside jokes.

When he made The Manitou in the late 70's, his career was on the wane. The huge success of The Omen had just rejuvenated the careers of Gregory Peck and Lee Remick. Horror had become respectable, and Curtis hoped The Manitou would give him a second career. Alas, it was not to be. Peck/Remick were better actors, and The Omen was a more literate film.

But The Manitou still has a number of effectively scary moments. Curtis plays Harry Erskine, a phony San Francisco based psychic who discovers that the supernatural is more real than he ever imagined. His ex-girl friend Karen (wonderful, underrated Susan Strasberg) has a tumor on her neck that turns out to be a human fetus! Karen is about to give birth, or re-birth, to a long dead, very evil, very powerful, Native American Medicine Man. With the help of a modern Medicine Man who fights for good (an intense Michael Ansara), Harry tries to stop the demonic figure and save Karen's life.

There are some wonderful moments sprinkled through the film. A séance, in which the demon's liquefied head rises through a table, is effectively creepy, as is the on-camera birthing. As Karen writhes, the demonic Indian breaks through her skin, screaming and laughing.

Unfortunately, Curtis' lackluster performance brings things down a notch. Good looking or not, he's just not much of an actor. When he shares scenes with the Actor's Studio trained Strasberg or old-school character actor Ansara, his weaknesses stand out. His Brooklynese seems out of place in a horror film.

Director William Girdler had great ideas, and The Manitou tells a chilling story. But as a director, Girdler was weak. A lengthy, unnecessary scene in which Harry chats with a nurse in the hospital may have been there as character development, or to make the shocker scene that followed feel more like a jolt – the chit-chat at the nurse's station is slow and quiet. But the scene is TOO quiet and lasts TOO long. When Karen suddenly begins screaming, it feels more like a cheap attempt at thrills, like throwing something at the screen. Without the nurse's station segment, the shock scene would have been far more effective.

But as stand-alone sequences, the horror scenes are superbly executed. The demonic Medicine Man is a genuinely terrifying visage! There's a lot of talk in the film about Native American spiritualism, and Ansara is heard chanting in the ancient Native language. The Manitou has many good things to offer the discriminating horror fan, and made me curious about actual Native American witchcraft. How accurate are Ansara's onscreen actions to what an actual Native exorcist might do? It'd be interesting to find out!

by David Alexander Nahmod
reprinted from BOFFM #4 (forthcoming)