Maniac

Plot synopsis:
Shot entirely from the lead character's point-of-view, Frank Zito (Elijah Wood) is a mentally disturbed young man who has taken over his family's mannequin sales business after the recent death of his mother Angela (America Olivo), who also moonlighted as a prostitute. Frank has frequent childhood flashbacks of seeing his mother bring home clients or being taken out with her to turn tricks. This has left Frank unable to enter into meaningful relationships with women, and his sexual impulses tend to manifest themselves as violent urges that Frank externalizes as his mother's will. Struggling to come to grips with his mother's mistreatment and abuse of him, and spurred by memories of his mother brushing her long black hair before going out at night, Frank stalks, murders, and scalps a young street walker one night, attaching her hair to a mannequin that he then keeps in his bedroom.Attempting to enter into a normal relationship with a woman, Frank joins an online dating site, where he befriends a local girl named Lucie (Megan M. Duffy). The two eventually meet for what turns out to be a successful date. The pair return to Lucie's apartment, where she attempts to seduce the virginal Frank. However, Frank, feeling overwhelmed by homicidal impulses, insists that he likes Lucie and that he must leave before something bad happens. Lucie, mistaking Frank's panic for nervousness, becomes sexually aggressive and begins performing fellatio. Though he attempts to control himself, Frank eventually strangles her with his bare hands and then scalps Lucie. Frank takes her hair back to his apartment, where he attaches it to another mannequin.One morning, Frank awakens to find a young woman named Anna (Nora Arnezeder) taking photos of the mannequins in his storefront. Frank invites her into his store, where she becomes taken with his work restoring antique department store mannequins. The two develop a friendship, with Frank agreeing to help Anna put together an art exhibit using his mannequins. As the two spend more time together, Frank begins to fall in love with Anna, and becomes more aggressive about trying to control his urges to kill, attempting to take pharmaceuticals to quiet his impulses. Nonetheless, one night he follows a woman home from her dance studio and stabs her to death in a garage parking lot. Once again, he scalps her and attaches her hair to a mannequin in his bedroom.As the date of the exhibit opening approaches, Frank learns that Anna has a boyfriend, sending him into a jealous and emotional tailspin. At the opening of the exhibit, Frank meets Anna's boyfriend, Jason (Sammi Rotibi), in which both men take an instant disliking to each other. Frank also meets Anna's mentor, art director Rita (Jan Broberg), an older woman who encourages Anna to leave Los Angeles to seek more opportunities back in Europe. In a drunken state, Rita later mocks Frank, first sexually propositioning him and then accusing him of being a homosexual and teasing him for his interest in mannequins.After the exhibition, Frank follows Rita home, subduing her in her bathtub and then hog-tying her on her bed. Frank begins addressing Rita as his mother, expressing his rage for her treatment of him and articulating his feelings of being unloved, unwanted, and abandoned. Remembering a night he begged his mother to stay at home with him, only to be left alone while she went out to prostitute herself, Frank flies into a rage and scalps Rita while she is still alive (very gory and disturbing scene).Several nights later, Frank calls Anna, who tearfully tells him of Rita's murder and of a fight she had with Jason, resulting in their breakup. Frank comes to Anna's apartment, where his attempts to comfort her lead to them nearly having sex. Anna expresses feelings of guilt for Rita having been murdered following her show, which Frank dismisses by saying that Rita lived nearby and that she knew the risks of her own neighborhood. Anna immediately becomes suspicious that Frank knows where Rita lived. Attempting to cover for himself, Frank inadvertently lets slip further details of Rita's apartment, and Anna comes to realize that Frank is her murderer. The two fight, with Anna stabbing Frank through the hand with a butcher knife before locking herself in her bedroom. Anna's neighbor, Martin (Joshua De La Garza), after hearing the commotion, breaks into the apartment to save her, only for Frank to maim him with a meat cleaver. Martin gets back up only to be knocked back down again and killed. Breaking down Anna's bathroom door, Frank puts her into a choke hold and knocks her unconscious.At his apartment, Frank attempts to remove Anna from the back of his car. When she regaines consciousness, Anna ambushes Frank and stabs him in the stomach with a piece of rebar attached to a mannequin hand Frank had stored in his back seat. Anna flees down the road and is picked up by a passing pedestrian, who panics at the sight of Frank and runs him down in his car. In the process of hitting Frank, the driver loses control and crashes into a bridge gate, flinging Anna through the windshield. A bloodied Frank hobbles to the mortally wounded Anna and gorly scalps her as she dies.Frank returns to his apartment, attaching Anna's hair to a mannequin dressed in a bridal gown. In great pain from his injuries, Frank collapses on his bed and suffers hallucinations of the mannequins transforming into his victims and tearing his body apart, finally ripping off his face to reveal a mannequin head. Before he dies, Frank sees Anna (clad in a wedding dress) lower her veil and turn her back on him.Later that day, a police SWAT team breaks into Frank's apartment and finds him dead in his closet.

