Lucio Fulci, Italy's 'Godfather of Gore', was on a roll in the early '80s, wowing fans of splattery horror with The House by the Cemetery and The Beyond (both 1981), and The New York Ripper (1982). He must have run out of steam (and blood) for his next film, Manhattan Baby, which is a rather 'dry' affair by comparison. It's a great looking film - the cinematography is some of the best to be found in a Fulci film - but the pace is slow and the plot nonsensical, making it one of the director's more disappointing efforts overall.
Christopher Connelly plays archaeologist Professor George Hacker, who explores a cursed tomb where he find a strange blue stone that zaps his eyes with lasers, rendering him blind. Meanwhile, his young daughter Susie is given a strange pendant by an old woman. When the family return to New York, lots of weird stuff happens - people disappear and a couple of folk die in strange circumstances - all caused by the pendant, which is possessed by an ancient evil god called Happanubanah (at least that's what it sounded like to me).
Fulci is clearly aiming for atmosphere this time around, but rarely achieves anything scary. Towards the end, he gives up trying and resorts to ripping off The Exorcist, before giving his fans a gory set-piece that is even more silly than the pipe-cleaner spider attack in The Beyond: stuffed birds come to life and peck holes in a man's neck and face. In addition to a dumb plot, and one hokey splatter scene, Manhattan Baby also sees the return of Giovanni Frezza, Bob from The House by the Cemetery, as Susie's little brother Tommy. Seriously, Lucio... once was enough!
Christopher Connelly plays archaeologist Professor George Hacker, who explores a cursed tomb where he find a strange blue stone that zaps his eyes with lasers, rendering him blind. Meanwhile, his young daughter Susie is given a strange pendant by an old woman. When the family return to New York, lots of weird stuff happens - people disappear and a couple of folk die in strange circumstances - all caused by the pendant, which is possessed by an ancient evil god called Happanubanah (at least that's what it sounded like to me).
Fulci is clearly aiming for atmosphere this time around, but rarely achieves anything scary. Towards the end, he gives up trying and resorts to ripping off The Exorcist, before giving his fans a gory set-piece that is even more silly than the pipe-cleaner spider attack in The Beyond: stuffed birds come to life and peck holes in a man's neck and face. In addition to a dumb plot, and one hokey splatter scene, Manhattan Baby also sees the return of Giovanni Frezza, Bob from The House by the Cemetery, as Susie's little brother Tommy. Seriously, Lucio... once was enough!