Movies That Suck: Manhattan Baby (1982)

At some point, I had to do some movies by one of the Italian masters of horror and, as I said in my review of Zombie, since that and one of his others were the first ones I really watched, I decided to go with Lucio Fulci. And then, in an effort to screw with expectations, I decided not to do something typical, like City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, or The House By the Cemetery, for my second Fulci review; no, instead, I went for one of his more obscure, and weakest, films. I'd already seen a good number of his films, including those I've mentioned and others such as The New York Ripper and even A Cat in the Brain, when I happened across the old Anchor Bay DVD of Manhattan Baby at McKay's. Having enjoyed enough of his stuff to call myself a fan, I picked it up, as it was really cheap, and decided to see what was in store for New York when Fulci brought an Ancient Egyptian curse to it. Unfortunately, what was in store for me was the worst movie I'd yet seen by him. Granted, a lot of his films are full on schlock, and I'm sure Manhattan Baby is not his absolute worst (God help me if I ever see one that is worse), but I can honestly say I don't care for it at all. In fact, I hate this movie, as it falls into that horrendous section of bad movies which feel twice as long as they really are and where you can also feel your mind going numb the longer it goes on. The biggest problem is that it's one of the most egregious examples of Fulci's method of concentrating on imagery and setpieces over story and plot. Many of his horror films follow this same sort of dream logic where nothing really makes sense but I can usually stop my brain from trying to follow them on a narrative level and just sit back and enjoy the bizarre and often graphic imagery he throws at me. With Manhattan Baby, it's not only impossible to know just what in the hell is going on most of the time, but the film also gives you almost nothing else to grab your attention. There's no mood or atmosphere, none of the characters are interesting or memorable, there's a running motif which quickly grows annoying, and there's not even a lot of the graphic murders and makeup effects you'd expect from Fulci. Fortunately, I'm not alone in this thinking, as this is generally considered to be one of his worst, including by Fulci himself and his longtime screenwriter.

The Hacker family, George, Emily, and their nine-year old daughter, Susie, are in Egypt, where George, an archeologist, is supervising an excavation. While spending time with her mother, who's taking photographs for her magazine, Susie is suddenly approached by a strange blind woman, who gives her an exotic amulet before disappearing into thin air. George, meanwhile, has a large, stone tablet removed from the excavation site, believing its inscriptions to be significant. Studying them, he thinks there's a connection with the nearby tomb of Hapnubador, which has not yet been explored. He and his assistant, Assan, are taken to the tomb's entrance and head inside, opening the door to a hidden chamber. They then fall through a trapdoor and Assan is impaled on a bed of spikes. George manages to avoid his assistant's gruesome fate, only to be struck in each eye by a ray of bright blue light that fires out from a section of wall. He later stumbles out of the tomb, rendered blind by this strange encounter. Once they're back home in New York, George sees an optician, who informs him his eyesight will return within a year. Susie, meanwhile, has brought home the amulet and a series of strange phenomena begin to plague the family, particularly Susie, her younger brother, Tommy, and their au pair, Jamie Lee. Inexplicably, George regains his eyesight and continues his research into the tablet and what happened to him, drawing what he saw on the tomb wall and showing it to a colleague, Dr. Wiler. Wiler says it reminds him of the Sacred Symbol of the Grand Shadow, aka Hapnubador, an evil god who was worshiped 5,000 years ago; it also happens to be the symbol on Susie's amulet. As things become progressively sinister and deadly, with the building security guard dying when the elevator floor falls out underneath him, Susie's colleague, Luke, disappearing in the children's bedroom, and Wiler dying when a cobra appears at his university, it's obvious an ancient evil has followed the family from Egypt and is acting through Susie. Now, Adrian Marcato, the owner of an antique shop who knows of the significance of the amulet and its symbol, may be the only one who can save her and the family from its evil influence.

Manhattan Baby was made when Lucio Fulci's career was slowly but surely winding down, at the tail end of his prosperous period making horror films and giallo thrillers in the 70's and early 80's. Save for maybe 1990's A Cat in the Brain (which I remember enjoying, as nutty as it is), none of the movies he made following his previous film, The New York Ripper, are held in as high regard as his most well-known works. As I hinted at in the introduction, Manhattan Baby itself is not a movie Fulci himself was very fond of, saying he only did it because his frequent producer, Fabrizio De Angelis, was obsessed with making it. Moreover, it initially seemed like he was going to have quite a hefty budget to work with but then, during production, said budget was cut completely in half. After it was over, Fulci never again worked with De Angelis, who'd been involved with films like Zombie, The Beyond, The House by the Cemetery, and The New York Ripper. It was also the penultimate time he would work with his frequent screenwriting partner, Dardano Sacchetti, who'd worked on the screenplays for all of those films, as well as City of the Living Dead.

As I've said before, I wouldn't call the characters in a majority of Italian horror films, especially those made by Fulci, amazing or memorable but, my God, I cannot bring myself to care about anybody in Manhattan Baby. There really are no protagonists, per se, with the married couple of George (Christopher Connelly) and Emily Hacker (Laura Lenzi) being little more than bystanders. You'd expect George, at least, to be significant in the story, seeing as how he's an archeologist who's

trying to unravel the mystery of the tablet he uncovers in Egypt and its connection to the tomb of Hapnubador, when he's suddenly rendered blind by a bright, supernatural light. Initially, it seems as though this conflict is going to be a central part of the story, with George momentarily acting quite bitter about being blind, even though he's told it's only temporary, but his eyesight is inexplicably restored only about thirty minutes in, making me wonder what the point of his blindness was in the first place. It doesn't even gradually recover, as it initially seems like it's going to, but rather, is completely back after one scene. Once he can see again, he gets back to his investigations, wondering what happened to him in the tomb and also what the significance is of the symbol he saw on the wall. But then, his colleague, Dr. Wiler, does much of the research on the symbol when he draws it for him, while both George and Martha, who's been even less active in the story, deal with the weird phenomena surrounding their children, such as their disappearing from their rooms and the mysterious vanishings of both their nanny and one of Martha's co-workers. Martha is the one who first learns of the mysterious Adrian Marcato when a woman gives her a Polaroid with his name written on it, and eventually, she and George pay him a visit. He tells them of the evil contained with the amulet in the photograph and that Susie may have been affected by it, a claim neither of them take seriously. But, when they find the amulet in Susie's desk, learn that Wiler was killed by a venomous snake, and witness the supernatural power enveloping her, they bring Marcato in to help.

