Manhattan Baby (1982)

Manhattan Baby doesn't make a lick of sense, yet remains one of Italian gore maestro Lucio Fulci's more endearing films.  In Egypt, an old witch hands nine year old Suzy Hacker (Brigitta Boccole) a strange amulet.  Suzy's archaelogist father, George (Christopher Connelly) is blinded by blue lasers inside a dusky tomb - whereupon wife Emily (Martha Taylor) brings the family back to New York.  Here, Suzy and kid brother Tommy (Giovanni Frezza - who will forever be Little Bob from The House By the Cemetery (1981)) become unwitting pawns of an ancient Egyptian evil as the Hackers are terrorized by snakes, scorpions, and strange portals to another dimension. 

Explicit gore is restricted to a memorably squishy climax involving marauding (stuffed!) birds, yet the bulk of this weird, hallucinatory chamber piece presents the closest Fulci got to the minimalist wonder of Val Lewton.  Hazy, scope photography soaks up the Egyptian locales and transforms a child's playroom into mystical domain where strange, unsettling fantasies leap upon unsuspecting adults. 

Emily's friend Luke (Carlo De Mejo) and babysitter Jamie Lee (Cinzia De Ponti) are give one-way trips to nowhere.  Tommy intones: "Punish me", and a rotting hand bursts through the bedroom wall.  Connelly and Taylor look lost most of the time as Fulci indulges in joke-names (Jamie Lee, Adrian Marcato) and conjures endearingly old-fashioned horror scenes (creaking doors, creepy crawlies, glowing lights, seeping sands) that evoke childhood terrors.  Manhattan Baby also represents the culmination of his long-running obsession with eyes.  Aside from the trademark eye-ball closeups, they are gouged out and blinded by laser beams.  We have an eye-shaped amulet and a dreamy-eyed performance from Brigitta Boccole, who provides a fine focal point for all the strangeness.  Manhattan Baby won't be to everyone's taste, but there is enough here to engage adventurous fans of Euro-horror.