Maniac
Tags: realism, murder, violence, cult, horror, sadist

Plot synopsis:
A young couple are lying on a beach, being watched by an unseen man lurking on the dunes. The woman asks the man to fetch some wood for their fire. While he is gone, the unseen man approaches the woman and suddenly slits her throat with a razor. After gathering some driftwood from the surf, the guy returns to the campfire where the killer attacks him from behind and wraps wire around his neck and pulls, practically decapitating him.Sometime later, the killer, Frank Zito (Joe Spinell) sits up in his bed screaming. He lives in a small, one-room apartment which is full of bizarre paintings and artwork. There is a framed picture of a woman in a corner of the room decorated with candles and trinkets. There are a few mannequins in the apartment, one of which, wearing the beach girl's clothes and bloody scalp, is lying on the bed beside him. Frank takes off his pajama top and examines some old scars on his chest. He dresses, puts on a heavy winter coat, cloves, takes a gym bag, and leaves into the cold winter night of New York City.Somewhere in downtown Manhattan, Frank passes by a seedy hotel where two prostitutes are standing outside and one of them asks him if he would like a date. The two of them go inside and Frank checks into a room. In the room, Frank asks the woman if she ever modeled and tells her to show him some poses like the models in the fashion magazines. After she dances a little bit, the hooker and Frank kiss, and she relaxes him after he stops. When they resume kissing, Frank suddenly becomes angry and begins choking her until she is dead. He gets sick and throws up in the nearby bathroom and begins crying and asking "why did you make me do that?" In a very gory and nauseating sequence, Frank pulls out a utility razor and, very slowly and carefully, scalps the woman.Frank then goes home to his seedy apartment building somewhere in the Brooklyn region of New York. He is carrying a new mannequin to his basement apartment, and tells a passing tenant coming from the building that he is Christmas shopping. In his small one-room apartment, Frank wraps the plastic folding off the new mannequin, puts on the hooker's bloody clothes, and nails the bloody scalp to the mannequin's head, while hearing his own voice telling him that beautiful women whose beauty are crimes punishable by death. Frank pauses and looks at a newspaper headline detailing about the murdered couple at the beach.Sometime later, Frank dresses up to go out again, this time as a hunter. He disassembles a double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun in a violin case, with some buckshot shells and the utility razor. He puts on his gloves, winter coat, and he tells the mannequins in the room that he will "be right back".Driving around the nighttime Brooklyn and the Queens area in his beat-up Buick Electra, Frank spots a couple outside a local disco getting into a car and driving off. The man (Tom Savini) and woman park in a lot beside the Brooklyn side of the Verrazano Bridge overlooking the narrows towards Staten Island. The woman from the disco wants to go home, but her pick-up date wants her to stay and view the sight. Frank pulls up near the couple's car, gets out and begins to spy on them as they climb into the back seat to make out with each other. The disco woman stops when she sees Frank by the car window. Upset, she asks the disco man to drive her home. The man climbs in the front seat, starts the car and turns on the headlights and Frank is standing right in front of them. He jumps on the hood of the car, and fires the shotgun through the windshield at the man literally blowing his head apart. The woman ducks in the back seat of the car as Frank approaches, points his shotgun at the woman and fires.Later, Frank is back in his room with another mannequin made to look like the murdered disco woman as he watches a TV news report about the latest double murder. Frank begins talking to himself and the other mannequins. He mentions stopping the fancy girls and he says they must stop or "they'll take you away from me". Frank then goes to bed and cries himself to sleep.In Central Park the next day, Frank is walking around when he stops a little girl riding on a bicycle near a playground who accidentally rides into him. He sees a woman (Caroline Munro) in the distance snapping a photo of him beside the little girl. Frank follows the woman, pauses to take a sneak peak at her bag and sees her name and address. The woman is Anna D'Antoni. Frank then walks off.Later that night, two nurses are leaving the Roosevelt Hospital after their shift and one of them mentions about a killer being on the loose. One of the nurses is picked up by her boyfriend, leaving the other nurse alone outside the hospital. Frank, standing nearby from across the street, begins to follow the nurse. She soon realizes that he is following her and she ducks into a nearby subway station. She gets through the gate, but when she arrives on the platform, the train leaves without her. Seeing Frank approaching, she runs and into a nearby restroom and hides in a stall. Frank walks inside, looks around, and after a minute of tense silence, leaves. The nurse comes out of hiding, looks around the empty and silent bathroom and calms down a bit. Happy that she is okay, the nurse walks to a sink to wash the sweat off her face but when she looks back up, Frank