However, it all proves to be too much for Emily, who doesn't even like the idea of Marcato using his "voodoo" to help Susie, even though, as George pointed out, she wanted to call him as well earlier. George then sees Marcato experiencing what Susie is going through internally, after which he tells him that the evil power contained within the amulet has taken hold of Susie and is acting through her. He also manages to link minds with George and show him where his children have been going on their

"voyages" where they disappear from their room. He and Emily then take Susie to the hospital, where the doctors are baffled by her condition and what they discover when they examine her. From here on out, George and Emily's roles in the story are entirely superfluous, as Marcato saves Susie by channeling the evil out of her and into himself. George visits Marcato one last time and learns what's happened, with Marcato giving him the amulet and telling him to dispose of it by throwing it into the East River. Though Marcato ultimately dies as a result of the curse, George does grant his final wish and drops the amulet into the river, although the final scene shows it was futile.

Since the evil emanating from the amulet is centered around her, you'd expect Susie (Brigitta Boccoli) to be a major part of the story, but, in actuality, she's little more than a central host for it, as the supernatural happenings occur without any direct involvement from her. For most of the movie, while her physical condition deteriorates, there's nothing consistent about her performance, as she's either acting like a normal girl and older sister to her brother, seeming to be in a trance, or terrified by the strange things happening around her. In fact, she's acting weird when we first see her in Egypt, when her mother is taking photographs of her, and continues to act that way for no reason for much of the opening, even before she's given the amulet. Then, when they return home to New York, Susie goes back and forth between messing around with Tommy and playing with Jamie Lee like a normal girl, to acting like she's under the amulet's influence, only to then be utterly traumatized by some of the weird stuff she sees and experiences. When the movie reaches its third act, she falls into a comatose state in front of her parents, which is when Marcato is called in and experiences the inner turmoil she's going through as a prisoner in her own body while the evil force acts through it. Her parents take her to the hospital and her condition is just as baffling to them, especially when they x-ray her and the dark outline of a cobra appears in her chest cavity! But then, just as her body is about to give out, Marcato channels the evil energy out of her and into himself, saving her life and soul.

If you've seen The House by the Cemetery, you'll likely panic when Giovanni Frezza shows up here, given how annoying he was in that film, but fortunately, he isn't dubbed with such an irritating voice this time around. Moreover, his role of Tommy Hacker is a pretty insignificant one, as he's little more than Susie's precocious little brother who, unlike her, is never really fazed by the weird things that happen. He especially enjoys the "voyages" the two of them embark on occasionally, having returned from one with a souvenir of a small statue of Anubis, and explains Jamie Lee's sudden disappearance to her being one herself, although he privately realizes this isn't a good thing. Near the end of the movie, he appears to be falling under the influence of the amulet, as he's looking at the wall, intoning, "Punish me," as a fresh bloodstain slowly builds up on it, and when Jamie Lee's decaying corpse appears, his only response is, "Poor Jamie Lee." That's the last time we ever see him, as well.

I don't know if her name is meant as a tribute to Jamie Lee Curtis or what but, Jamie Lee (Cinzia De Ponti), the children's au pair or nanny, is the one who really suffers from the evil effects of the amulet. At one point, while she's watching them, they all play hide-and-seek, but when Jamie Lee goes to find them, she deals with the lights turning off, a cobra suddenly appearing, and the door to the children's room refusing to budge. This scares her so much that she calls the building security guard (which leads to his death in the elevator), then Emily at her job, only to realize the kids weren't even stuck in the room. After she takes a photograph of Susie that, unbeknownst to any of them, only shows the amulet, Jamie Lee, like Luke before her, suddenly disappears, with Susie and Tommy telling their parents that she's on a "voyage." Near the end of the movie, her decaying corpse suddenly explodes out of the apartment's wall.

One character I do kind of like is Luke (Carlo De Mejo), Emily's goofball co-worker who's constantly clowning around. The first time you see him, he's sitting at a typewriter, wearing a pair of Groucho Marx glasses and, after talking with Emily about George's blindness, gets back to work, saying, "Now... 'the Big Bad Wolf..." The second time you see him, when Emily gets a call from Jamie Lee about the kids' bedroom door being stuck, he's wearing a pair of glasses with silly, spring eyeballs, then pops a fake snake out of a tube while talking with her. Emily asks Luke to stop fooling around and come with her back to the apartment to see what's going on, to which he answers, "Woman, there is naught I wouldn't do for thee." The knowledge that Jamie Lee is a lovely blonde doesn't hurt matters, either. Upon arriving at the apartment and finding the children aren't stuck in their room, Luke, acting like a wizard, proclaims he will open the door with his "magic tricks" and walks upstairs to the room, spouting a bunch of magic words in an over-the-top voice. However, it stops being funny when he opens the door and disappears in a blinding flash of light, leaving behind only a mass of sand on the floor. Though Emily and George, the latter of whom was never that fond of Luke, initially believe it to be one of his pranks, a cutaway shows him lying dead in a desert.

