Maniac

Plot synopsis:
Frank Zito (Joe Spinell) is a deranged man that due to his suffering from his abusive mother when he was a child, he becomes a serial killer that murders young women and scalps them to add towards his mannequin collection. After he awakens in his bed screaming and crying from having a nightmare about killing a couple on a beach, he dresses himself and leaves his resided one-room apartment - consisted of paintings, a framed picture of his mother, and a collection of mannequins - towards downtown Manhattan. When Frank is randomly invited inside a hotel by a prostitute (Rita Montone), she kisses with him before he abruptly strangles the woman, then scalps her with a utility razor while on a range of disturbance. He then returns home and adds the hooker to his mannequin collection by placing her clothing and nailing the scalp onto the mannequin; he tells himself in his mind that beauty is a crime punishable by death.
Sometime later, he dresses again and takes a collection of weaponry with him, including a double-barreled shotgun, before leaving. He drives around Brooklyn and the Queens area, where he finds a couple exiting a local disco and parking near the side of the Verrazano Bridge. When the boyfriend (Tom Savini) starts up the vehicle after his date sees Frank spying on them, Frank kills the couple with his shotgun and then adds the murdered woman to his mannequin collection back at his apartment. After seeing his recent crime committed on television, he begins to talk to himself and the mannequins and sobs himself to sleep.
During the next day in Central Park, Frank follows a photographer named Anna (Caroline Munro) after she takes a photo of him and a little girl riding on a bicycle in the distance. At night, Frank sees a nurse (Kelly Piper) leaving the Roosevelt Hospital, where he then stalks her inside a subway station and murders her with a bayonet before adding her to his mannequin collection. Days later, Frank heads to Anna's apartment and is invited inside by Anna after she recognizes him from the photo she took earlier. While on a dinner date, he shows her a photo of his mother who died in a car crash years before. A few days later, Frank is invited by Anna to a studio where she is taking photos of models at a photography session, and she introduces one of her models Rita (Gail Lawrence) to him. After seeing the two talking and holding hands, he steals Rita's necklace left aside and leaves. Later that same night, he arrives at Rita's apartment to give her the necklace, and then later sneaks in, attacks her, and ties her up to her bed. Frank begins disorientingly talking by addressing her as his mother and stabs her with a switchblade before scalping her for his collection.
One night, Frank invites Anna to a show, and they stop by a cemetery where his mother's grave resides. While laying some flowers beside the headstone, Frank begins to mourn over one of his early victims and attacks Anna. While chasing her around the cemetery, Anna injures his arm with a shovel before fleeing. While sobbing at his mother's grave, he hallucinates his decomposing mother attacking him from the grave. Frank returns to his small apartment and while he cries, he then sees his mannequins suddenly coming alive and they mutilate Frank with his weapons before ultimately tearing off his head.
The next morning, two police officers break into Frank's apartment after likely being informed by Anna and see Frank lying dead on his bed. He has committed suicide from hallucinating the mannequins attacking him. As the officers leave the apartment, Frank's eyes suddenly open as the film ends with the title printed onto the screen.

Tags: revenge

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