MANIAC  1.5*** overall  ( for a purely gore/ horror genre a 3.0***)

CAUTION: This review is rather graphic as it pertains to a gore/horror movie and may be somewhat disturbing as is the film itself.

        This slasher horror remake takes the concept of  the 1980 original that focuses on Frank, a loner sociopath who brutally murders beautiful women, and increases the repellent-factor by virtue of a much higher gore budget and a decision to shoot almost every frame from the killer’s point of view. Simply put, the viewers will  see several young and beautiful  women being strangled, stabbed and drowned followed by  this killer’s particular favourite, scalping the women, all in intense, gory detail as seen through the eyes of the killer.

This remake has Elijah Wood stepping into the role of Frank, a lonely man who was repeatedly traumatized by his mother who was a prostitute who often brought her “Johns” home to their small apartment where she had all kinds of hardcore sex with the men as the young  Frank looked on.  Frank  stalks the streets of New York looking for women that he can kill and scalp. He owns a mannequin restoration shop where in the back apartment  he puts the scalps of the women on mannequins. Once he sets his eyes on the next target, nothing gets in his way. Very cunningly he establishes where the victims live and like a skilled craftsman carries out his hideous crimes, without remorse, second thoughts or hesitation. Through all the madness Frank manages to strike up a friendship with photographer Anna (Nora Arnezeder) who obviously doesn't know who he really is. What is going to happen to this strange friendship and Anna becomes a suspense element of the story.  

Standing out in this nightmare of is Elijah Wood, who really does convince you that he is indeed a maniac. Whether it's the constant disillusioned images he forces on himself, scrubbing his hands with iron wool after a fresh kill, or sharing a bed with a mannequin surrounded by flies due to a victim’s scalp being stapled to its head. Glimpsed only occasionally, mostly in reflective surfaces, Wood has to convey the deranged maniac through  vocal means. He pants, he whispers, he stutters, he carries on Gollum-like conversations with the mannequins in his shop.  When he is on camera he is effective in portraying a twitchy, schizoid, killer.

 

The degree of gore and violence is on a disturbingly high level, so most people would not want to experience this film. The viewers are repeatedly exposed to brutal and bloody scalp removal of each of the beautiful young women who are killed.. Although the violence is spaced out somewhat when it's present it's brutal, haunting, disturbing, and bloody.

 

Obviously this film has a hard “R” rating due to the over the top gore and violence.

 

NOTE: This movie opened in 3 area theatres on Friday June 21 and was quickly out of all the theatres by the following Wednesday June 26.

 

Clark