The way Adrian Marcato (Cosimo Cinieri) enters the story is totally random and contrived. The owner of an antique shop, he's knowledgeable of the occult and the subject of parapsychology, knowing full well of the amulet and its evil connotations. He's contacted by a woman associated with him after she happens to find a discarded photograph of Susie that only shows the amulet and who later gives it to Emily, along with Marcato's name, in front of his store. Marcato then waits for the Hackers to contact him personally and when George and Emily show up at his antique shop, he tells them of the amulet and how Susie may have absorbed its evil energy into herself. Naturally, they don't believe him, so he tells them to go ahead and leave, but advises them to make sure the amulet is not in Susie's possession. Right after that is when they do find it in her room and also see her suffering from its effects, prompting them to call Marcato. Despite having told them he wouldn't help them after they dismissed his claims, he does come to the apartment and, upon seeing Susie lying in bed, comatose and sickly, he asks to be left alone with her. When he is, he experiences what she's going through, as he becomes momentarily possessed by her voice calling for help, falls to the floor, and flails about while bleeding from his mouth and ears and foaming at the mouth. Once he's recovered from this, Marcato tells George that Susie is a prisoner in her own body, with the amulet's evil powers now acting through her. He also tells him the amulet has the power to open the "infernal gate of time and space" and "work miracles of evil beyond all arcane dimension." He then shows George what he means by taking his hand and melding minds with him, allowing him to see the unholy desert both Susie and Tommy have been visiting. While George and Emily take Susie to the hospital, Marcato returns to his antique shop and attempts to save Susie by performing an ancient spell. He succeeds in doing so, channeling the amulet's curse into himself and later asking George to dispose of it for him. George does as he says the following morning, but it's too late to save Marcato, who suffers the curse's wrath when the stuffed birds in his shop come to life and maul him to death.

The character of Dr. Wiler (Enzo Marino Bellanich), who first tells George of the Sacred Seal of the Grand Shadow and its evil notoriety, is one of several who fall victim to the power of the amulet when he's examining the photo of it and is killed by a cobra that suddenly appears in his office. The same is also true of the apartment building's security guard, whom Jamie Lee calls up when she can't get the children's bedroom door open. However, he never makes it to the apartment,

as the elevator stops with him in it, and after he tries to force the door open, the bottom falls out beneath him and he drops to his death. And finally, as he often did, Lucio Fulci himself appears briefly as Dr. Forrester, who treats Susie when she's brought to the hospital and is totally baffled by her illness, especially when he has an x-ray taken of her and watches as the outline of a cobra appears in her chest cavity.

These types of European horror films may not have the most memorable of characters or the greatest acting performances, especially when it comes to Fulci and Dario Argento's films, where the visuals and setpieces are top priority, but usually, they're good enough to where I can latch onto at least a couple of them to carry me through the film. Not so Manhattan Baby, where you have a number of supposed protagonists who barely do anything and also don't act like normal people. The first thing

you see when the movie opens is George picking up a scorpion and planning to give it to Susie because she's never seen one. Assan then says, "Don't forget to tell her it's a symbol of death here," to which George responds, "Yeah. Well, I think it's a bit heavy to spring on a nine-year old." And a real scorpion isn't?! Speaking of Susie, like I said, she's acting weird as soon as we meet her. At first, you'd think she's just annoyed that her mother is forcing her to pose for pictures in front of

landmarks like the Sphinx but then, you see a shot of sand running between her fingers, funneling downwards when it hits the ground, and when Emily asks her if she's alright, she shakes her head (remember this is before she's even been given the amulet). Emily then looks at her hand, sees the sand funneling on the ground... and nothing more is ever said about it. With few exceptions, I can't stand it in movies when people don't react to bizarre, supernatural phenomena the way they should. I can deal with Marcato's blase attitude

towards it, as he's into it from the get-go, but everyone else's reactions are just... odd. Instead of being freaked out by the bizarre light in the tomb that temporarily blinded him, George, at first, is more angry that his blindness is keeping him from completing his research and doesn't find it at all strange when he's inexplicably cured of it. He's also still not that unsettled by what happened to him, instead only interested in the symbol he saw on the wall, and neither he nor Emily appear all that concerned by the notion that their kids keep

disappearing from their room and claim they're going on "voyages." They come off as more confused than anything. And let's also not forget how they're quick to dismiss what Marcato tells them, despite having witnessed and experienced so many bizarre things themselves by this point. There are other examples I could mention, like how Tommy seems to think the voyages are a game Susie made up and such, but you get the idea.

Despite the budget being slashed in half, they were able to film in the actual locations of both Egypt and New York. All of the exterior scenes in the opening were shot in and around Cairo, where Fulci managed to get some really great shots of the sweeping desert landscape, the Sphinx and the pyramids, other ancient ruins and monuments, with one of the most spectacular being the spot where George oversees the excavation of the stone tablet, and the deserted city interiors where Susie is first approached by the blind woman. This stuff looks

so great that, if the whole movie had taken place in Egypt, I might be more forgiving of its many faults, as I like that kind of setting anyway. But, no, less than fifteen minutes in, we leave Egypt and spend the rest of the running time in New York, though not before we get to see the interiors of the booby-trap-laden tomb of Hapnubador (it and all the other interiors were shot at Incir De Paolis Studios in Rome). Granted, there's not that much to see, given how dimly lit this scene is, but we do get

the classic sort of hieroglyphics and inscriptions on the walls, as well as a spot that not only opens up a secret door when turned but lives up to its being shaped like a curled up snake, as it also unleashes an actual cobra from behind it. Down in that secret passage is an Indiana Jones-style trapdoor that dumps its victims down a long shaft that leads to a bed of spikes. While George, unlike Assan, manages to avoid the spikes, he finds himself in a chamber where he's suddenly blinded by the mysterious, supernatural light that fires out of the symbol of the amulet on the wall.

