In some bad news, I've decided not to hold the Spored to Death awards this year because I've been busy and I haven't written that many reviews. In exchange for that I'll try and get a few reviews pumped out over the holiday season to make up for it. But for now please enjoy the following review of The Manitou.
The Manitou (1978)
Now we all have different interpretations of the term "classic". You may think of the word as a work that stands the test of time, rising above its peers. In my own interpretation, a movie featuring a Native American midget who started out as cancerous tumor on a woman’s back, fits this bill. Now that’s classic.
Even Turner Classic Movies agrees with me with its screening of the 1978 gem The Manitou directed by William Girdler. Now I know the only reason this was screened was because some intern was drunk at the channel and hit play by accident, but if viewed in fast forward to its completion and stopping at only the crazy scenes, you too may also come to appreciate or dare I say love the Manitou.
According to dictionary.com, a Manitou is a supernatural being that controls nature; a spirit, deity, or object that possesses supernatural power. That is what fortunate teller Harry Erskine is facing in this movie.
Karen Tandy seems to have a really nasty skin condition growing out of her back. I wipe some skin lotion on that sucker and call it day, but Tandy’s not that lucky. Enter Erskine, the Hell blazing John Constantine of this piece.
He knows something wrong with this broad because his other clients are speaking different languages and floating up and falling down stairs. Apparently, that’s no ordinary tumor but rather the reincarnation of a 400-year old medicine man growing out of this lady’s back.
If you were born in this fashion, you would want revenge too.
Erskine then recruits a Indian doctor, John Singing Rock, to bring logic to the events that are about to transpire.
Once the Manitou is born in the form of a 3 foot tall Indian and kills the doctors delivering him, he is encased by Singing Rock in a magical circle. This buys Erskine the time he needs to deal with this magical menace. Erskine and Singing Rock conclude that the Manitou is weak to the magic made by the white man. The Manitou attacks them with nature effects but somehow is weak to the typewriters they throw at him. If you play role playing video games, you know how this goes.
Singing Rock concludes that the Manitou is weak to white man magic….technology. So the remaining doctors fire up the hospital’s super computer, hoping that its energies will weaken our small bundle of Indian hate.
Erskine and Signing Rock return to the Manitou, who has now turned the hospital floor into a winter wonderland. He even froze his nurse to death in the process. This sets up the final battle between man and Manitou. Big man vs. little man. Outer space eyeball god vs. topless woman. Wait…what?
Tandy is revived by white man magic to fight a space god. Manitou is puzzled before blowing up, Signing Rock gets his Tobacco and we all good home happy. Classic!
And now here's the thrilling conclusion to The Manitou!
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