MANHATTAN BABY

(a.k.a. THE POSSESSED; EYE OF THE EVIL DEAD; IL MALOCCHIO; EVIL EYE)

While in Egypt with her parents, Susie is approached by an old hag who gives her a necklace with a pendant in the shape of an eye. Before vanishing, the hag warns Susie (Brigitta Boccoli) that "tombs are for the dead".

Coincidentally, Susie's dad - professor George Harker (Christopher Connelly) - is there to explore the crypts of the pyramids. The particular pyramid he's chosen to break into is one that the locals fear is cursed. But George investigates it's tomb regardless - which results in one of his assistants getting impaled on huge spikes, and George being blinded by flashing blue lasers that shoot out of an eye-shaped sculpture inside the pyramid.

George returns home to New York with young Susie and his pretty wife Emily (Martha Taylor), where the family is completed by Susie's younger brother Tommy (Giovanni Frezza), who stayed behind with a relative. It's clear from the offset that the siblings do not get along.

George visits his optician who tells him he should regain his sight within a year if he keeps bandages taped over his eyes (though why he needs to wear his glasses over the bandages is beyond me!).

As George struggles to cope with his blindness and Emily returns to her busy job as a journalist, a nanny is hired to take care of the kids - the alluring Jamie Lee (Cinzia de Ponti). But Jamie Lee has her work cut out …

Susie first realises her pendant holds special powers when it enables her to predict an incoming storm. The following morning it opens a doorway into another dimension, which she encourages her annoying little brother to walk through. The kids return to their world later that day, but something seems different about them … they get along!

It takes an age for Emily or George to finally twig that something is indeed amiss in their household (even when Emily's colleague has a singularly unpleasant experience in one of her bedrooms), but when they do, they do what any rational adult would do in such circumstances … and enlist the help of smarmy antiques dealer Adrian (Cosimo Cinieri).

As the above synopsis no doubt illustrates, MANHATTAN BABY is sheer nonsense. The plot is thin at the best of times, and for the most part so here-there-everywhere that it's nigh-on impossible to follow logically. Whereas this nightmarish logic (of there being no logic) worked to great effect in director Lucio Fulci's earlier THE BEYOND, here it just comes across as messily inept.

Speaking of THE BEYOND, MANHATTAN BABY feels like it's been concocted in an attempt to repeat the former's success. It's visual style, it's score (again by Fabio Frizzi, and including music actually lifted from THE BEYOND), and even it's set-pieces - the spiders sequence from THE BEYOND is replaced by a laughable attack by re-animated stuffed birds here - all echo Fulci's earlier masterpiece, but seem clumsy and forgettable in comparison.

But despite the nonsensical plot and the distinct impression that Fulci's trying - and failing - to repeat former glories here, MANHATTAN BABY does have some things going for it.

For a start, the cinematography is at times spectacular. Filmed in glorious widescreen, Fulci makes great use of the luscious Egyptian location, plus the colourful New York exteriors.

The cast are all up for the hammy script, which is delivered with considerable aplomb. Hokum it may well be, but they give their all - the end result is something that may be exceptionally trashy, but at the least is visually attractive and always entertaining.

As for the gore … well, there isn't that much by Fulci's early 1980's standards. Yes, we get impalements, the aforementioned bird attack (hilariously bad) and people falling to their death through the floors of elevators. But none of it registers in the same way as Gianetto De Rossi's FX work did in the justifiably more famous THE BEYOND or ZOMBI 2.

Still, when it comes to delivering all-out weirdness, Fulci doesn't disappoint with rooms filled with sand, scorpions turning up inexplicably and walls that drip with blood.

Shameless have done a great job here. The film is presented fully uncut in it's original 2.35:1 aspect ratio, and is anamorphically enhanced for 16x9 TVs. Images are sharp with vivid well-balanced colours. There's precious little grain evident - an all-round quality transfer. I don't know if this is the same transfer as used on Blue Underground's R1 DVD, as I've not seen that. Either way, this is an excellent job.

The English 2.0 audio is a very loud, clear mix.

Static menu pages include a scene-selection menu allowing access to the main feature via 12 chapters.

The only extra relating to the film is a 3-minute trailer which, like the main feature, is in surprisingly good condition.

We also get trailers for other Shameless titles: FLAVIA THE HERETIC, THE NEW YORK RIPPER, THE BLACK CAT, TORSO, THE FRIGHTENED WOMAN and NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS.

As with other recent Shameless releases, MANHATTAN BABY also benefits from the great idea of double-sided cover artwork. The regular artwork is not a patch on the lovely alternative artwork, which is similar to the US DVD cover.

Another fine release from Shameless It may be one of Fulci's lesser gore films, but is still thoroughly enjoyable all the same.

Review by Stu Willis