Review of Maniac (2012) by Elgan D — 20 Mar 2013

Fancy knowing what it's like to be hanging onto your sanity by an intermittently vanishing thread? Or feeling your skin crawling out of the auditorium and out of the door and you watch through a killer's eyes as he spies, stalks and scalps a young woman on her way home late at night? If so, Frank Khalfoun's savage remake of William Lustig's continually controversial, grubby 1980 slasher movie "Maniac" might just be the film for you.

Filmed almost entirely through the eyes of deranged killer Frank, a mannequin restorer with severe mummy issues and a distinct lack of modern social skills, the film charts a few his life over the course of a few weeks during which he cuts a swathe through the curiously deserted glassy downtown Los Angeles area while striking up a friendship with a beautiful photographer who might just be his salvation.

The conceit of seeing through the eyes of the killer is exceptionally potent, giving access to Frank's haunting memories, his twisted fantasies and his uncontrollable rages. It's tough, and it's unflinching - the kills are first and foremost a hideous in-your-face representation of the murder of one person by another, but also a triumph for KNB and Greg Nicotero's success in replicating the absolutely repulsive seamlessly.

Elijah Wood, also producing, is a world apart from Joe Spinell's greasy, grunting sleaze-bucket, bringing a gaunt, almost sympathetic face that befits a former Hobbit and arguably making his actions all the more horrifying.

"Maniac" isn't for everyone - it's graphic, disturbing and draining, but it's an enormously impressive film and far, far more enthralling than the grubby and plodding original (the poster of which gets a nice nod here).

It's a hell of a ride, but you won't forget it in a hurry.