qmtv This movie has atmosphere. The story needed work. Acting is fine. Production is good.Good cinematography, and music will raise the ratings on this. The story needed more work. The acting was good. Fx were good. Great set designs. Take a look at the apartment and the antique shop.This is a B movie, the rating is a B – for the story, or 6. 7 given for balance.

squeezebox Lucio Fulci's MANHATTAN BABY isn't a great movie. As is often the case with Fulci's pictures, the acting is wooden and the pace a little slow. But Fulci chooses this time around to de-emphasize the over-the-top gore for which he was infamous and concentrate on atmosphere with generally successful results.An archaeologist is in Egypt doing research. He has brought his wife and daughter along with him on his journey, and they spend their time wandering around the ruins while he digs up ancient artifacts. After falling into a secret tomb (resulting in the impalement death of his guide in one of the movie's few moments of on screen gore), he is rendered blind by a ray of light that comes from a jewel embedded in the wall.Meanwhile, his daughter meets a mysterious old woman who gives her a jewel studded amulet before disappearing into thin air. Back in New York, the girl starts becoming ill and having nightmarish visions. Her creepy little brother seems to take this all in stride, as he himself has had out-of-body experiences which he always thought were just a part of life. It is implied that the reason the girl was chosen as a recipient of the amulet is her and her brother's "sensitivity." Doctors are at a loss as to what is wrong with the girl. Finally, an exorcist explains that she is under the influence of an evil Egyptian demon who has not yet possessed her, but is trying to. He agrees to exorcise the demon from the girl by bringing it into himself, but unlike Father Karras in THE EXORCIST, he may have less than righteous motives for doing so. Unfortunately for him, the demon isn't about to lend itself for his own selfish use and brings his stuffed bird collection to life which tears him to shreds.While there are obvious nods to THE EXORCIST and ROSEMARY'S BABY (the exorcist's name is Adrian Mercato), the movie never really becomes a rip-off, as it takes the borrowed aspects of those previous movies in unexpected directions. There are some ambitious metaphysical plot twists which unfortunately suffer from limited special effects capabilities, a few of which are similar to better-executed sequences in POLTERGEIST (though the movies were released almost simultaneously).The stuffed bird attack at the finale is the movie's gore highlight, and while many viewers have complained about the phoniness of the birds in the scene, I think the sequence works in a surreal, nightmarish way. I love THE BEYOND, but the pipe-cleaner spiders looked ridiculous. Here, the obvious artificiality of the birds makes them that much more creepy.Overall, MANHATTAN BABY is worth a look. I can't bring myself to give it more than a 6 out of 10, but fans of Fulci's work might be interested to see him show off his flair for atmosphere and style instead of gut-munching and eyeball-popping.

Bub_the_zombie Manhattan Baby is Fulci's dive into beautiful imagery. There's some scenes in this one that are genuinely breathtaking.A medallion from an archaeological dig leaves a man blind. And a family falls into jeopardy after their son disappears into thin air, and their daughter is possessed by an ancient demon.If the budget hadn't been cut for the film, I would imagine that this would be Fulci's most memorable film. People would think 'Manhattan Baby' instead of 'Zombie' when they heard the name Lucio Fulci.Most horror fans haven't seen this one. It's true that MB isn't a film that succumbs to everyone's tastes. This is simply because in most Italian films, it's usually style over substance, which in some cases can leave an unseasoned viewer in total awe at the apparent inept plot line before them.In Italian films (especially), you have to pay very close attention to the whole film. Certain plot definers aren't given 'camera-attention' at crucial times at any given time through any given film. in American films, the camera tells the story. The same can be said for Italian cinema, but a lot of times, it's much more subtle in its delivery and can leave one feeling incomplete until they eventually see it again.Anyway, should you watch Manhattan Baby? Sure. I'll recommend it. It's a beautifully shot film with hardly any of that Fulci gore we all expected. It also has a great Gothic score that adds tons of surrealistic atmosphere that pulls you in for the most part.Not a film for everyone, but the guru's of the cinema world will find a lot of redeeming qualities to talk about.

jtk57 We selected "Manhattan Baby" from the movie library last night, and I realized that it was to be probably the 7th time I have watched this rather uncelebrated Fulci offering in the past 5 years. Yes, this movie is a bit formulaic, and yes, it does move a bit slow in parts. But there is something undeniably menacing in this movie, an atmosphere of claustrophobia, the tightness of the endless close-ups of people's faces, that I enjoy and (obviously) come back to again and again. No, this is not a gory movie, which no doubt comes as a surprise (disappointment?) to fans of Fulci's other (mostly excellent) films. Even the death scenes, of which there are only 3 or 4, have minimal blood compared to something like "The Beyond", not that I would recommend this as hearty family fare by any means. But if you enjoy the uniquely "European" dreamlike atmosphere created by a combination of cheesy effects, plot holes, wooden acting, bad dubbing, and inexplicable motivations of characters, this may be one you revisit again, and again and again... you get the idea.