Maniac is perfectly brutal, gritty, in-your-face horror with a film-noir bite, sporting a memorable performance by Elijah Wood that makes me wish horror films had their own Oscars-like event.
When I saw Fede Alvarez's Evil Dead remake earlier this year, I couldn't believe I was actually watching a horror remake. It was a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stale movement of churning out newer versions of old classics, with little success in the quality department of course. But I thought �surely this instance is a fluke, we couldn't possibly have more than one good horror remake in the same year, right? Then Franck Khalfoun came along, sternly pimp-slapped me across the face, and said Matt, 2013 is the year of the horror remake, and after watching his revamped version of Maniac (originally by William Lustig) I absolutely, wholeheartedly fucking agree.
Lustig's original film was grimy, revolting, shock-and-awe horror with a slight voyeuristic twist and Khalfoun keeps every essence of that description intact. Additionally though, Khalfoun's film departs from Lustig's straight-forward B-Movie, taking creative liberties that elevate this year's Maniac far beyond the gore-reliant original.
Quickly explaining the story, Maniac follows Frank (Elijah Wood), a deeply disturbed loner with an emotionally scarred past who kills young women and scalps them, creating mannequin people he sleeps with by attaching the fresh wig. Did I mention he works in the business of mannequin restoration? I'm not quite sure which is creepier, him killing, or him obsessing over mannequins. Either way, he meets a young photographer named Anna (Nora Arnezeder) whom he actually develops feelings for, but obviously still struggles with his serial killing ways and mama drama.
But there was something beautiful about Maniac, and yes, I use the term beautiful in the loosest fashion. Khalfoun created something of an abstract masterpiece, taking an already blood-splattered canvas and then restoring it far beyond the original state. How? Well I'm glad you asked!
In an interview, William Lustig mentioned he'd love to see Tom Sizemore play Frank because he believed Sizemore most closely related to original Frank Zito actor Joe Spinell. Sure, Khalfoun could have listened and recreated Frank as the same schlubby degenerate with an actor like Sizemore, but instead he opted for the softer, more innocent, and better looking Elijah Wood, which proved to be a monumentally brilliant decision.
Elijah Wood is obviously best known as Frodo Baggins, but since leaving the Shire (and before The Hobbit's trilogy started), Wood has been throwing himself in a wide variety of challenging roles which push the actor to a bevy of new realms, and Maniac is hands down one of his best performances to date. Being smaller in stature, he doesn't look like a man capable of such acts of grotesque brutality, but Elijah embraces Frank's deep psychosis and disgusting perversion in a way that had my skin crawling. Even in his speech he projects this awful sense of dark uncertainty, whimpering and yelling, but every little bit of the character Wood creates is brilliantly unnerving. Mix that with the blank enjoyment and release he finds in murdering innocent women in the most visibly brutal ways, and Wood delivers a horror-Oscar worthy performance but he'll make your stomach churn in discomfort and disapproval the entire way.
Another brilliant tactic of Khalfoun is ditching typical cinematic delivery for a first person view which makes Frank's vision the camera. We're forced to live Frank's life, whether we like it or not, and specifically witness his actions from his exact point of view. We're not forced to watch the acts of a maniacal stalker we become the stalker. We're sitting in a suspicious van, we become nervous when our target spots us from across the road, we feel the pain of loneliness, and then we have a front row seat to the absolute horrors Maniac displays. We even hear the nasally tone of being inside Frank's head, hearing him talk, along with his sick panting breath while in the heat of his actions. Khalfoun turns his audience into the monster, which brings the horror to an entirely new level.
As for the gore, in 1980s Maniac there was an extremely graphic scene where Frank Zito jumps on the hood of a car and turns Tom Savini's head into a pinata filled with bits of skull and brains; a kill so vile critic Gene Siskel walked out of the theater at that point. So how does Franck Khalfoun stack up against such an honor? Well there's an Achilles slashing that rivals the cringe factor of Pet Sematary (if not beats it), a red-head is murdered in such a realistic manner I actually thought I'd somehow come across a snuff film, and the very first kill comes so suddenly and abruptly, my jaw was on the floor. Something about that menacing bowie knife just sent shivers every time I saw it.
Maniac is a gut-wrenching tour-de-force horror film that blends gritty realism with extremely hard to watch torture porn type kills, all while putting you in the driver's seat. Trust me, you'll hate yourself for acknowledging Khalfoun's stunning spectacle of a film, right down to that grimy film-noir synthetically-produced soundtrack so many old-school 70s-80s blasted, but it's impossible to ignore just how phenomenal of a horror film Khalfoun created. Brilliant acting, deranged terror, immersive psychological horror, hardcore effects Maniac is the real deal. Just don't go walking around any cities at night for a while and you'll be fine.