appears standing behind her and stabs her in the back with a bayonet, killing her. Frank washes the blood off the blade. Frank now has another mannequin resembling the nurse as he decorates up the figure while he is play-acting as a hairdresser.Some days later, Anna is in her darkroom of her apartment developing the photographs she took of Frank when the doorbell rings. Frank is at the door and tells her that he's the man whom she took his photograph in the park. Anna lets him in and they begin to talk about Anna's work as a photographer. He notes that all her models are women, and she tells him that she hopes to sell some of her photographs of the models. Frank tells her that she should keep them to preserve their beauty (it is implied, but never fully explained, that Anna might be a lesbian or bisexual due to her appearance and nature of her photography work). Frank asks Anna out to dinner, and she accepts. During dinner, Frank shows Anna a small photo of his mother in which he tells her that he and his mother lived in Queens until she died several years ago in an automobile accident. Anna reveals that she is from Italy but has done photography work mostly in England. Frank asks Anna if she would like to go out with him again and she invites him to an art gallery show for her photographs on Thursday.Another few days later, Frank arrives at a studio where Anna is taking photos of three models at a photography session. After taking a break, Frank gives Anna a teddy bear as a gift and she introduces him to one of the models named Rita. Anna and Rita go back to shooting, and Frank eyes the two women casually talking and holding hands together (again implying, but not fully revealing, that Anna and Rita's friendship is more then that). Frank impulsively steals a gold necklace that Rita set aside and leaves.Later that evening, Rita arrives home at her West End Avenue apartment, looks through her mail, and begins to run bathtub water to take a bath. Rita answers a buzzing at the front door and it is Frank who returns her necklace (claiming that he found it at the studio). With Rita distracted for a second, Frank slyly pushes in the door's lock, and leaves. Rita goes into the bathroom to take her bath. A little later, Rita is making tea for herself when she is grabbed by Frank who jumps out of a closet. When Rita wakes up, she finds herself gagged and tied to her bed. Frank then rambles at Rita saying that her hair is different, but he knew he could find her. He begins talking to her about abuse and leaving him, implying that he is talking to his mother. He tells Rita that he is going to keep her so she will never go away again. Frank then pulls out a switchblade knife and after a minute, stabs Rita in the chest, killing her. Frank then begins to scalp her as well and adds her hair and bathrobe as another trophy to his growing number of mannequins he keeps in his apartment. In his apartment, Frank sits in front of the woman's picture, which is his late mother, and talks about hiding in the closet when his mother said so.Some days later, Frank calls Anna and invites her to a show and picks her up. Anna thanks Frank for sending flowers and attending Rita's funeral. Frank drives Anna to a cemetery and says that he wants to put a reef of flowers on his mother's grave which she died on Christmas Day. At the cemetery, Frank lays the reef beside the headstone of his mother, Carmen Zito, and begins to cry. He says that Rita knew about him and he suddenly grabs Anna by the neck. Anna hits him and runs, and Frank chases her through the cemetery. Anna wounds Frank by jumping out from behind a gravestone and hits him in his left arm with a shovel and flees out of the cemetery. Frank screams out in pain and calls out "Mother!" Frank then begins to hear voices in his head and the voice of a young Frank. He is pleading with his mother not to lock him up in the closet. It is fully revealed here that Frank was abused and neglected by his own mother, leading him to go on this killing spree. Frank returns to his mother's grave and kneels at the headstone crying again until suddenly the rotting corpse of his mother bursts out of the ground and grabs him (shades of the movie 'Carrie'). But it was all just a hallucination, and Frank sits back alone at the grave and cries some more.Frank goes home to his apartment and lies on his bed with his wounded arm crying over his mother. As he looks around the room, the mannequins suddenly turn into the bloodied murdered women they represent and they all approach Frank with weapons they pick up off his table. In the most goriest and horrific scene, the mannequins/zombies attack him, one stabbing him in the stomach with the bayonet, one chops off his right arm with a machete, and two of them literally rip off his head from his body in a ghastly flow of blood and gore, splattering all over everything.The next morning, a police car arrives outside the apartment building where Frank lives. Two plainclothes police officers, having obviously been called upon by Anna, get out, pull out guns, and burst into Frank's apartment. They find Frank lifeless on his bed (with only a knife in his bloody stomach), with all the mannequins standing around the room. Apparently the whole supernatural event was nothing but Frank's horrible nightmare which resulted in him committing suicide. The two cops leave the room, and Frank continues to lie motionless on his bed... then his eyes open...