Having just shot The New York Ripper prior, Fulci was no stranger to Manhattan and was probably more familiar with it when he opted to film there again. While the actual city is not featured as much here, as most of the film is set on the interior sound-stages, Fulci does make sure to gives us big, wide vistas of it whenever we are outside, including some nice ones of Central Park, the East River, and various buildings and storefronts downtown. The interiors of the Hackers' apartment is a typical upper-class, New York apartment, with

little notable about it aside from George's study, some sculpture-work at the bottom of the stairs, nice artwork lining the walls leading up the stairs, a hallway with shelves full of books on either side of a sofa, and the children's bedroom. The same goes for the offices and libraries at the university where Dr. Wiler works, although the large room where he meets his end from the cobra is lit in such a dark manner and shot with a creeping wide angle to simulate the snake's POV that it does come off as

fairly menacing. Really, the most noteworthy interior set in New York is Marcato's antique store, a two-leveled building that's full of all sorts of interesting items, paintings, old books, and stuffed animals, the latter of which Marcato does himself and which also prove to be the instruments of his demise at the end.

One thing I've noticed about the films Fulci made during this period is that they tend to have a standard, kind of flat look to them, with a sprinkling of late 70's, early 80's sleaze, and the same is true of Manhattan Baby, for the most part. During the opening in Egypt, Fulci and his cinematographer, Guglielmo Mancori, manage to play with the bright sunlight, creating some shots with noticeable flares in the lenses and evoking an overall feeling of the extreme heat of the location. By contrast, the sequence inside Hapnubador's

tomb feels like it's lit entirely by George's flashlight, coming off as dark as a tomb that hasn't been opened for thousands of years should but also not being so dark that you can't tell what's going on. The nighttime interior scenes in New York also tend to be very dimly lit, like the Hackers' apartment, which is often so dark that it comes off as downright claustrophobic, and there are several instances of colorful lighting, such as Susie's desk lamp being a bright red, while the sudden lightning

storm that rages outside during an early sequence gives off constant flashes of white-blue light. The large room at the university where Prof. Wiler is killed by the cobra is almost like the tomb in how dark it is, lit only by the handful of desk lamps, which cast rays of amber light on the laminated floor, and it's where Fulci uses a low-angled, tracking shot for the snake's POV, as it slithers among the furniture in the room. He also makes use of handheld camerawork here and there, as well as some very quick pans and zoom-ins, although those are typical of Italian horror films of this era in general.

All throughout the film is a narrative/visual motif involving eyes, such as the otherworldly woman who gives Susie the amulet being blind, George becoming temporarily blind after being blasted in the eyes, the amulet having the symbol of an eye in its center, and, most blatantly, constant close-ups of peoples eyes. Over and over and over again, there are moments where the film will cut to or zoom in on a person's eyes, trying to add all the more to some kind of significance, though what that significance could be is anyone's guess. Maybe it

has something to do with the sights and experiences the amulet causes the characters to have but, the annoying thing about is it happens so often, as if Fulci's constantly asking, "Get it? Get it?", making you want to say, "No, I don't get it, and I wish you'd stop bringing it up."

On the back of the Anchor Bay DVD, the film is described as a combination of The Exorcist, The Awakening, and Poltergeist and, after thinking about it, that's certainly true. Though I've never seen The Awakening, reading that it's an adaptation of The Jewel of Seven Stars makes me see the similarities, with the film opening on an excavation in Egypt, a centuries-old evil force being reborn into the modern world through a young child, and said child's father being an archeologist determined to solve an ancient mystery. The Poltergeist

influence comes through the notion of a couple's daughter being taken away, in some manner, by a frightening, supernatural force that's invaded their everyday home and their having to bring in an expert to save her. And finally, there's The Exorcist, which I think is what influenced Fulci and Dardano Sacchetti the most. Besides the obvious, the opening in Egypt is akin to the one in Iraq, as is the concept of something evil traveling to the United States to haunt an American family. Susie

becoming comatose and bedridden late in the film is akin to what happens to Regan, as are her violent, screaming fits, and like Chris MacNeill, Susie's parents have her examined by a number of doctors, only for them to be baffled by her condition. And not only is Marcato akin to Fathers Merrin and Karras, with his attempts to save Susie being akin to an exorcism, but the way he ultimately succeeds is by transferring the force's influence over to himself, resulting in his death.

Those who come to a Lucio Fulci horror movie for a lot of gore and savage kills will be severely disappointed with Manhattan Baby, as that was not Fulci's highest priority this time around. The first death is the impalement of Assan on the bed of spikes in the tomb, which is grisly (as per usual with Fulci, one of the spikes goes right through his eye), but it cuts away very fast and doesn't linger on it. The apartment building security guard suffers a death that wouldn't be out of place in a Final Destination movie. While riding the elevator

up to the Hackers' apartment, it gets stuck and, after he tries to force the doors open with his bare hands, which start to bleed badly, the floor falls out from under him and he falls to his death, though you don't see the impact or the aftermath (he's actually forgotten about completely). Luke's death also happens offscreen: after he disappears in the children's bedroom, you see him lying dead in the middle of a desert, appearing to have died from dehydration. Dr. Wiler dies from the bite of a cobra, which leaves two fang-marks in his left

cheek. Like Luke, Jamie Lee dies offscreen, but there is a moment near the end where her decaying corpse appears in the apartment's wall. The goriest stuff revolves around Marcato, first when he's possessed by Susie's inner voice crying for help, as he falls to the floor and flails around, with bloody foam streaming out of his mouth and blood running out of his ears, and second when the stuffed birds in his antique shop come to life and attack. The physical effects of the birds flying about and the

close-ups of them attacking Marcato look really cheesy, as you can tell they're either marionettes or hand-puppets (given that they're reanimated stuffed birds, though, it does kind of fit), and the sound effects are so over-the-top that they make it come off as kind of funny, but the gore effects of them biting into his face and neck and tearing off big chunks of flesh are effectively wince-inducing.

