The Manitou
A psychic's girlfriend finds out that a lump on her back is a growing reincarnation of a 400 year-old demonic Native American spirit.
Why it matters
A wild fusion of occult horror and body horror that channels late-70s practical effects bravado into a uniquely unsettling Native American spirit possession tale.
- Larry Cohen’s script throws in everything from psychic phenomena to demon possession with gleeful abandon, making it a cult oddity worth dissecting.
- Tony Curtis delivers an unexpectedly committed lead performance, grounding the supernatural chaos in surprisingly sincere emotion.
- The practical effects—especially the expanding, pulsating lump—are gloriously grotesque and quintessentially ‘70s, a practical effects fan’s delight.
- Not your typical possession story: it taps into Indigenous folklore in a way few genre films dared to, for better or worse, reflecting era-specific cultural anxieties about identity and otherness.
Director
5 horror films in catalog
Cast
Horror DNA
Gore
43
Slow Burn
17
Psychological
43
Supernatural
100
Creature
55
Disturbing
33
Fun Factor
33
Cerebral
0
Survival
0
OccultPossessionRevenge