Review: This guy has a lot of heart, and it shows.Maniac isn't the fastest paced movie, but it has some of the most awesome graphic violence that 80's horror produced (thank you Tom Savini!).
I'd first like to applaud Tom Savini for his work here; MANIAC contains some of the most realistic and unrestrained gore fx I've seen; possibly THE best up until the time of its release.
Here you get explicitly bloody murders and scalpings, plus a show-stopper head-being-blown-off-with-shotgun murder and a man being ripped apart nightmare and it all looks pretty damn convincing to me.Aside from the effects, director William Lustig does an OK job with color schemes (especially considering the budget) and the grimy, sleazy underbelly of New York is brilliantly exploited to give this film a truly nihilistic and seedy feel.
Reliable character actor Joe Spinell (from TAXI DRIVER, THE GODFATHER, etc.) also offers an effective performance as the sweaty, overweight, emotionally- scarred killer.On the down side, a plot would have been nice and it's unforgivable to waste British actress Caroline Munro on such a poorly scripted nothing role.
Along with Nightmares in a Damaged Brain, Mardi Gras Massacre, and Don't go in the House; Maniac offers something refreshing, by giving the killer characterisation and making him more than just a loony in a mask with a machete.The plot portrays the life of Frank Zito, an insane and stammering psychological mess of a man, with more than a few severe problems upstairs.
Jay Chattaway provides a superb score to accompany the visuals, and Lorenzo Marinelli's editing is equally impressive.Although you could never call Joe Spinnell a fantastic dramatic performer by any of his pre-Maniac work, Frank Zito (named as a nod to Joseph Zito the director of The Prowler and friend to Lustig and Savini) was undoubtedly the part he was put on this planet to play.
It's worth noting that the pair were reunited two years later for Fanatic (aka The Last Horror Film), which lacked the gritty edge and invitingly sleazy surroundings of its predecessor, but attempted to cash-in on the fame that Lustig's film had earned from its gruesome reputation.Maniac was filmed on super 16 mm and like the best slashers from this period, it was shot for the most miniscule of budgets ('under a million dollars').
But that aside, MANIAC is neither the best horror film of all time or most enjoyable, but damn is it intense.Joe Spinell is absolutely strong in his portrayal of Frank Zito, a real man who has a nasty habit of slaughtering random individuals, mostly female ones so he can dress up mannequins with their scalped hair and clothes.
From the amazing performance of Joe Spinell to the Brutal Make-up FX of Tom Savini, this is perhaps the mother of all Horror Slasher Flicks...Written to be "Jaws on Land"...this film captures to wonderful vibe on New York City in the late 70's.