For this film, Fulci mainly wanted to focus more on optical effects rather than makeup and puppetry in order to give it more of an intangible, ethereal feel, but because of the slashing of the budget, it didn't happen the way he'd hoped. There are a number of visual effects in the film, like the beams of light that blind and then restore George's eyesight, Luke disappearing when he enters the kids' room, the blue glow around Susie in one shot and a similar effect seen in the transference of the curse over to Marcato, matte work for when

George and Marcato meld minds and the image of the desert appears in the room around them, animated lightning above the apartment building during the storm sequence early on, and the appearance of the outline of the cobra in Susie's x-ray, among others, but they can hardly be called groundbreaking or even all that impressive for the time. In the end, they're just average.

Following the opening scene of George picking up the scorpion for Susie and driving off to the excavation site, we're introduced to Susie and Emily as the latter takes pictures of her daughter in front of the Sphinx and the pyramids. That's when, randomly, Susie gets a bizarre, distant look on her face, as sand trickles down between her fingers and then funnels downward on the ground, accompanied by a thunder-like rumbling sound. Noticing this, Emily asks her if she feels alright

and Susie simply shakes her head. Emily notices the sand but then, after a short cutaway to George parking his jeep and walking through some ruins to the excavation site, we now see Susie taking Emily's picture in front of what seems to be a mosque in the midst of a deserted Egyptian village. Emily takes the camera and goes off to get some more shots, leaving Susie alone. She looks around in wonder, when she senses someone standing behind her and turns around to see an eerie-looking blind woman.

Seeing that she has her hand out, Susie feels compelled to pull out some money and give it to her, when the woman grabs her by the hand. She tells her, "Tombs are for the dead," and places the amulet in her open palm. A final, high-angle shot shows the woman disappear right in front of Susie. At the excavation site, a large, stone tablet is removed from an underground chamber and George attempts to translate the inscriptions on it. He figures it might be connected to the tomb of Hapnubador but is told that if he chooses to

investigate, it will be by himself, as none of the local workers will go anywhere near it. His assistant, Assan, who's been cleaning the sand off the inscriptions, agrees to go with him (when he does, we get the first of the many, many close-ups of characters' eyes), and they're both driven to the tomb. Told that the truck will be back for them at sundown, they disembark and head inside.

Beyond the entrance, they head down into the dark tomb, looking at the hieroglyphics and idols with George's flashlight, when they spot something on the wall that stands out from everything else. Looking at his translations of the tablet's inscriptions, George walks up to the object, which is shaped like a coiled up snake, and finds he can turn it. When he does, a section of wall to his left opens up to reveal a secret passage and some steps leading downwards. The two of them then hear a

violent hissing sound and turn to see a snake explode out of the spot on the wall. Seeing it's a deadly cobra, Assan pulls out a revolver and promptly shoots the snake dead. The two of them then head down the steps and find they stop at what appears to be a pair of ancient doors. Amazed, George tries to force them open, only for a trapdoor to open beneath their feet, sending them hurtling down a long shaft, Assan getting impaled on the bed of spikes at the bottom. George

manages to avoid this and, after seeing what happened to him, gets to his feet in the center of the chamber they fell into. Looking around, his eyes are drawn to a small, glowing, blue orb in the center of a symbol on the wall. As he looks at it, the glow becomes brighter and brighter, until he lets out a yell as two beams of light fire at him, hitting him in each eye. Meanwhile, Emily finishes her photography, only to find that Susie isn't where she left her. Like any parent, she becomes panicked when she can't find her and she doesn't respond to

her calls, which echo out across the desert. However, after nearly being reduced to tears at the prospect of her being lost, she sees her sitting in front of a large door, nonchalantly saying, "Mama, I'm right here. Were you afraid?" As Emily breathes a sigh of relief, Susie looks down at the amulet in her hands. At that moment, George wanders out of Hapnubador's tomb, unable to see, and collapses in the sand.

Upon returning home to New York, George sees an optician, has bandages put on his eyes, and is given some medicine to put in them, while Susie and Tommy spend a day at the park with Jamie Lee. On their way home, both Tommy and Jamie Lee notice the amulet, which Susie's wearing around her neck, and when asked where she got it, she simply says she "bought" it in Egypt. The camera focuses on the amulet and the picture dissolves to a shot of the glowing, blue orb on the wall in the tomb. That

night, Jamie Lee calls the kids to dinner, but while Tommy runs out the door excitedly, Susie appears troubled. She tells Jamie Lee she feels it's going to storm that night, but she assures her that she's wrong and sends her to wash her hands. Once her room is empty, a rumbling can be heard outside, followed by flashes of lightning. The storm continues late into the night, after they've all gone to bed, and though Tommy is undisturbed by it, Susie awakens with a start, having dreamed of the

blind woman. She walks down to her parents' bedroom and, freaked out by the lighting, leans up against the wall. She tells her parents she can't sleep and is frightened, but they tell her to go back to bed. Her mother turns her down when she asks to sleep with them, and when she ignores her sniveling and sobbing, Susie heads on back to her and Tommy's room. She creeps down the hallway, absolutely terrified by the storm and looking all around her nervously, when she stops in the middle of the hallway. She looks at the wall and sees a

vision of the symbol on the amulet and the tomb's wall, causing her to let out a fearful yell before collapsing to the floor. Having seen and heard her, Emily comes running in and tries to awaken her, asking her what she saw.