Tags: murder, violence, flashback, insanity, romantic, sadist

Review:
The Maniac remake is a really good movie and better than its predecessor, which was more notable for its Tom Savini gore effects and unconventional leading man than for actually being a good movie.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.
Instead of offering redemption, the burgeoning relationship only makes him more unstable.The murders are bloody and brilliantly shot and they're made dramatically more by disturbing the film's central gimmick, almost the entire movie is presented from the killer's POV.The new Maniac does a solid job of capturing the grind-house spirit of the original film.
I had no idea what to expect from 'Maniac' i had never seen or heard of the original movie, i came across this remake whilst checking out other users watch lists and the title alone had my interest.Honestly though i had my doubts about this movie because when i see Elijah Wood i instantly think of Lord of The Rings i was intrigued to see if he could pull off the role of a psychopathic killer.So what did i think?Epic!
Firstly the music throughout the movie is awesome, there are moments when the soundtrack sounds like something from 'A Clockwork Orange' its dark and really creates an atmosphere of sinisterness.Elijah Wood is perfect for this role his voice and delivery of the script is great.
The movie is shot from the killers 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.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.If you like psycho movies and brutal gore then you'll love this movie like i did.'Maniac' is easily one of my favorite psycho killer movies of all time, my girlfriend (who actually loves horror and can handle gore) has vowed never to watch 'Maniac' again because it made her feel so uncomfortable...
This new version follows exactly the same story (right down to the horrific nightmare climax) with 'improved' CGI gore effects over the original, although I have to say they're nowhere near the quality of the much-remembered Tom Savini prosthetic effects work.In any case, this is an incredibly dark odyssey of murder and madness.
There's plenty of reason to watch, not least Elijah Wood who makes a good psychopath (as he did in SIN CITY); the whole film is shot through the killer's point of view which gives things an edgy, fresh feel.
Elijah wood is outstanding as the loner with a dark secret.Another plus would have to be how the director gives it a very 80's look and feel without ever misleading us from the fact that it is a very modern day story.Ultimately, although the direction by a Frenchman has its obvious advantages it remains a Hollywood movie.
First off, I've got to make point that hearing Elijah Wood was gonna be stepping in to the socially awkward, and mentally disturbing shoes of Joe Spinell, I was immediately worried, but it is with great pleasure I can say that Elijah Wood embodies MANIAC through the movie.The movie begins establishing how unsettling this movies going to be by showing us the killer's (Wood) P.O.V. which is how 90% of the movie is shot.
Following the kills, you can be sure that IFC isn't gonna short you on the gore and by God they don't not even 10 minutes in you are treated to a brutal bloody, disturbing scalp removal of a beautiful young woman, which is one of many in the film.
Good film-making requires much more than that.Elijah Wood as Frank is a true testament to modern filmmaking- Use a pretty face on a killer to create irony OR to cash in on that actor's name value.
Regardless, reviews do not make a movie good, so I'm hoping that as the film becomes more commercially available, the true face of this film will come through from the new reviews...or maybe not.I was once at a screening of the original Maniac in NYC at the Sunshine Theater, of which William Lustig was attending to do a Q and A (he only lives blocks away from the theater).
As the trend goes these days, it was always destined for a remake, and this 2012 update from director Franck Khalfoun and producer Alexandre Aja at least attempts to be its own movie by making the risky decisions of shooting the entire thing POV style from the psychopath's perspective, and in casting baby- faced nice guy Elijah Wood as the titular maniac.Frank Zito (Wood) is a mannequin restorer living a reclusive lifestyle in his dingy store.
Although in the original Joe Spinell, plays Frank with a more repulsive edge, Elijah gives a surprisingly good comparison, he embodies the creepiness, and his baby-face of 'innocence' creates a new element within the role.Full review at the horrortrunk website..
Maniac imagines that it is artful by presenting much of the action in the second person (we are looking at scenes directly from the camera's POV) and by filming long driving cityscape sequences like the ones used in Drive and Taxi Driver.
Review: This movie seemed like a cheap horror which was mostly filmed through the eyes of a serial killer who definitely has some issues.
I don't think that Elijah Wood was the perfect choice for this role and I didn't like way that the movie was filmed through the killers eyes.
