Review of Maniac (1980) by Lee ? — 18 Apr 2007

A career best performance by Joe Spinell - an actor I only recognized by appearence rather than by name up until I saw this film. He plays the part of "Frank Zito", a disturbed and derranged man, mentally scarred by an abusive upbringing by his mother. He prowls the New York streets seeking out women to kill, scalping them, and bringing back their hair to place upon various mannequins he has placed around his home.

It's quite an effective, shocking and disturbing movie, with plenty of gore, some well shot stalking sequences and a believable psychotic performance by Joe Spinell. It's easy to see why this move gained such a bad rep back in the day, and you'd find difficulty in labelling this film as "Entertainment" with it's indiscriminant acts of violence towards women. But it is a good, and if you can stomach it, watchable horror movie, which has it's memorable scenes. Tom Savini, who also has a brief role in the movie, supplies the films make up effects and produces one of the most disgustingly impressive exploding head scenes I've ever seen! The movie ends strongly too with the films stand-out creepy scene that will stay in the mind for a while afterwards.

In my opinion, it's one of the best Horror movies of the 80's and one of the most disturbing films ever. I'd recommend it to all fans of the 'stalk and slash' genre.