The next day, while George dictates notes into a tape recorder, Susie and Tommy are in their room, the latter playing around with a Rubik's cube, while Susie looks out the window. She touches the amulet, which she's wearing underneath her shirt, and her eyes suddenly glow an unearthly blue. At that moment, George plays back his tape, only to hear his own yelling, as well as other voices doing the same, the sound of Assan falling on the spikes, and a whispering, female voice. Susie then sees the

door to their room slowly shut, and when Tommy walks towards it, she gets a bad feeling and watches as the door begins to glow, first around the edges and then from the center outward. She yells, "No!", and calls for Tommy, who walks on to the door and disappears when he reaches it. Hearing both of the kids yelling, George heads upstairs and fumbles around to their room, calling for them. He finds and opens the door, but when he walks in and feels his way around the room, he's unable to find the kids and they don't respond to his calls.

Unbeknownst to him, the message, "Daddy, help me," appears on the room's mirror (something else the movie took from The Exorcist). He makes his way back to the door, when he's suddenly hit in the eyes by the same blasts of light from the tomb. He falls back onto the floor, grabbing his eyes and gasping, then passes out, as the message on the mirror disappears. He awakens some time later when Emily removes the bandages from his eyes and tells him the kids are with Jamie Lee. He also realizes that, although very blurry, his vision is returning. He tells Emily, "I see shadows. Outlines. It's not much, but I can see."

Once his vision is totally restored, George decides to continue his research and goes to Dr. Wiler for help, describing the symbol he saw in the tomb to him. Meanwhile, Susie's behavior gets stranger, as there's a moment where she opens a desk drawer to reveal the amulet, as well as the Egyptian scorpion from the opening (yes, she actually kept the damn thing). That night, while Jamie Lee is watching them, they play hide and seek, with the children going to hide while she counts to thirty. After a

cutaway to George's meeting with Wiler, where he's shown a photograph of the amulet and recognizes it as what he saw in the tomb, Jamie Lee searches the apartment for the kids, who can be heard giggling elsewhere. She doesn't find them in their parents' bedroom and then, the lights go out. Thinking it's them trying to give themselves an unfair advantage, she fiddles with the circuit breaker but nothing happens. She pulls a flashlight out of a drawer and flips every switch on the

breaker but, again, it doesn't work. She's startled by the sound of loud banging upstairs and runs up there, afraid the kids may have hurt themselves, only to find their door won't open. She yells at them to stop fooling around, when a deadly cobra suddenly appears, horrifying her and sending her running out of the room, screaming. She runs to the phone and calls for security. The guard tells her he's on his way up, then gets into the elevator and begins riding to that floor. But when the elevator reaches floors fourteen and fifteen, it gets stuck

between them and doesn't respond when he presses the emergency button. As Jamie Lee waits in the dark apartment, the door across from her suddenly opens and a short ghoul appears, causing her to about have a conniption, only for it to turn out to be Tommy in a mask. Meanwhile, the elevator is starting to shake and the guard desperately tries to force the doors open. Although it takes a lot of straining, to the point where his fingertips start bleeding, the doors do pry open, slowly but surely, when the floor gradually falls out beneath the guard and he drops down the shaft to his death.

Jamie Lee calls Emily at her office, telling her about how the children's bedroom door is stuck and she agrees to come home, getting her co-worker, Luke, to come back with her. When they arrive, they find that the kids are alright and Luke then declares he'll get the door open with one of his magic tricks, although Tommy is quite skeptical of this. Undeterred, Luke makes his way up to the door, saying a number of silly magic, making the others giggle at him. Reaching the door, he says, "Open sesame," and it does open for him. But he

then disappears in a bright flash of light, letting out a scream. Emily comes rushing upstairs and finds the door closed, although it does open for her. When she looks into the room and turns the light on, a bulb in a lamp suddenly bursts and she notices a layer of sand on the floor. She scoops up a bit of it in her hand, then sees a scorpion crawling around nearby. And here's where we have a confusing instance of editing. Emily seems to scream at the sight of the scorpion, when the film

cuts to downstairs where Jamie Lee is looking up at the ceiling in utter terror, appearing to hear the sound of the scorpion scuttling about in the sand... and then, Tommy comes up and asks her to make dinner. Jamie Lee is perplexed by this blase attitude on both his and Susie's part, never mind that she seemed frightened to death just moments before, then looks at a mirror, sees her reflection replaced with a vision of the tablet George uncovered, and screams. Cut back to upstairs, where Emily appears to wheel around at the sound

of it, only for the camera to pull back and show she's now out in the hallway, yelling for Luke, whom she thinks is playing a joke (so many times, I forgot exactly who went upstairs and, even now, I still don't get what just happened). A cutaway to the desert shows it's no joke, as Luke is lying dead in the sand. When George gets home later that night, he scoops up some of the sand in the children's room himself but is not so sure it isn't one of Luke's practical jokes and decides to wait until Emily goes back to work and sees him before

phoning the police. In another room, Susie is shown to be lying awake in bed, her eyes wide open in a frightened expression. In a very strange-looking, wide-angled close-up of her hand on the bedspread, steam sizzles out from beneath her fingers, and when she removes her hand, it leaves a burn mark on the cover.

