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The Manitou

Play trailer Poster for The Manitou PG 1978 1h 45m Horror Play Trailer Watchlist
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45% Tomatometer 11 Reviews 36% Popcornmeter 500+ Ratings
A psychic (Tony Curtis) recruits a witch doctor (Michael Ansara) to get a 400-year-old Indian medicine man off his girlfriend's (Susan Strasberg) back.
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The Manitou

Critics Reviews

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Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times 06/16/2018
1/4
El sleazo profoundo trasho zilch. Go to Full Review
Stefan Birgir Stefans sbs.is 07/28/2023
2.5/5
If you want to see an old woman floating through the air before she violently breaks every bone in her body while tumbling down a staircase while distraught Tony Curtis, dressed like a wizard, watches, then The Manitou is the film for you. Go to Full Review
Eddie Harrison film-authority.com 03/04/2021
3/5
...sets up one strange scene after another to deliver a battered package of horror goods... Go to Full Review
Matt Brunson Film Frenzy 04/21/2019
2/4
The Manitou is absurd, insane, and, yeah, kind of awful, but there's nevertheless a high watchability factor. Go to Full Review
Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews 11/16/2007
B+
Visually inventive. Go to Full Review
Jeffrey M. Anderson Combustible Celluloid 04/19/2007
Even if the story becomes totally absurd, it has more in the way of creativity than most modern horror remakes. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Ross L Nov 1 The Manitou is a bonkers journey from medical mystery to full blown cosmic horror extravaganza which makes it a great double bill with the classic Phantasm, and the very new Weapons. A very likeable and earthy cast contest with very unlikable and unearthly forces in a movie which very entertainingly keeps upping the ante. The ending is a bit weak, but everything else lightens the narrative wobble. Manitou is a bananas gem! See more Vicky H 08/15/2023 This silly nonsense is about a fetus of an ancient Indian shaman growing at the back of Susan Strasberg's neck leading to many insanity. We have scenes such a floating possessed old lady plunging to her death down a stair, evil surgical lazer gun blasting a hospital operating room to smithereens, frozen hospital in another dimension, Star Beast, portals, Satan, Lucifer, the Great Old Ones and many more. And this is not even close of being one of the weirdest movies I ever seen. See more Brad P 03/03/2023 Spooky, sinister, and – most importantly – something different, Girdler's The Manitou is a wild, campy ride that every aficionado of ‘70s horror cinema needs to put on their watchlist. See more 06/03/2021 "Evil does not die…it waits…to be reborn…" Yet sadly this would be the last movie for William Girdler, who died in a helicopter crash while scouting locations for his next movie. It's a shame because Girdler had a talent for taking cheap movies with big ideas and making them beyond entertaining. This movie features a wild cast for him, including Tony Curtis as psychic Harry Erskine, Michael Ansara as shaman John Singing Rock and Susan Strasberg as our heroine Karen Tandy — who is suffering from a gigantic growth in her neck that ends up being the reincarnation of Misquamacus, a wonder worker of the Wampanoag tribe. Misquamacus comes from the book of the same name by author Graham Masterton, who brought the villain back in his novels Revenge of the Manitou, Burial, Manitou Blood, Blind Panic and Plague of the Manitou, as well as the short story "Spirit Jump." Plus, there's Stella Stevens, Burgess Meredith, the "First Lady of Radio" Lurene Tuttle, Ann Sothern and Jon Ceder on hand for this body horror by way of possession films by way of Native American hoodoo bit of lunacy. I also kind of dig how the posters would say, "In the grisly tradition of Alien" when it was made a year before that movie. See more 05/06/2020 I just want to know, what kind of peyote were these guys taking to consider this a reasonable plot for a movie. It is the most insane nonsense you can think of for a horror movie that's taking itself seriously. I mean seriously... a native American wizard midget grows himself from the NetherRealm on the neck-boil of a woman, only to be reincarnated and fight a Medicine Man in space, who's aided by the spirits of computers. I'm not joking. This is a real movie. This is trash, but it's glorious, and you're not soon to forget it. See more 11/23/2018 I need tit pics to harness a hospital's worth of Manitous so I can use them to banish Lucifer himself who's taken the form of an ancient Indian medicine man named Tomacus who recently regrew himself in the back tumor of a woman named Karen after being dead for 400 years. See more Read all reviews
The Manitou

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Movie Info

Synopsis A psychic (Tony Curtis) recruits a witch doctor (Michael Ansara) to get a 400-year-old Indian medicine man off his girlfriend's (Susan Strasberg) back.
Director
William Girdler
Producer
William Girdler
Screenwriter
William Girdler, Jon Cedar, Thomas Pope
Production Co
Simon Productions, Mid-America Pictures, Hollywood West Entertainment, Melvin Simon Productions, Manitou Productions Ltd.
Rating
PG
Genre
Horror
Original Language
English
Release Date (Streaming)
Apr 16, 2019
Runtime
1h 45m
Sound Mix
Surround
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