Maniac

Description from Netflix:

In this high-gloss update of a 1980 slasher flick, Elijah Wood stars as Frank, a mannequin store owner who develops an unsatiable lust for blood when he becomes obsessed with a young artist who turns to him for help with her latest exhibit.

Notable actors: Elijah Wood, America Olivio

You can read my review of the original version here.

My thoughts:

One minor point to nitpick in that description.  Frank did not suddenly develop “an unsatiable lust for blood” when Anna comes into the picture.  We saw him kill at least one woman before he meets Anna.  If anything, Anna makes Frank try to fight his psychopathic tendencies.

Aside from two small scenes (as well as a few flashbacks), the entire film is told through Frank’s POV.  When I first heard about it, it seemed a little gimmicky.  An easy way to generate some press.  The cynic in me immediately saw a cash grab.  “Look!  You see everything through the eyes of the killer!  Give us your money!”

Thankfully, that was not the case.  The use of POV was amazing, and Wood did a great job at playing the Frank character in such a way as to convey his overwhelming psychosis without having to see him.  We were treated to scenes that showed what was going on in his head that drove him to kill.  We hear his heavy breathing when he’s stalking his prey.  We are not the killer, but we see everything from his perspective.  I don’t know that we necessarily sympathize with him, but we can definitely see why he does what he does.

To me, one of the most telling scenes comes after a kill, when Frank catches a glimpse of himself in a mirror.  He has just finished murdering and scalping a girl he took on a date.  He sees himself in the mirror, and begins to vomit.  In build-up to that scene, we see why he kills (a deep-seated psychosis brought on by his mother).  But in that scene, we see that his actions sicken him.  He does not want to kill, but he is driven to kill.  He hates himself for it, and he can’t stand the sight of himself after committing such a vile act.  He knows he’s a monster, but he can’t help it.  It’s a terrific scene, and it wouldn’t have been nearly as impactful if the film wasn’t told through the eyes of Frank.

Elijah Wood is the obvious stand-out here.  After all, it’s not easy to command a movie when you’re rarely seen, but he does a tremendous job here.  You can hear the crazy in his voice.  When you catch a glimpse in the mirror, you can see the crazy in his eyes.  And yet, behind the crazy is a tenderness.  A sense of longing.  A need to belong in a world that he no longer can find his place in.  It’s an amazing performance.

But he’s not the only one who turns in a great performance.  Nora Arnezeder (Anna) is perfect.  She’s able to see through Frank’s craziness and appreciate the person he wishes he were all the time.  Through her interactions with Frank, we see how hard he tries to fight his compulsion to kill.  She’s an extremely important character, and Arnezeder kills the role.

Really, I could talk this way about every actor in the film.  Everyone was fantastic.  There wasn’t a weak link in the cast.

The film looked great.  Where the original was a dirty, grimy film, this one felt very sleek, and the pulsing, electronic soundtrack only added to that feeling.  It reminded me of Drive.  But with more scalping.  (Although with less elevator head-stomping, which I felt was odd.)

If I have any problems with this movie, it’s that there were a few scenes that were a bit hard to follow.  But I think that’s less a problem with the narrative structure and more because we’re seeing the events of the film through the eyes of a psychopath.  As a general rule, a madman is not the most reliable storyteller.

Overall, I really loved this film.  There weren’t really any jump scares, but more of an overwhelming, suffocating dread that didn’t let up for the entire film.  It was an expertly crafted film with some tremendous performances.  As of right now, this is in my top-three horror films of the year (along with Mama and Evil Dead).

One final note: there’s a terrific scene after a kill where Frank catches a reflection of himself in a car door, holding a scalp.  It’s a terrific homage to the poster for the original.  I really loved seeing it in there.  It showed the love and respect this director had for the original, while still being able to remake it in his own style.

Rating: 5/5

Maniac

I usually hear this movie mentioned in the same breath as Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.  I don’t think that I necessarily enjoyed Henry, but it was a good movie.  So I thought I would give this one a shot.

After watching it, I can see why they’re mentioned together.  They both had the same feel to them: less scary and more unnerving.  More like a documentary than a normal horror movie.  They both are extremely raw, and unsettling with their intimate brutality.

The story is simple: Frank Zito is a lonely man.  His mother was a prostitute, and she abused him.  She died in a car wreck years ago, but he has never been able to escape her grip on his life.  So he kills women, scalps them, and puts them on his ever-increasing collection of mannequins in his small apartment.  He keeps one mannequin in his bed, who he talks to as if she was his mother.  When he tires of that particular mannequin, he kills another woman, scalps her, and puts her hair on another mannequin.

Eventually, he meets Anna, a photographer.  They go on a couple of dates for some reason (they don’t really talk about why she has agreed to go on these dates).  He meets some of her friends at a photo shoot, and he kills one of them.  Because that’s what he does.

The love story element of this movie bothered me quite a bit.  It felt extremely forced (the love story element of Henry, on the other hand, felt very real and organic), which hurt the movie.  It’s a complex movie, with a complex lead character, which made the love story seem even more ridiculous.  It’s like they shoehorned this storyline into an otherwise well thought-out and realized story.  I don’t understand it at all.

I also had a major problem with the ending.  [SPOILER ALERT…even though this movie came out in 1980]  Frank had gone on a killing spree spanning a few days and several bodies.  He terrified an entire city.  And yet, when the police are finally tipped-off, they send two cops to his apartment (one of whom appears to be comfortably in his 60s).  They bust in the door, and find him on his bed, stabbed through the stomach by a sword.  Instead of checking his pulse, they shrug their shoulders and leave.  When Frank opens his eyes at the end, instead of being shocked, I was just mad at the ineptness of the police.  [END SPOILER]

There was one scene that was more popular than others, so I would be remiss not to mention it.  That scene would be when a character referred to as “Disco Boy” on IMDB (played by special effects wizard Tom Savini) has his head blown off by a 12 gauge shotgun at close range.  It was glorious: insane, brutal, and very realistic (Savini served in Vietnam and used his experience there to create as accurate a depiction as possible).  It was pretty shocking, even though I knew it was coming.

It wasn’t an amazing movie, but it was really good.  Like Henry, I can’t say that I enjoyed it, but I’m glad I watched it.  Again, it was in the same vein as Henry (Maniac came out 6 years prior to Henry), but it wasn’t nearly as good.  So I guess I would say, “If you can only watch one serial killer movie that makes you feel pretty dirty, make it Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.  But, if you have the stomach to watch two, make the other one Maniac.”  Still, it was very well done, and extremely well-acted (after seeing Joe Spinell in this movie, I’ll never watch Rocky the same way again).  It was pretty disturbing and very unsettling.

Notable actors: Joe Spinell, Tom Savini

Rating: 3.5/5