The next day, at Central Park, Jamie Lee takes a photo of Susie while she's rollerblading (or, rather, when she falls down while attempting to). The two of them and Tommy watch as the Polaroid develops, only to see no sign of Susie's image in it. Jamie Lee tosses it to the grass and the three of them leave, but the camera then focuses on the picture as it continues to develop, revealing that all it shows is the image of the amulet. A mysterious woman picks up the photo and watches them leave.

In the next cut, the character of Adrian Marcato enters the film when he gets a call from the woman. He, in turn, tell hers to call "the others," whom you never see, and asks that she call him back in an hour. After hanging up, he walks over to his bookshelf, takes out an old book, and opens it up to a page where he reads that the jewel in the amulet symbolizes "the Eye of Evil," murmuring to himself, "Hapnubador." Later, as she's walking down the street, Emily is stopped by the woman,

who calls down to her from a balcony. She tosses her the photo in an envelope, telling her, "It concerns your children," and after Emily picks the envelope up off the sidewalk and looks back up at the balcony, the woman is gone. Emily walks on to her car, which is parked nearby, and drives away. The camera pans over to reveal that she just happened to be in front of Marcato's antique store. Emily later shows the photo, which has Marcato's name written on it, to George at the university, and he turns it over to Dr. Wiler, who intends to

examine it over at the laboratory. Emily also tells George of the weird vibe she got from the woman, as well as that she had the sand in the kids' bedroom analyzed and it was revealed to have come from Egypt. Suddenly, they hear what sounds like Tommy yelling and they rush out of the room they're in to see what looks like the kid's toys lining both sides of the large stairway in the middle of the university. Elsewhere, the woman tells Marcato that she gave Emily the Polaroid, to which he says, "Now, it's only a matter of time."

George and Emily return to their apartment, which appears to be deserted, and immediately head up to the kids' room. They find it empty, but just as they're wondering what's going on, Susie and Tommy appear in a doorway, with big smiles on their faces. George asks Tommy where his toys are and he answers, "Hidden somewhere by Susie." He then asks them where Jamie Lee is, a question they hesitate to answer, but ultimately say she hasn't yet returned from "her voyage." George is utterly confused by that. Late that night, as the two of

them are in bed, Tommy pesters Susie, telling her, "It wasn't my fault," but she asks him to just go to sleep. Turning back onto his right side, he murmurs, "Poor Jamie Lee," while shaking his head. Meanwhile, at the university, Dr. Wiler walks into a large room and sits down at a desk, preparing to study the photograph of the amulet. He's startled when he hears a sudden, loud hiss, but when he doesn't hear anything else, he goes back to his studying. Little does he know he's not alone, as a cobra appears and slithers its way through the room

and around to the side of his desk. Wiler takes off his glasses and uses a magnifying glass on the photo, when the cobra hisses and rears up, displaying its hood. At that moment, Susie bolts up in bed and lets out a scream, as the cobra comes at Wiler, bites him on his left cheek, killing him instantly, and then slithers away. On the floor next to Wiler, as his mouth foams, the photograph suddenly disappears. Back at the Hackers' apartment, Susie is continuing to scream her head off as she lies

back on her bed, her parents futilely trying to calm her down. She then stops screaming just as abruptly as she started, and George notices she's holding something in her left hand. Removing it, he finds it's the photograph he gave Wiler, now crumpled and slightly burnt. As they wonder how this could be, he turns the photo around and, seeing Marcato's name, tells Emily to see if her magazine can find out anything about him. Tommy, who's sitting in his own bed, nonchalantly looking at a

magazine while chewing some gum, says Susie always screams like that when she goes on a voyage, adding, "It's a part of the rules... The game she invented. Susie." His parents question him about this "game" and ask how far he went on one of these voyages. He shows them a souvenir he came back with on one of his most recent voyages, which George identifies as a small figure of Anubis, while Tommy says he found it on a riverbank. Unsure of what it means, and seeing how Susie is lying in bed, her eyes open and her breathing very labored, they decide to seek out and talk with Marcato.

They head to his antique store and find him sitting at his desk, stuffing a bird. While they talk with him, as he examines the photograph, Susie, now looking quite haggard, places the amulet in her desk drawer and closes it. George and Emily, naturally, don't believe Marcato when he tells them of the jewel's evil connotations and that it's acting out through Susie, but when they return home, they search the apartment to make sure she doesn't have the amulet, as per his instructions. That eventually leads them to open her desk drawer and find the

amulet sitting there, next to her pet scorpion. Though Emily suggests calling Marcato, George is more inclined to stick with science and see what Wiler finds. At that moment, the phone rings downstairs and George answers it, learning of Wiler's death. That, along with the knowledge that Wiler had the photo, encourages them to call Marcato, when they hear Susie yelling for them in the next room. Staring at the door-handle, they hear eerie sounds on the other side and when they stop, a

light in the opposite side of the room explodes. The door slowly opens, a ghostly, white light pours out, and Susie appears, dressed in a white nightgown and holding her hand out, like the blind woman who first gave her the amulet. A blue glow appears around her and it's revealed she's holding the scorpion and a scoop of sand in her hand, and they also see sand funneling on the floor, just as happened at the beginning of the film. Susie then collapses to the floor.