"Maniac" is one of the most visceral examples of the horror genre.Along with Romano Scavolini's "Nightmare"(1981)it is one of the most disturbing horror films ever made.The killings presented here are cold-blooded,extremely brutal and gory."Maniac" in its almost pornographic depiction of violence makes any "Friday the 13th" film look tame.Joe Spinell is perfect as a maniac killer Frank Zito,who graphically murders and scalps his victims.Caroline Munro("Kronos","Slaughter High")is really hot as a young fashion photographer.The gore effects made by Tom Savini are simply spectacular-the head explosion scene has to be one of the most amazing moments in cinematic history.The amount of gore splashed in this sequence is incredible.The direction by William Lustig("Maniac Cop" series,"The Violation of Claudia")is well-handled,the acting is fairly convincing and the atmosphere is really ugly and disturbing.Definitely one to avoid if you're politically correct,but if you like confrontional stuff you can't miss it.10 out of 10.See it now!.
But the most disturbing aspect to the film was the sense of psychosis that the killer is experiencing."Maniac" is surely similar to "Psycho", which makes me wonder whether or not the writers of this film were basing the plot on the real life serial killer Ed Gein, who also grew up with an abusive mother and suffered psychological problems later on as an adult, which ultimately drove him to grave-robbing and murder.
Spinell gives a bravura performance as Frank, a deeply disturbed individual haunted by childhood memories of his mistreatment at the hands of his mother.As a result of his lousy upbringing, Frank is now a first-class loony tune; he slaughters women (although the occasional man gets in his way and ends up dead too) and removes their scalps, taking them home to place upon the mannequins that he keeps in his apartment.When Frank has his picture taken in a park by photographer Anna (played by the gorgeous Caroline Munro), he tracks her down and almost manages to pass for normal for a while, wining and dining the sexy snapper and being quite charming.
But it's not long before the real Frank emerges, and has a go at adding Anna to his long line of victims.The direction by William Lustig, whilst not exceptional, does the job it was supposed to do; the film never drags and there are one or two edge-of-your-seat moments and a couple of nifty scares.'Maniac's gory death sequences, by legendary horror make-up legend Tom Savini, are real showstoppers, and include ultra-realistic scalpings, amazing exploding heads and vicious bloody stabbings.
The majority of Savini's work on the film is stunning, with only the final decapitation being less than perfect.'Maniac' is a great example of low-budget 80s splatter and will appeal to all those who enjoy their horror down and dirty with buckets of gore..
New York looks suitably barren, from the time before the makeover when people would walk down streets as bleak as in this film to see movies like it in dingy fleapit cinemas down 42nd street.
So by way of a kind of basic artistic daring it created a provocation, which leads to:2) the framing is what counts here, and Lustig and Spinell took as many serial killer tropes and types (from mommy issues to Ted Bundy and Gacy to Son of Sam, this last one seemed like the major influence to me, ie replace the dog with mannequins) and stuffed them into this one gutter-bag of a man, but again it is ALL from his POV.
While Lustig cuts to showing what the women are doing when they are in Frank's cross-hairs (and Tom Savini in one iconic horror scene), we don't get to know them really as people really outside of these scenarios entirely - not even Caroline Munro's photographer who Frank befriends, who gets to have the closest to a character arc of a sort - so this is ultimately not unlike one of those intense character studies that Scorsese did before (Taxi Driver) and after (King of Comedy) ...
So for example in that Savini scene, he gets the giant explosive death - sort of a next-level-of-Dawn-explosion - but he cuts away from the woman's demise just before it happens.A lessor director would show everything, every last one of them, but that leads me to the key point with this: this is a piece of pure, uncut 100% pure Grindhouse moviemaking, but what makes it emotionally disturbing is that the direction is so assured isnt sloppy or boring.
Finally, Frank's delusions get the better of him...MANIAC is a rare film amongst the typical 80's slasher trash, as you actually get a look into his (warped) mind.
It garnered the ultimate accolades for an exploitation film- it was HATED by Siskel and Ebert (Gene Siskel said he made it to the shotgun murder then had to leave the preview screening as he couldn't stomach anymore!) and it was picketed by feminist groups.The film centres around serial killer Frank Zito who likes to scalp his victims and place the scalps on top of shop mannequins in his apartment.
