The Manitou w/ Jessica St. Clair

Summary of The Manitou w/ Jessica St. Clair

by Earwolf and Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, Jason Mantzoukas

1h 12m•June 5, 2026
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Overview of The Manitou w/ Jessica St. Clair

In this How Did This Get Made? episode, Paul Scheer, Jason Mantzoukas, and guest Jessica St. Clair dissect the 1978 horror oddity The Manitou, a bizarre, fast-moving, body-horror-heavy film about a woman whose neck tumor is actually the reincarnation of an ancient Native American spirit. The conversation is largely about the movie’s wild tonal choices, weird medical logic, Tony Curtis’s committed but baffling performance, and the film’s unexpectedly fun practical effects.

What Happens in the Movie

The basic premise

  • A woman named Karen develops a strange lump on the back of her neck.
  • Doctors eventually determine it’s not a normal tumor, but something supernatural.
  • Tony Curtis plays a fake psychic/tarot reader who gets pulled into the crisis.
  • A Native American medicine man, John Singing Rock, joins the effort to stop the spirit.

The escalation

  • The movie moves from medical mystery to supernatural horror to full-on absurdity.
  • Karen’s “tumor” grows into a tiny man-like creature.
  • The creature causes chaos, possession, freezing, and surreal effects.
  • The ending turns into a battle involving lasers, fireballs, and a lot of very 1970s visual weirdness.

The Hosts’ Main Takeaways

What they liked

  • The practical effects and body horror are genuinely memorable.
  • The birth/manifestation scenes are grotesque and effective.
  • The old woman levitating/falling down stairs is one of the episode’s favorite moments.
  • Jessica and the hosts appreciate that the movie is at least confidently made, even when it’s completely wrong.

What they mocked

  • The film’s explanation of the supernatural threat is extremely thin.
  • The hospital is full of strange design choices:
    • mustard-yellow lab coats
    • orange shag carpet
    • giant wall-sized computers
  • Characters are introduced and then immediately discarded.
  • Tony Curtis’s character feels like a scammer, a swinger, and a psychic all at once.
  • The movie spends too much time debating whether to remove the tumor and not enough time doing anything interesting.

Recurring Bits and Observations

Tony Curtis as the main attraction

  • The group repeatedly marvels at how hard Tony Curtis commits to the role.
  • They laugh about his:
    • fake mustache
    • robe/kimono look
    • barber chair in his apartment
    • beer in a champagne glass
  • They also repeatedly mention how shocking it is that he was only 52 when the film was released.

Jessica St. Clair’s favorite absurdities

  • She is especially obsessed with Mrs. Hers, the elderly woman whose floating, stair-fall, and levitation scenes are played for maximum weirdness.
  • She also fixates on the movie’s overly colorful, almost surreal hospital design.

The “wet” stuff works best

  • The hosts agree the movie is strongest when it leans into:
    • gooey effects
    • blood
    • hand bites
    • the creature’s grotesque emergence
  • They feel the film would be better if it had more body horror and fewer slow conversations.

Production and Trivia Discussed

Background on the film

  • The movie is based on a popular book.
  • The script was reportedly written in three days.
  • Director William Girdler was known for schlocky genre films and died in a helicopter accident before the movie’s release.
  • The hosts compare the film’s vibe to Exorcist-style horror mixed with 1970s TV-movie energy.

Cultural and historical notes

  • They note the movie’s treatment of Native American spirituality is messy and underdeveloped.
  • The film’s idea of “the Manitou” is tied to actual Algonquin spiritual language, but the movie relocates and distorts the concept.
  • The ending’s “fact” about a similar case in Tokyo is treated skeptically by the panel.

Final Verdict

  • The episode lands on the idea that The Manitou is bad, but entertainingly committed.
  • The hosts think it is:
    • visually interesting
    • bizarrely paced
    • underwritten in terms of story logic
    • very fun to laugh at
  • Their advice is essentially to watch it sped up, then slow down for the best gross-out moments.

Second Opinions Segment

The episode closes with a few listener/Amazon-style reactions:

  • Some viewers call it a skin-crawler and praise its atmosphere.
  • Others simply note that it’s “a frightening movie which stars Tony Curtis.”
  • A few reviews specifically highlight the final look on the creature’s face and the movie’s willingness to leave some things to the imagination.

Overall Impression

This episode is less about defending The Manitou as a good movie and more about appreciating it as a spectacularly strange one. The panel clearly enjoys its outrageous visuals, accidental comedy, and commitment to nonsense, while also pointing out how much better it could have been with tighter plotting and fewer dead-end conversations.