I'm a Manhattan Baby

There’s something about the title “Manhattan Baby” that just SCREAMS Big Broadway Musical. Once you learn that this actually applies to a typical gooey piece of slightly surreal, slightly just messy Lucio Fulci horror, it positively BEGS for the deluxe Andrew Lloyd Webber treatment.

Quick Plot: While on work vacation in Egypt, the Hacker family experiences a few unhappy events that probably won’t make the annual slideshow recap. Father George, an archaeologist, explores a pyramid only to be blinded by lasers (it’s just like when the airport loses your luggage, only you’re blinded by lasers) while daughter Susie is gifted with a sparkly, eeeeeeeeviiiiiiiiiiil amulet by a blind old woman.

Back home in New York, Susie quickly shows symptoms of demonic possession by an ancient Egyptian evil. Or, more precisely , signs that she’s in a movie helmed by Lucio Fulci.

Observe the following touchstones:

-a blind woman with no pupils

-the very hard-working electronic score

-dubbing!

-a character named Emily

-a plot that kinda makes sense, but also really doesn’t

-portals to netherworlds

Far less beloved than The Beyond or City of the Living Dead, Manhattan Baby sees Fulci coasting on his landmarks but still having some fun. Take, for whatever reason, a supporting character who just happens to insist upon playing with goofy magician props in every one of his few scenes. Perhaps it’s necessary since his disappearance gives us such lines as “He’s a frivolous guy but this is serious!”

Lucio Fulci is rarely considered a master of the genre. While I will go to my grave arguing the merits of his underrated giallo Don’t Torture a Duckling, his films are generally riddled with laziness, be it stories that don’t add up, blatantly homemade special effects, and dialogue written and spoken by a first level ESL student. That being said, there’s also a whole lot of entertainment to usually be had. Yes, crunchy pipe cleaner tarantulas are funnier than they are scary, but I’ll take them over slow dragging cinema any day. 

Seriously, THIS HAPPENS

High Points

You can never fault Fulci for featuring dull deaths. Reanimating taxidermied vultures for a true birdemic with visible wires? Yes please

Low Points

Perhaps it’s that Manhattan Baby has a more straightforward plot than something like The Beyond, but there’s something about the story that just drags in a way that screams for more shots of venomous snakes alternated with shots of an actress screaming even though it’s clear they’re never in the same room

Lessons Learned

Don’t ever forget that the scorpion is a symbol of death

If you’re an actress playing a babysitter and your name is Jamie Lee, you will be okay. If you’re a character babysitting NAMED Jamie Lee, you should find new employment or make a thorough will

When filming, even with a low budget, it’s important to notice the little things, like when a large piece of hair is stuck to the center of your camera and therefore visible in several key scenes

Rent/Bury/Buy

Manhattan Baby is a "Long Wait" on Netflix, so it's worth putting toward the top of your queue just to ensure you get it before it becomes unavailable (trust me: I've been burned before). That being said, you're far better off watching Fulci's more famous melty movies, so this one should be reserved for true enthusiasts. Yes, there are lasers and zombified birds pecking out eyeballs, but there’s also a lot of muddled exposition in between. 

You Are Now Entering the Gates to the City of Living Dead of Hell

The best thing about recently watching City of the Living Dead is discovering that it’s also known as The Gates of Hell. See, all this time I thought I was realllly behind on my Italian horror viewing and assumed I had not one but two Fulci classics to catch up on. Imagine, then, my pleasure at realizing I was actually killing two birdemics with one stone.

Quick Plot: When I’m talking about Fulci films, this is usually the part where I excuse myself to giggle for a few minutes. 

Deep breath...

Okay. A priest hangs himself in the town of Dunwich, a New England (sure) hamlet with a history of witch persecution. Meanwhile, somewhere else, a psychic named Mary (Fulci regular Catriona MacColl, or, as the opening credits here claim, Katriona Mac Call) dies during a seance just after discovering the titular (depending on your cut) Gates of Hell have now been opened in Dunwich, rendering all the dead into teleporting zombies. 

Meanwhile, a gravely reporter named Peter (Christopher George, he of Graduation Day ) becomes interested in Mary’s death and visits her freshly dug (and not covered) grave. This is quite good for Mary, since she’s actually alive (no reason ever really given for how that got by the doctors) and saved by the even more curious Peter. Despite the whole being buried alive thing, Mary recovers quick enough to insist on heading to Dunwich in order to save the world. Somehow.

That’s kind of City of the Living Dead, just with a lot of creatively rendered and caused gore tossed in. As we can expect from a Fulci film, great things happen, like a girl calmly vomiting up her internal organs and a young man having his head drilled in one end and out the other. There’s also a whole lot of nonsensical dialogue, extreme closeups on actors’ eyes, and a story that never quite communicates its urgency. 

At the same time, City of the Living Dead is far more linear than something like The Beyond . The plot makes some sense, but in typical Fulci fashion, the audience is less concerned about the details of the climax than they are with ensuring said climax is filled with gooey Italian carnage. It is.

High Points

You can’t fault the gore, which looks as icky as you’d expect and hope for in a Fulci film

Low Points

So this is the second movie that involves a character named Emily dying a horrible death. Were Fulci still alive, I’d make it a point of never pissing him off

Lessons Learned

Union rules for grave diggers are quite strict

In some forms of therapy, it’s perfectly okay for the psychologist’s girlfriend to barge into a private session and discuss a canceled date in front of the stressed out patient slowly coming to terms with her incestuous urges

New England is the foggiest place on earth

Rent/Bury/Buy

I streamed City of the Living Dead on Netflix which was probably enough for a casual Italian horror enthusiast such as myself. The film has recently received the fully featured Blu Ray treatment, so those with a serious Fulci fetish will probably be happy with a buy. Like The Beyond, this is certainly rewatchable in a background kind of way, particularly since the story makes such little sense that it won’t necessarily merit your full attention. It’s definitely worth a watch, particularly if you’re a completist. Not great by any means, but passable entertainment at its gooiest.