Review of Maniac (2012) by Al M — 03 May 2013

Expletives galore!!! You can imagine them in acronym form or spelled out, but they are there in a torrent of foul language, representing my absolute adoration for the Alexandre Aja (High Tension) produced and written remake of Maniac.

I am an ardent fan of the eponymous William Lustig film from the 80s. Lustig's Manic was a gritty, sleazy, and brutal cult classic, and the remake takes all of that and adds psychological depth and existential horror to the mix.

Coupled with its impressive experiment in first-person cinema (always a gamble), this makes Maniac a testament to the fact that a.) horror cinema can be serious and b.) remakes can be intelligent and original: A film that participates in the great tradition of Hitchcock's Psycho, Maniac explores a damaged young man whose rather Freudian relationship with his deceased mother has caused him to develop an obsessive desire to destroy the opposite sex.

Haunting on a primal level, extremely sad, and thoroughly brutal, this Maniac may not quite outshine Lustig's original in terms of gore and brutality, but it certainly buries it in terms of psychological complexity, emotional depth, and philosophical introspection.