BURIAL

Modern America is in peril of being sucked down the spiritual drain by dead, angry Indians in this follow-up to Manitou and Revenge of the Manitou (both not reviewed). In the Greenbergs' Manhattan apartment, a hunched-up shadow appears on the wall and tears a humanlike shadow to pieces, while in other parts of America houses, cars, Kentucky Fried Chicken cartons, human corpses, and the Sears Tower are dragged into gaping holes. Thus commences the vengeance of Misquamacus, a Native American spirit who wants to reclaim his land by sucking everything the white man ever built or brought into a shadow world below the earth. There, Aktunowihio, the god of the underworld, will tear the bodies and souls of all white men and women to pieces, so that they will be tortured forever. Harry Erskine, the charlatan fortune teller and reluctant hero who battled and defeated Misquamacus earlier in the series, is drawn into the current battle when he witnesses the spirit manifest himself in the body of a medium with a Central Park West practice, hurl his fist down Mrs. Greenberg's throat and wiggle it through her innards until it emerges out of her vagina, then reverse the process, bringing her insides with it. The skeptical Harry quickly combines the talents of mediums, Indians, and spirits of the dead -- including Singing Rock, who was beheaded earlier in the series -- to bring the horror to a rapid and dull conclusion. Masterton is a good storyteller, but he exploits revisionist Native American history to detail unrelenting violence. The absurdity of disgorged intestines and forked-out eyeballs panders to juvenile tastes for blood and guts and precludes any possibility of inducing spine-tingling fear. Should Indian spirits ever really take their revenge, with any luck the sinkhole will open under Burial and send it where it belongs.