In today’s Shocktober Double Feature, we will be mesmerized by a hideous neck fetus (yes, you read that right), a levitating old biddy, a spelunking trip gone horribly wrong, and albino bat creatures! It’s The Manitou and The Descent!
THE MANITOU (1978)
My psychotronic-film guru, Rob, didn’t have to do more than give me a one-sentence summary of its storyline in order to convince me to see 1978’s The Manitou. After all, what horror fan wouldn’t be sold by a plot in which pretty Susan Strasberg develops a large tumor on her neck, only to learn that this growth is actually the developing fetus of Misquamacus, a 400-year-old Indian medicine man trying to be reborn? This sui generis plot is ably abetted by a cast of old pros who play it fairly straight and manage to knock this whacky conceit way out of the park. There’s a surprisingly buff Tony Curtis, playing Susan’s ex and a very amusing charlatan psychic; Michael Ansara as a modern-day, South Dakota medicine man; Stella Stevens as a gypsy-garbed seance leader; Golden Age fave Ann Sothern, wasted in a teensy role as Susan’s aunt; and Burgess Meredith, who almost steals the show as an absentminded anthropologist … not to mention Felix “Cousin Itt/Horta” Silla as the diminutive Misquamacus aborning. The film gets loopier and wilder as it proceeds, culminating with a special FX extravaganza that, non sequitur though it may be, seems fit to rival the “star gate” segment in 2001: A Space Odyssey. And though The Manitou’s debt to The Exorcist seems fairly well pronounced, the film yet boasts some chilling moments, such as that levitating old woman, and the eerie seance, and Misquamacus’ (mildly yucky) birth sequence. The picture makes good use of its San Francisco locations, has been well directed by William Girdler, and features some funny, campy moments, such as when Tony yells at the Indian demon, with his wonderful Bronx accent, “Alright, Misquamacus, I’ve had enough of this; who do you think you are?” The stick-in-the-muds at Maltinville have chosen to give this film its lowest “Bomb” rating, but I think the editors of DVD Delirium 3 are more accurate in terming it “jaw-dropping.” Fun stuff, indeed!
THE DESCENT (2005)
I’ve had some minor problems in the past with horror films in which the bulk of the action transpires mainly in the dark, or in which the monsters go largely unseen (even in such classic entertainments as Alien and It’s Alive), and so sat down to watch 2005’s The Descent with some degree of trepidation, despite its great rep. And it turns out that my qualms were justified, but not enough to matter. In the film, written and directed by Neil Marshall, a sextet of sexy and spunky spelunkers – significantly, all semisuperwomen – explores an undiscovered cave system in North Carolina’s Appalachians, becomes trapped after a cave-in, and encounters some truly ferocious underground dwellers. Though not a sufferer of claustrophobia, I have had many nightmares in which I am crawling through a very tight space underground (Freudians, make of this what you will!), and this film really does capture the frightfulness of those dreams. The monsters themselves (“Crawlers,” the filmmakers call them, in one of this DVD’s many extras) – though perforce only seen dimly and in flashes, for the most part, as I suspected – are a truly horrifying bunch. Humanoid, albino and vaguely batlike, they make a catastrophic situation enter the realm of the surreal. As it turned out, my only real problem with The Descent was the fact that it’s very hard to differentiate between the six gals once they strap on helmets and start crawling around in the dark, although a repeat viewing did admittedly clarify things a good deal for me. I felt as if I’d been put through a wringer by the film’s end, actually, which I suppose is high praise for even the murkiest of horror films. And I would imagine that this picture would be as welcomed by feminists for its depiction of sisters sticking together as it would be damned by the National Speleological Society! The Descent will certainly not be drawing in new converts to the sport of caving, that’s for sure; another indication of its power and effectiveness!
COMING ATTRACTIONS: An ax-wielding nutjob! Leslie Nielsen! Horny camp counselors! A relentless series of murders! It’s Prom Night and Friday the 13th, in the Shocktober Double Feature #23…
Oh, my gosh, I SAW Manitou on TV after it came out! Blast from the past.