Back in
1980, William Lustig’s “Maniac” became one of the original and notorious video
nasties. It was a really dirty, scummy
and disgusting film with some incredible gore scenes from the master of
effects, Tom Savini. Definitely a
product of its time, it has never been one of my real favourites, but it is
alright and it succeeds in what it sets out to do. With the remake craze still going strong
these days, I was still surprised by the fact that “Maniac” was going to be
remade. It isn’t as if people were screaming
for a new version of the film, but upon thinking about it some more, I think
that it is actually a perfect candidate for a remake. It isn’t a terribly well known film (except
amongst horror fans) and it isn’t what you would call a classic, so there is
room for improvement here. When I heard
that Alexandre Aja and Gregory Levasseur were involved in writing the
screenplay, it piqued my interest a little bit because they have had great
success with remakes of both “The Hills Have Eyes” and “Piranha” (both of which
Aja directed himself), however once I heard that Franck Khalfoun was tapped to
direct the project, my hopes faded for “Maniac”. Khalfoun’s previous film, “P2”, was a
terrible and bland horror film that I did not like at all. Then the news of Elijah Wood’s casting in the
main role of the maniac was announced and I thought that it was a stroke of
genius. Anyone who has seen the original
“Maniac” knows that Joe Spinell owned that role, he completely embodied it, and
for any actor to try and replicate exactly what Spinell did was destined to
fail. That is why I thought the against-type
casting of Wood was perfect because no-one would be expecting it and it would
automatically make it a different film from the original. Ironically, though, it is the casting of
Elijah Wood that ultimately hurts the remake of “Maniac”.
The
remake stays pretty close to the original and is about a guy named Frank Zito
(Wood) who works in the restoration of vintage mannequins. Frank also has a bad habit of murdering and
scalping beautiful young women in his time off, and then attaching their
removed hair to his mannequins in his bedroom.
Obviously Frank is a very sick boy and has a lot of mummy issues he is
dealing with which started when he was just a kid and had to witness his
mother’s constant sexual exploits. The
girls he stalks and kills all remind him of his mother in one way or
another. Frank appears unable to control
his murderous urges at all, so when a young woman named Anna (Nora Arnezeder)
comes into his store to photograph his mannequins and the two end up becoming
friends, will he be able to stop himself from delivering the same fate all of
the women that enter his life suffer?
I was so
surprised by just how great “Maniac” turned out to be, I seriously liked this
film. Right from the opening frame, the
grimy and dirty atmosphere that Khalfoun created just seemed perfect. The entire story is demented, but in a good
way, and I especially loved all the images of the bloody mannequins that come
to life (in Frank’s mind) once he places the scalped hair on to them. Just seeing Frodo lying in a room full of
bloodied mannequins all around him, complete with flies buzzing around the
scalps, was something pretty special.
The
practical gore effects (with some minor CGI tweaking) from KNB were probably
the best I had seen in a horror film all year.
The scalpings all look incredibly real and painful, not to mention
bloody, and there is an absolutely brutal Achilles tendon slash that takes
place in a car park that could be the film’s highlight. Another moment of full on gore that made us
horror fans cheer was a butcher’s cleaver being violently pounded into a poor
guy’s open mouth. The suspense that is
coupled with these gore scenes is actually really well done which makes the
violent payoffs all the more satisfying.
In fact the inaugural murder of “Maniac” is so good that it rivals some
of Dario Argento’s work back when he was still in his prime.
Contributing
to the 1980’s atmosphere of the film (even though “Maniac” is set in the
present) is a truly fantastic electronic score by somebody or some band
credited as just “Rob” that is reminiscent of those great John Carpenter scores
of that era. As soon as the music kicked
in for the first time, my heart started pumping, I was just with “Maniac” and I
knew that the filmmakers got the film.
However
for a film that I love so much, “Maniac” has one of the biggest flaws in it
that had the potential to destroy the whole film. The giant miscalculation is
from director Franck Khalfoun who decided to shoot the entirety of the film
from Frank’s eyes. Therefore every
camera movement is meant to represent the eyes of a killer. The problem with this visual gimmick is that
it is actually very hard to pull off properly and make it interesting, as well
as make it feel real. My main problem
with it isn’t actually the camera work, as this is done pretty well, it is the
other decisions it forces onto the film that causes it some problems. Because of the fact they have hired a name
actor in Elijah Wood in the role of Franck, there is a need to show him on
screen regularly which is a problem if the film is meant to be seen through his
eyes. To rectify this, Frank is forever
passing by and looking into mirrors and any reflective surface he can find,
just so we get glimpses of Wood, however it always feels forced and never
organic to the scene. It also reeks of
showing off on behalf of the filmmakers too.
A couple of times Khalfoun also cheats with the style by slowly zooming
in on objects which is something the human eye does not do, and even a couple
of the murder scenes he abandons the point of view style altogether so we
witness Elijah Wood actually performing the brutal crime (however because I
assume it is as if he is having an outer body experience when he kills, I
didn’t mind these cheats as much). The
other problem that the point of view style causes is that all of Wood’s line
readings are done off camera and it has definitely affected his performance
because he sounds terrible. It just
isn’t a natural performance at all, his delivery sounds stilted and forced.
It is
amazing how much I still loved “Maniac” even with this (in my opinion) massive
flaw. It was mean, bloody, nasty,
politically incorrect and it had a creepy atmosphere to it all. I keep thinking that it could’ve been a horror
classic if Khalfoun had just done a normal or straight adaptation, although as
it is, it is already a bloody good film.
I must reiterate that “Maniac” is incredibly bloody and gory, so buyer
beware. My lovely wife, who
unfortunately for her saw “Maniac” with me, watched the majority of the film
with her hands over her eyes and she says it has scarred her for life. For me though, it was like horror candy, and
was a rare horror remake that actually worked.
4 Stars.
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