You do end up sticking with the movie to see what exactly happens to Elijah Woods character, but as I'm not a big fan of horrors, its not a film that I will be watching again in a hurry.
There is really no point to this useless movie, and follows a trend with most of these modern day horror remakes like -Evil Dead, Friday The 13th, Dawn Of The Dead,My Bloody Valentine, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Nightmare On Elm Street,Halloween, NONE of them were good.
P: Homicidal maniac (Wood) who works in mannequin restoration by day, kills & scalps women by night.I'm going to be perfectly honest, I strongly dislike the original 1980 version of Maniac.
While Elijah Wood's face is often obscured due to the way the film is shot, the film also benefits greatly from his casting as, with big blue eyes and milquetoast mannerisms, he seems like anything but your average serial killer.
Elijah Wood plays Frank, a mannequin shop owner by day and serial killer by night, who falls for a young artist named Anna in this remake of the 80's slasher flick, Maniac.
While the original The Hills Have Eyes will always be a classic early Wes Craven film, the 2006 remake took not only the story, but the entire genre to an all-new extreme level of horror.
Left severely messed in the head by his mother's questionable parenting, antique mannequin restorer Frank Zito (Elijah Wood) longs to form a loving relationship with a woman but finds his urge to brutally kill and scalp the dirty whores something of a hindrance.Even though this remake didn't impress me to quite the degree I had hoped it would (my expectations were running EXTREMELY high; I wanted it to be flawless), I cannot help but admire all involved for taking such a gutsy approach with such an unlikely project: not only does the film turn Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) into a mentally deranged killer, but it does so with plenty of style and an eagerness to offend.
Director Franck Khalfoun (P2) certainly goes all out to shock, using a POV technique that allows the viewer to 'become' the maniac (a risky move that positively invites criticism from the pro-censorship lobby) while having his star perform some unspeakably vile acts that, although unlikely to do lasting damage to Wood's career, probably won't impress the majority of his female admirers very much.Rather unsurprisingly, my main issues with the film do not stem from the excessively brutal violence and misogyny—I actually would have liked it to have been even more mean-spirited (they should definitely have squeezed in a shotgun blast to the head to keep fans of the original happy).
Where I found myself struggling the most was with Nora Arnezeder as Anna, the girl who befriends Frank, who I found to be rather irritating (she's no Caroline Munro, that's for sure!), and the clumsy handling of the scene in which Anna realises that her new friend is the killer, the girl coming to her shocking conclusion far too easily thereby robbing a pivotal moment of much of its tension.That said, I still consider Maniac to be one of the more impressive horror remakes of the past few years, a beautifully shot, impeccably scored, and undeniably unsettling study of a deeply disturbed individual that should be welcomed by anyone who enjoys their cinema to take a few risks..
One morning, he finds photographer Anna (Nora Arnezeder) taking photos of his mannequins outside his store, and goes on to develop a fairly normal relationship with her, but it's only a matter of time before she discovers his true evil nature.As though terrified his image will become incarnate in people's minds as squeaky clean, righteous Frodo Baggins from The Lord of the Rings, Elijah Wood here tries to foist his talents in to far more darker, twisted territory.
Trying to be edgy and creative by filming the whole events from the eyes of the killer, Maniac is instead simply an unpleasant waste of time, serving no purpose other than to take the viewer on a gratuitously stomach churning, off putting ride with no real artistic value beyond gruesome voyeurism.As well as thinking it's so clever with it's off the wall approach to the viewing experience, the film is no better at trying to drop subtle references to other, far superior films, to wit not ten minutes in to a film about a serial killer, a scene featuring the song Good-bye Horses by Q.
Lazzurus (and funnily enough, I'd only watched The Silence of the Lambs again the night before!) But where it's at it's most grating is with it's relentlessly pretentious, wannabe Art-house feel, desperately trying to re-create the style of the film Drive from a few years ago, but evoking no greater result.With it's obviously limited budget and see through production values, Maniac obviously sees itself as high art in at least some way, but it seems less interested in steering itself in this direction than in callously, gruesomely aiming for the lowest common denominator, and coming off as a sickening, disheartening waste of time as a result.
The women he meets he can't help murder.A remake of William Lustig's 1980s cult horror Maniac the 2013 incarnation from director Franck Khalfoun is graphic, mesmerizing and haunting.Playing against typecast Elijah Wood is Frank, we see very little of him on screen mostly via reflections, flashbacks, photographs and so on.
'MANIAC': Four and a Half Stars (Out of Five) Remake of the 1980 cult classic slasher film, of the same name, which was directed by William Lustig and starred (and co-written by) Joe Spinell as a psychopath, named Frank, who stalked and killed women in NYC (and collected their scalps as trophies).