He also stars in the film with explosive results!Maniac isn't just a great piece of sleazy horror cinema but is also a snapshot of a time when New York really was run-down, dangerous and crime-ridden.
It feels more like a gritty documentary than a film made for 42nd Street.The movie also places actor Joe Spinell centre stage in the role of Frank.
In fact the film seems more like a giallo, an opera of blood, splattered brains and strands of hair.The first time I learnt of the film was when I saw the poster for the movie in a copy of the French horror magazine Vendredi 13 in the mid-80s- a close up of the killer's midriff and crotch (which leaves nothing to the imagination), the words 'I warned you not to go out tonight!' written in spiky font, a knife in one of the psycho's hands and a severed woman's head in the other.
Although "Maniac" pretends to assume a sort of artistic gravity and a seriousness of intent, it's a Hershell Gordon Lewis movie at heart.The film itself consists of almost nothing more than a prolonged series of suspense-building set-ups, each of which climaxes in a beautifully executed and lovingly presented piece of state-of-the-art special makeup gore.
The part of this movie that sets it aside from the rest of the pack for me is when Spinell's character forms a relationship with a female photographer that's handled in a completely real and genuine way, mainly thanks to the decent script and good performances, as it then soon becomes clear that this guy is much more than just a brainless, on the loose madman, but something much more dangerous.
But because of the low-budget nature of the film and the fact that there was too much gore, Spinell didn't even get a Golden Globe Nod. It's so uncomfortable to watch Frank's horrible apartment and his pathetic living that it's a welcome sight to see beautiful, sweet Caroline Munro.
Even today, 29 years after its release, Joe Spinell's performance as the deranged Frank Zito stands out as the most effective, nausea inducing rendition of a serial killer in cinema history.
Maniac killer Frank Zito kills one person after another and finally the film ends.
Maniac (1980) **** (out of 4) William Lustig's disturbing, bleak and at time disgusting tale of a serial killer (Joe Spinell) who kills women (and men) due to being abused by his mother as a child.
If anyone has read any of my reviews the past couple years then they'll know that I'm a big fan of this movie, which I feel is one of the best horror films of the decade and it's certainly got a lot more going for it than your typical slasher film of the era.
He sees a woman, thinks of his abusive mother, and suddenly he has to kill someone.Frank, played by Joe Spinell, is the main (and insane) character as well as the killer in Maniac.
But the sadistic disciplinary methods of his mother prove once again to make Frank's wish an impossibility.While MANIAC is not quite as serious as James McNaughton's brilliant (and far more disturbing) HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER, it is more than just a sleazy exploitation film.
They portray the brutal result of Frank's rage in all their blood-drenched horror.MANIAC is a very good movie, and a classic of the horror/exploitation genre, well worth reconsideration.
Joe Spinelli plays the role of the killer very well and Tom Savini's gore effects in this movie are great as always.
With its off the charts creep factor and brutal violence, the low budget 1980 slasher "Maniac" was an early classic in a decade of memorable horror films.
What makes this film so utterly disturbing is the performance by Joe Spinell as Frank aka the Maniac.
Maniac (1980) is a very hard hitting/disturbing movie about a seriously deranged man called Frank who had a terrible childhood and now lives in New York City.Frank is a terrible messed up individual and with the voices in his head controlling his actions, he stalks and slaughters young women!!!
This film is notorious and was banned for years, you can understand it because it's very realistic and creepy and has some brutal gore scenes, i rate this movie one of the best of it's kind, all horror movie buffs past and present should see this or OWN it, classic stuff!!!
But actually after having watched it again just now I found it quite boring and not half as gory as I thought it would be after having read some of the comments on imdb.The film is about a man (Frank Zito) who walks/drives through New York City and kills people, mostly women, scalps them and puts the scalps on manikins he keeps in his room.
And more: presented in a leading role a familiar face from the 1970's of whom we've seen in films like "The Godfather" and "Rocky", character actor Joe Spinell, and this was the perfect project for him to show his acting skills, haunting us with a memorable performance proving that he could be a main star.
