Maniac 2013

Maniac (2013)

The world wasn't exactly crying out for a remake of 1980's "Maniac". Starring Joe Spinnel and directed by William Lustig, it was one of the most intense, jarring, violent and in your face horror films of the entire decade. I remember buying a copy of Maniac on VHS in an oversized clamshell case just because the artwork was amazing and I just had to see it. The original became one of my favorite 80s horror flick. Then it was remade……. The results are surprisingly close to the original in its refusal to compromise and the highly disturbing and troubling psychological terrain it traverses.

This flick, like the previous Maniac, dispels the idea that psychopaths are cool or bad ass. Here, Frank (Elijah Wood) is a weirdo loner that spends his days restoring antique mannequins and his nights stalking, murdering, and scalping beautiful young women. His grip on reality is so fragile that he has to chug anti-psychotics just to keep his hallucinations under control. Then he meets a pretty young French girl that actually seems to like him. Instead of offering redemption, the budding relationship only makes him more unstable.

I first had doubts about Elijah Wood taking over for Spinnel. Boy was I wrong. Elijah Wood is perfect for this role, his voice and delivery of the script is great. The movie is shot from the killer’s point of view (POV) but the moments when you actually see Elijah Wood he looks perfect for this role, strange, disturbed out of place and mentally unstable. Whether it's the constant disillusioned images he forces on himself, scrubbing his hands with steel wool after a fresh kill, or sharing a bed with a mannequin surrounded by flies due to the rotting scalp stapled to its head, this is not the Wood we know

Firstly the music throughout the movie is awesome, there are moments when the soundtrack sounds like something from 'A Clockwork Orange' it’s dark and really creates an atmosphere of pure sinister. The violence is not excessive in its amount but it is extremely brutal in its detail, it wasn't easy to watch the scalping without cringing and I have a strong threshold for movie gore, this was just brutal and in your face, it was great because very few films get to me in this way.

One thing that stuck out for me, throughout the entire film, is that, this seems to have more of a glossy and clean look compared to the original. Having seen the original Maniac, which was a miserable and grim look into the life of a degenerate murderer who suffered from tremendous neglect as a child, which I thought was quite a relentlessly trashy and outdated film compared to today's standards. It still was entertaining but I honestly thought this was a much superior film by comparison.

8.5/10