Upon being called to the apartment and looking at Susie as she lies in bed, Marcato asks to be left alone with her. After George and Emily leave the room, he puts the amulet on her, causing her to begin to shake and whimper in her sleep. Downstairs in the kitchen, it all proves to be too much for Emily to handle, including Marcato's involvement. Right as she says they should phone a medical doctor or someone they can trust, they hear the sound of Susie's voice calling for them. George runs upstairs, only to find the voice is coming from

Marcato, who's writhing around on the floor, blood and foam spewing out of his mouth and blood running out of his ears. Susie's voice is tortured and choking, as Marcato fumbles with the amulet. After he's recovered from the episode, Marcato tells George that Susie has become a victim of the evil jewel, which is using her as an avatar to unleash its power. He then has George hold his hand in order to show him an example of what the amulet is capable of and they have a mind-melding where George sees a vision of the desert it comes

from. It's a short-lived vision, as Emily comes in, saying she thinks Susie's dying. George turns to Marcato, who says he thinks he can still do something to save her, as she lies in bed, telling her mother that she's cold. They then take her to the hospital, where George and Emily sit out in the waiting room, as two doctors and a nurse examine Susie, who's comatose. George leaves to see to Tommy, who's at home alone, while in his antique shop, Marcato takes the amulet and prepares to

perform some kind of ritual. He stares at it and a blue light envelops him, while in the apartment, Tommy stares at the wall, intoning, "Punish me." Blood appears and spreads across the wall as he watches, enveloping the room in a red light. At the hospital, Dr. Forrester is shown Susie's x-rays, the image of a cobra appearring in one of her rib-cage, while her vitals come very close to flat-lining. In the apartment, the arm of a decaying corpse, which Tommy identifies as Jamie Lee from the bracelet

on the wrist, bursts out of the wall. Although Susie does flat-line, Marcato continues the ritual, struggling to speak an incantation, and Susie then awakens with a gasp, pulling the tubes out of her nose, as her vitals go nuts. Though blood leaks out of her mouth, she awakens shortly afterward when Marcato completes the ritual. George visits him at the store and he tells him that Susie is no longer in danger, as he has substituted for her. He gives him the amulet and tells him to dispose of it by throwing it in the river. At the hospital, Susie's recovery is indicated by her talking with Emily and that the image of the cobra has vanished from her x-ray.

Back at his shop, Marcato is doing his taxidermy, bringing a stuffed bird down to his desk, when he hears a fluttering sound nearby. He turns and looks, seeing nothing, although a voice can be heard whispering in Egyptian. He pays it no mind and sits down at his desk, when he hears the sound again, then notices that one of his stuffed birds is missing from the branch it sits on. Regardless, he goes about his work, when one of the stuffed birds takes flight and comes at him, as the sound of screaming and yelling fills the room. It chases him

behind one of the pillars at the base of the stairs and lands on and pecks at his face, leaving a nasty scratch on his cheek. He backs up against the wall near the stairs, when he looks and sees another bird coming at him. It bites him above his left eye and tears out a big chunk of flesh, after which he runs and falls on his desk, only to see more birds coming for him. As they swoop down at him (shots are repeated several times in a row and it's also done in slow motion), he yells, "You can take my life with

stuffed birds, but you shall never have my immortal soul, Hapnubador!" The birds swarm and peck at him, and as he flails at them, ripping out the sawdust and stuffing, he yells, "Birds of darkness, consume me!" He struggles for a little while longer but appears to resign himself to his fate, as they bite and scratch at him continuously. One takes a big bite out of his cheek, with blood then pouring out, and another does the same with the side of his neck. The scene of carnage slowly

goes out of focus, then comes back to show Marcato's brutalized body lying on the floor, while his stuffed birds are all back on their perches, their stuffing hanging out. Elsewhere, George grants his last wish and drops the amulet in the East River. But, while this ends his family's ordeal, the ending cuts back to Egypt, where the otherworldly blind woman gives another young girl the amulet, starting the cycle anew.

One of the few other genuine compliments I can give the film is that Lucio Fulci's frequent composer Fabio Frizzi came up with a really memorable score for it. He was often able to come up with a very distinct, immediately identifiable main theme for his scores and that's certainly true of Manhattan Baby, which has a main motif that slowly builds into a lovely, sweeping melody that sounds much more mysterious and mystical than horrifying. You hear it sporadically throughout the film, with its first appearance being when Susie is given the amulet, and it's also used to mark the repeat of the cycle at the end when another girl is given the amulet. The opening in Egypt is scored with music that has that exotic, Egyptian sound to it, and the sequence in Hapnubador's tomb has a memorable, thrilling, electronic piece that's replayed when Marcato transfers the amulet's evil from Susie over to himself. There's also a distinctive low-key, rapid strumming piece that plays when the security guard tries to escape the elevator and when George and Emily search the kids' room for the amulet, and plenty of eerie, otherworldly music for the moments where the amulet's power is unleashed, with Marcato himself having a sort of creepy piano theme for when he's first introduced. But the most memorable part of the score for me is this jazzy saxophone bit that you hear constantly throughout the scenes in New York, which is not only a bit stereotypical of the setting itself but I think it's also meant to come off as being played by somebody nearby rather than on the soundtrack, as it often sounds very far off and faint. It certainly makes for an unusual musical ambience to scenes like when Marcato explains the nature of the jewel's evil to the Hackers.

I may have not yet seen his absolute worst movie but, for the time being, I can call Manhattan Baby the one Lucio Fulci movie I don't enjoy watching. I can compliment the technical aspects like the location work in Egypt and New York, some of the sets, the film's look and cinematography, the gore effects, and the music score, but overall, it's an incomprehensible mess of a story with a "narrative" that's impossible to follow, a sluggish pace, characters you can't grab onto for various reasons, a motif involving eyes that quickly becomes tiresome, and visual effects that aren't horrible but certainly aren't amazing, either. Really, it's how nonsensical the movie is that kills it for me. Normally, that doesn't bother me with Fulci, as you come to expect it from him, but it does not work for me here. I'm sure there are those who do enjoy it for that very reason and they're more than welcome to it, but I'll be happy to never see this one again.