The Films (1/5 - The Manitou, 3.5/5 - Superstition)

    A few months back Scream Factory announced they would be issuing a pair of horror films on Blu-ray (I know you're shocked).  One of them is the oft-requested The Manitou and also the not quite a video nasty film "Superstition".  I did mental Olympics, and a load of research trying to figure out why all the press materials were talking about these films as a pair, as they don't have any cast or creative overlap, so the only reasoning I could find for brining both films out together was that they simply wanted to.

    The Manitou involves a woman named Karen (Susan Strasberg) who finds a tumor like entity on her neck, its growth expands rapidly and no Doctor she goes to can figure out what it is.   It turns out that the growth is a respawning native American medicine man from 400 years ago.  When it is born it ends up going on a rampage the likes of which need to be stopped by a modern medicine man who hopefully has the powers to put down this ancient evil.

    Wow, where to start. Well, I had not seen the Manitou before this viewing, but the name has been thrown around in horror circles for years. It starred Susan Strasberg and Tony Curtis, so that's a plus.   The Manitou is a ridiculous film. The Native American that is being born through Karen gets reduced to a diminutive size by the X-ray which Doctors use to reveal what is on her neck. There is a scene of Tony Curtis disco-dancing while filling a glass of beer that may have been the highlight of this film. 

     The rest of the film is mostly a drag, I'm not one who needs actual scares in horror movies, but the film did not have scares, nor an atmosphere to sustain the film. Further, the film is about half an hour too long, and it shows. This film drags, so while you'll get some fun and bizarre moments in the Manitou they are usually surrounded by large stretches of nothing. It took me 30 years of horror-fandom to get around to the Manitou, so maybe I'll check it again in 2049, and see how is stands.

     Superstition is not related at all to the Manitou, and after the Manitou I am fine with that.  The film is notorious in horror circles for being a Section 3 film on the Video Nasties list from the U.K. in the early 80's, which I guess meant, that this film is bad, but not as bad as those on the other 2 lists.  Oh well.

    The film follows a priest and his family as they move into a new house, that was apparently ground zero for the death of a suspected witch centuries before. The house is owned by the church that he works at, and before and after they moved in, violent death had begun to happen in the area. Another Priest (James Houghton) begins to investigate the occurrences with the help of a police detective (Albert Salmi) with the hopes of ending the supernatural rampage.

   Superstition is another one of those films that had gotten by me over the years. Fortunately, this one is a reasonably well-paced supernatural slasher, that is quite fun, and is directed with some semblance of style (mostly Dario Argento's style, but I digress).  The film kicks off with the gore pretty hard in the first half.   It's a pretty decent film, that is only really let down by the annoying characters. Of course, this is in a way a benefit, because we don't get attached to them before they start getting killed.   The film does look like a low budget American approximation of a Dario Argento film, with some solid color injected into the frame which in a way also gives it a solid comic book tone.

Audio/Video (4/5 - Combined Avg.)

    The Manitou comes to Blu-ray with a 2:35:1 1080p AVC encoded transfer. Superstition is released at 1:85:1. Both films look quite good with natural film grain present, and solid detail, and color.

   Both films are given 2.0 HD audio mixes that sound quite solid with dialogue and score coming through nicely, and no apparent issues.

Extras (3/5 - Combined Avg.)

    Superstition comes with 2 interviews one with director James Robertson and the other with actor James Houghton. There is also a theatrical trailer and TV spot.  The Manitou comes with a pair of interviews with the author of the book, and the producer of the film. Further we get a commentary by Troy Howarth, and some TV spots, trailers, and galleries.

Overall

    An interesting pair to say the least. The Manitou and Superstiion are an interesting set of supernatural oddities from the late 70's and early 80's.   I don't exactly think the Manitou is that great, but Superstition is quite a bit of fun. They both look and sound great, and have some decent extras, so I guess they are RECOMMENDED.