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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

View All (11) Critics Reviews
Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times El sleazo profoundo trasho zilch. Rated: 1/4 Jun 16, 2018 Full Review Stefan Birgir Stefans sbs.is 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. Rated: 2.5/5 Jul 28, 2023 Full Review Eddie Harrison film-authority.com ...sets up one strange scene after another to deliver a battered package of horror goods... Rated: 3/5 Mar 4, 2021 Full Review Matt Brunson Film Frenzy The Manitou is absurd, insane, and, yeah, kind of awful, but there's nevertheless a high watchability factor. Rated: 2/4 Apr 21, 2019 Full Review Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews Visually inventive. Rated: B+ Nov 16, 2007 Full Review Jeffrey M. Anderson Combustible Celluloid Even if the story becomes totally absurd, it has more in the way of creativity than most modern horror remakes. Apr 19, 2007 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Vicky H 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. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 08/15/23 Full Review Brad P 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. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 03/03/23 Full Review Audience Member "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. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Audience Member 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. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 05/06/20 Full Review Audience Member 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. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/13/23 Full Review delysid d what a crummy movie... this stinks Rated 2 out of 5 stars 11/16/18 Full Review Read all reviews
The Manitou

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Cast & Crew

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
Hollywood West Entertainment, Mid-America Pictures, Manitou Productions Ltd., Simon Productions, Melvin Simon Productions
Rating
PG
Genre
Horror
Original Language
English
Release Date (Streaming)
Apr 16, 2019
Runtime
1h 45m
Sound Mix
Surround
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