This remake takes a slightly different approach by casting the much smaller and more timid seeming Elijah Wood as Frank (as opposed to the more hulking Spinell) and plays out the entire film in a POV perspective (only showing Wood in reflections).
This version is an instant horror classic, just like the original, and is actually superior (to the first film) in almost every way.Frank Zito (Wood) is a young mentally disturbed man with mother issues, due to the fact that his mom (Olivo) used to prostitute for a living and perform her business in front of him.
His love for her continues to grow as he keeps killing other women and the possibility of rejection could push him even further into madness.Elijah Wood makes the perfect psychopathic killer in my opinion (rivaling the likes of Anthony Perkins in 'PSYCHO').
It's not even fun to watch as just as a straight up murder spree type film cause of the sh!tty forced story between Elijah Wood and the random @ss girl he falls in love with that takes up too much time.
In what is probably the sickest movie I've seen since A Serbian Film, Elijah Wood gives a haunting and tortured performance as a mannequin-loving serial killer with mommy issues.
It is a noted improvement over the 1980 original, but the film's main innovation, viewing almost everything through the killer's eyes, takes it past being a voyeuristic experience and makes the viewer essentially a participant in the brutal acts portrayed on screen.
He's convincing and appears appropriately disturbed throughout the grisly goings-on.Not a feel-good film, Maniac (2012) is a movie that's difficult to love as it's a cold ride.
"Maniac" is yet another remake of an 80's gem and so instead of comparing this to the original, which by now is just boring, I've decided to review this as a standalone movie in its own right.Well firstly I must say that this movie is totally sick and twisted feature that has a more artistic feel than the usual fodder that comes out these days, here we have a young man named Frank played brilliantly by Ellijah Wood who is a tortured soul and haunted by the death of his mother, works at restoring mannequins by decorating with women's scalps, as by night he stalks and murders young women in the most gruesome fashion.Okay the point of view shots isn't entirely original, a concept that mirrors (Peeping Tom), but it does convey good structure, but personally I did find it rather annoying at times, and the only time we get to see his face is when he's butchering women, and I do understand what this movie was going for in that sense allowing us to feel what he's feeling and sit through each terrifying emotion never knowing what's he gonna do next.
Based on an an earlier film of the same name, Maniac tells the story of Frank (played brilliantly by Elijah Wood), a mannequin restorer who is also a psychotic serial killer who likes to scalp his female victims.
There are also some scenes who was shot in a third-person view and it was also nothing short of amazing.Direction: This is the second film that I've watched from Franck Khalfoun and the first one being 'P2' and while I think that that was a creative horror, it just kinda sucked.
Now I liked how he did the pacing in this movie because it didn't felt boring, in fact I thought it went by pretty fast, but my gripe here is the director lacks the depth of telling a wonderful story.Overall: 'Maniac' is probably not the horror film you will expect it to be but it is a very effective thriller with a terrifying performance from the lead which showcases more from the actor.
The acting was better then I thought it be, I thought Elijah Wood Great Job playing Psychos, he was very believe-able ans creepy in this movie, yet I do think it was to young to play this role, he still did great Job but still not as good as Late Joe Spinell who a lot more psycho mad.I was little disappointed with the gore-wise in this movie, not much until near the ending scenes of the movie, which I thought decent but again not as gory as Original or as fun.
For most of it, we experience the film through the eyes of Frank, the protagonist and who we can also consider as the antagonist.The first person perspective makes the viewer feel as if he is the killer, yet he has no choice in what would happen.
I know a lot of people are admiring this remake and the fact that you view the movie through the psychopath's eyes and everything you see is from his POV but for me, the stylistic manner in which the film was presented was a bit of a miss.Frank, our main character who also happens to be a schizophrenic serial killer in his spare time, is the withdrawn owner of a mannequin store, but his life changes when young artist Anna appears asking for his help with her new exhibition.
On a horror movie scale, sure it's worth one watch because its definitely got some good things, and perhaps the discomfort of being inside Frank's POV was how it was meant to be but for me the problem was the clichéd serial killer thoughts and character and back story.
The difference is that Maniac 2012 was shot almost entirely from point of view of the Frank, the lead character who also happens to be the psychopathic killer.While I am usually not huge fan of P.O.V. movies, I think this was an rather interesting take on the genre.
What I can do is give you an honest review of the film without having any preconceptions , positive or negative from the original.Wood plays Frank, a mannequin shop owner who has serious mental health issues, the movie is shot in the first person through the eyes of Frank and you only get to see him in reflections or photographs, on the whole this works reasonably well.