WELL, then...what can I say about a movie I used to think was one of the coolest supernatural Indian thrillers I'd ever seen? For starters, I was eighteen in 1978 when THE MANITOU was released. And of course, special effects that were considered "state-of-the-art" back then, look more than a little cheesy now. I mean, look at SUPERMAN, which came out the same year. Granted, there will never be anyone better than Christopher Reeve (sorry, Mr. Routh), but those effects? BAAAAD, sport, real bad. And they didn't get all that much better in SUPE 2. Not that they sucked back then, but considering what's possible today....EHHH.<br /><br />But back to our feature presentation. The casting did nothing but increase the cheese factor exponentially, I'm afraid. The list reads like all the people who didn't get cast in THE SENTINEL. But it WAS the Seventies, and where were all those fading "Golden Age of Holly- weird" stars finding most of their work? In horror and sci-fi, of course. And so it goes.<br /><br />Our movie goes something like this: psychic con artist Harry Erskine (Tony Curtis) is happily living in San Francisco, plying his trade and bilking money off of rich little old ladies (our two featured marks being Jeanette Nolan and Lurene Tuttle). Harry is used to selling the 'sizzle' without the steak, and has never really believed in the faux tarot card readings he haphazardly gives. Until old flame/former fellow con Karen Tandy (Susan Strasberg) comes back into his life. She's just as beautiful as ever, but now she's a girl with something extra...a tumor on the back of her neck that's growing at an alarming rate. And it seems to have a mind of its own...<br /><br />Her doctors (Jon Cedar and Paul Mantee) can't figure out what it is or how to retard its growth, and whenever they try, "really weird s***" starts to happen. Like when a surgeon is forced to carve up his own hand with a scalpel. And one of Harry's elderly visitors goes levitating to her death, but not before uttering a phrase that Karen has mumbled in her sleep: "Pana witchi salatou."<br /><br />As Karen grows worse, Harry is forced to turn to his old mentor, Amelia Crusoe, (Stella Stevens) who does believe in all the hocus-pocus. Amelia conducts an explosive seance with a medium friend, Mrs. Karmann (Ann Southern), and through the seance and some research, courtesy of a specialist in Indian folklore, Dr. Snow (Burgess Meredith), they discover that Karen's "tumor" is actually the manifestation of a demonic Native American spirit, which is ready to be reborn. <br /><br />This roundabout path finally leads to the door of modern-day medicine man John Singing Rock (Michael Ansara), who grudgingly offers to help. Until he makes an even more startling discovery. Karen's got a "manitou" on her back, alright, but not just any old shaman. She's become the host for Misquamacus, a 400-year-old shaman and the most powerful who ever lived. <br /><br />Now Harry and John must face off with him in a fight to the death, not just for Karen's body and soul, but for the fate of the world itself.<br /><br />Gee, from the way that sounds, I sure as hell would like to see it! Only problem is that they've already made it, I already have, and it just sounds so much better describing it than what you actually get on-screen. In classic fashion, if you can still find Graham Masterton's novel (which made the best-seller lists back then), when you read it you'll discover that what was great in print didn't necessarily come across that way on the big screen.<br /><br />Curtis was doing pretty much everything to pay the bills about this time period, so although he's not exactly phoning it in as Harry, he's also got this look like he's going over lines for his next gig in his head, even while he's doing this one. As co-writer/co-producer and co- star on this, Jon Cedar's presence as Karen's surgeon speaks for itself. <br /><br />And Michael Ansara? One of the better character actors who ever worked in Hollywood, he was one of those "go-to guys" like Jack Palance and Anthony Quinn, who could virtually play any nationality. So, not that I don't think the guy has talent, but it's kind of hard to take him seriously as a Native American medicine man, because when I look at him, all I can see is the Klingon General Kang, whom he played in the STAR TREK: TOS episode "Day Of The Dove."<br /><br />As for Susan Strasberg...well, she is a knockout, and she doesn't have much to do except play a second-generation copy of Linda Blair in THE EXORCIST, while looking like Quasimodo's girlfriend. And then she gets to 'camp it up' at the end, with some visual effects that look like what George Lucas left on the cutting room floor while making STAR WARS. <br /><br />And as it usually goes for Seventies schlock like this, don't blink or you'll miss the appearances of the rest of the cast. The most memorable actors out of the rest of the bunch would be Tuttle, whose character has one of the better death scenes, and Meredith, who I could swear is channeling Mr. Magoo as he plays the professor, (watch him closely and tell me I'm wrong!)<br /><br />Yeah, I still have a soft spot in my heart for flicks like this, because without them, I wouldn't be the salivating, drooling horror/sci-fi/fantasy geek I am today. But I've really got to be honest. Movies like THE MANITOU make better time-capsule artifacts than they do flicks you would intentionally go out and rent, or sit down to watch on a Saturday night...unless you were really, REALLY bored. <br /><br />I don't say this very often, but I wonder if anyone out there could do a decent remake of this one? It might be interesting...