Who payed the critics

How sad is this?

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

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.

For Fulci fans, this may be a bit disappointing considering the pace and the lack of heavy gore, but this is not to say that nothing strange or ominous happens during the course of the film. In fact, i thought some of the random and strange deaths were good payoffs in their own right (i had to rewind a few of them to see if I missed something - turns out i didn't). Manhattan Baby really plays out like a poor sibling to "The Beyond:" an evil curse is unleashed and people start dying in strange, inexplicable ways while story coherence takes a backseat. This movie even features a lot of the same music used in The Beyond, but the similarities don't end there. As is characteristic by Fulci, there is ample coverage of the actor's eyeballs in extreme close-up overused to a comical effect and features its share of poor dialogue, wooden acting and some over-the-top characterization as well. All the same, this was a noble attempt on the part of Fulci and screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti to try something different within the horror genre and not rely so much on the bloodletting. While I wouldn't call this a runaway success, it tends to work on its own terms and is very enjoyable indeed.

Lucio Fulci was a great filmmaker and unquestionably one of the most essential & influential horror directors that ever lived; still not all his movies are masterpieces. This one could be considered as one of his weaker efforts, especially because it got released amidst his most notorious achievements like "The Beyond", "City of the Living Dead" and "New York Ripper". "Manhattan Baby" is slightly more ambitious than we're used to see of Fulci and I'm not quite convinced whether that's a positive change. There are no hideous zombies or sexually perverted killers in this script, only supernatural types of malice and they're not exactly strongest trumps. During a research vacation in Egypt, a New York archaeologist is blinded inside a pyramid whilst a local witch gives his daughter an uncanny medallion. Back in the States, George's blindness only appears to be temporary but the medallion and its evil powers are there to stay! The evil spirit of an ancient Egyptian deity possesses his two children and suddenly there are doors leading to other dimensions, people vanishing inside elevators and ferocious scorpions crawling out of bedside drawers. The plot is incoherent as hell and makes absolutely no sense, like it's some sort of supernatural puzzle nobody expects you to solve. Oh well, senseless or not, Fulci still takes the time to implement his favorite trademarks, like loads of eyeball-terror for example! The very first character to die has his face impaled on stakes, the good old-fashioned Lucio Fulci way! The gory bits, along with the music are the only worthwhile elements in the entire movie. "Manhattan Baby" is slow-paced, poorly edited and just way too confusing.

This is another film that gets down-graded unfairly because of the popular films such as "The Beyond", "Zombi" and "City of the Living Dead". Gorehounds expect--naturally--the same gore-levels as these films, which is also unfair. Besides, it's better to watch a film with no-expectations whatsoever. That-said, "Manhattan Baby" is a unique film for Lucio Fulci, and bears some resemblance to "The Awakening" and even "Rosemary's Baby" (hence-the-title?). The production was troubled by producer-interference in plot-elements, and then a reduction of the budget by 3/4's, dropping it to a cost of $300,000. That Fulci was able to rescue his and co-writer Dardano Sachetti's original-core is amazing, and the film still bears the mark of both creators in a good-sense. There is the continued-theme of the supernatural, and an unsettling-sense that normal "cause-and-effect" has been undermined by the unknown. This is a crucial-link between films such-as "The Beyond" or "City of the Living Dead", but the horror is not metaphysical, but isolated to one-family (then-another...). Much of Fabio Fabrizzi's score is recycled from the "opus" Fulci-films, and there are some new-additions, such as the title-theme which is really seductive and lush. What really throws most Fulci-fans off with this film is the combination of ancient-technology and the supernatural--it is extremely-unique, and I can only recall "Stargate" picking-the-up in later-years. But, I think Fulci explores this concept the best, and even transcends obvious-possibilities. Yes, the children of the archaeologist discover a portal to another-dimension, but it is almost an afterthought beside all the other narrative-subplots he throws-at-us. There actually is a lot of gore in this film! One scene stands-out: the attack of an Occultist by his own stuffed-birds, and boy is it nasty. And so, this is not really a film that can be called purely "horror", nor purely "science-fiction", etc. . It's my guess this is why so-many Fulci-fans and others don't like it--it's not easily-described, or understood. Like Fulci's "The Black Cat" (1981), it deserves reassessment and a better-reputation as a solid story of the fantastic. Check the final-scene, it was copied-by Clive Barker for the frame-piece of "Hellraiser" (1986). The Anchor Bay DVD is great. An entertaining, and bizarre film.