Fine, it's an underground movie in a way but those who love horror films definitely know this and probably love it more than I do.Frank Zito, the character played by Spinell, is one of those raised in the Norman Bates tradition.
Frank Zito (The late Joe Spinell) is a crazed serial killer, who kills innocent woman and then he scalps them for his mannequins.
nothing is normal for him.Directed by William Lustig (Maniac Cop, Relentless, Vigilante) made an gruesome effective horror film with some moments of gore and black comedy.
Back in a time before Horror films became uninspired, self-referential teen oriented crap, William Lustig directed this sick little number about a psychopath, Frank (played superbly by the late, lamented Joe Spinell) brutal murdering various young women (and some guys) to get in good with his long deceased mother who abuse him as a boy.
At the time of the film's release it seemed like everyone and their mother hated the film with a passion, which is a shame since the movie is horribly misunderstood and is actually a rather good film if you're a true horror fan.
It is here, in his personal work via his attributes of starring, screenplay writing, story and Executive Producer that this 1980's classic slasher / splatter film Maniac came to represent one of the most disturbing and shocking serial killers on screen since Norman Bates back in the early sixties.A hater of women, or more to the point a man who has had the misfortune to be the miss-interpreter of women, and with a deep seated hatred fuelled by his mother, this is a mind that has taken upon itself to reek havoc, vengeance and inherited blame onto his victims.
It wasn't as gory as many people led on and it did drag in places but other than that it was a good movie.Joe Spinell is Frank Zito, a guy with mother issues and a serious problem.
Tom Savini did a damn good job with this movie.Joe Spinell's gritty and excellent performance is also worth praising.
Universally trashed by elitist film critics, MANIAC is the story of Frank Zito (Joe Spinell), a psychopath who randomly murders women, scalps them, and then uses their scalps to dress up his mannequins.
Although it´s too surface to be a real portrait about a weird man as we have seen it impressively in "Henry"(the film that comes closest to "Maniac" is "Nightmare (in a damaged brain)" in my opinion..!), William Lustig´s slasher does not being stingy with suspense and shock values!Joe Spinell, who also wrote the script and had some supporting roles in mainstream productions like "Rocky" or "The Godfather" is giving the most memorable performance of his career with playing the mentally disturbed serial killer Frank Zito, who was tortured physical as well as psychical by his dominating mother, a woman that used to earn money by selling her body.
The acting is excellent, especially towards Joe Spinell, who played the killer.He truly is a maniac and it's evident while watching the film.
Set in New York City and starring the late great sleazball Joe Spinell who plays Frank Zito a schitzo/sicko maniac who kills women, along with their boyfriends whom get in his way, he then scalps the women and uses their hair and clothes to dress up female department store maniquins that he keeps in his tiny apartment.
MANIAC is the story of Frank Zito (Joe Spinell), a psychopath who randomly murders women, scalps them, and takes their clothes and then uses their scalps and clothes to dress up his mannequins.
After every killing he starts moaning.The MANIAC is almost the only character in this film and Joe Spinell he portrays him very well.
I've always been a fan of low-budget 80's horror flicks, and I've seen my fair share of "crap", but this film really defines the word.A  homicidal maniac who had childhood issues with his now dead mother goes on a murdering spree, killing and mutilating random women, and nailing their scalps to mannequins in his house.
Finally after all these years just watched the cult classic horror slasher film 1980's "Maniac" I must say it was well done with blood and murder scenes straight to the point with blood and gore.
His psychology leaves a bit to be desired (the film is hazy regarding the mother issues driving him to kill) but Joe Spinell is solid in the lead role and there are several great graphic moments - like a head blown off through a windshield - that resonate due to Tom Savini's expert makeup effects.
Frank Zito (Joe Spinell)is homicidal maniac with schizophrenic moods, who stalks and brutally murders young women in abominable ways, in order to handle the loss of his abusive prostitute mother.
The supporting cast includes gore icon Tom Savini in a small role."Maniac" may not have the best plot, and the killer's motivations may not be the most original, but it is a movie that is able to shock like hardly another.