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While Halloween and Friday the 13th took the world by storm, William Lustig's 1980 Maniac never received the same attention as the aforementioned slashers, but definitely helped pave the way for A Nightmare on Elm Street and as well as its own line of various copycats. Maniac was quite simply forgotten (except among us hardcore horror nuts), which is why the idea of remaking it for name value never made any sense. Yet, to my surprise, Alex Aja and producing/writing partner Gregory Levasseur actually had something to say. There's a purpose for this remake, and the execution propels it into becoming a modern horror classic.
The premise is basically the same except the psychotic Frank, played by Joe Spinell in the original, is replaced by a younger and more sympathetic Elijah Wood. Frank, in the 2012 version, collects and restores mannequins. On the surface everything is normal as he attempts to keep it together, but his tormented past turns him from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde in a flash. He stalks and murders women, and then returns to his secret room plastered with mannequins dressed up like each victim. And like the original, he collects their scalps, which are then stapled onto the mannequin's heads as trophies.
The modern spin is that Franck Khalfoun, who directed the horrendous P2 for Aja and Levasseur, shoots everything from Wood's perspective. It's NOT found footage, but it's directed as such. The audience embodies Frank's everyday life, which makes for quite a gut-punching experience. And while this concept is nothing new (Enter the Void recently did this), it's a refreshing take on the slasher genre that makes the viewer literally become the killer (it's a bit like the original Friday the 13th when Pamela Voorhees stalks in the shadows). The first person perspective validates the remake and sets the table for some extremely compelling performances.
The acting really glues everything together. Wood is an oddly sympathetic character and many of the victims are so incredibly well cast that it emotionally stings a bit when they die. Nora Arnezeder plays the female lead, Anna, a mannequin photographer who crosses paths with Frank when she passes by his store and sees his work on display. She's such a likable character that it's painful watching as she's being led like a lamb to the slaughter.
Speaking of slaughter.
Maniac goes from 0-60 in the blink of an eye as it opens with a shocking kill that will have horror fans salivating for more. At first it feels as mean spirited as the original, but eventually it transforms into a visionary slasher that somehow manages to balance emotion with splatter. The original goes for shock value while Khalfoun's remake goes for dirty realism (which is nailed home when Frank continually uses bug spray to kill all the flies caused by the rotting flesh). At no point does Khalfoun pull back; every kill is fierce and brutal and the camera never looks away when a victim is being scalped (obviously, this is because Frank wouldn't be looking away, but Khalfoun could have chosen to edit it down).
It's such an interesting parallel that Lustig's 1980 Maniac set the stage for hundreds of slasher copycats and now, here in 2012, Khalfoun is doing the same thing with his remake. Again, it's not for the faint of heart and I expect mainstream critics to scoff at it, but they'll eventually be proven wrong. Relish in knowing that the new Maniac is a horror film that our community will own and cherish for years to come.
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Frank (Elijah Wood) is a lonely small business owner looking for love in all the wrong places. Sure, he meets a few girls through online dating services, but none of them work out beyond the first date. Though to be fair to the women, the evenings only go sour around the point Frank decides to scalp them for not living up to his dead mother's high standards.
His life gets a jolt and a singular chance at happiness when a photographer named Anna (Nora Arnezeder) stops by his mannequin restoration shop and asks a favor. The two develop a friendship, perhaps the first Frank has known is his life, and he begins to fall for her. It's the closest thing to real love he's ever felt and she's the closest to redemption that he'll ever get. But happiness just isn't in the cards for Frank, and the pull of the knife begins again.
This is Maniac, and not only is it one of the best serial killer films in years, but it's also one of the most beautiful, creative and affecting ones, too. Franck Khalfoun's film is the ideal kind of remake. It keeps the story mostly intact from William Lustig's 1980 original, but it then proceeds to improve upon it in every possible way. It's a rarity in the remake game for that to happen, but Khalfoun and writers Alexandre Aja and Gregory Levasseur have crafted a familiar story told in an exciting new way. Nearly the entire film is done from Frank's first-person POV, and while you'd think that would limit the presence of the lead actor,Wood's voice-over performance and the occasional mirror glimpses of his haunted face prove otherwise.
Instead of casting a lead bearing even the slightest similarity to Joe Spinell's large, sweaty and obvious killer, the new film lets Wood play against type to great effect. His brief turn in Sin City showed he could do creepy, and he ratchets it up several notches here while simultaneously creating a character that almost earns viewer's empathy. Almost. Because even as his big blue eyes plead for acceptance and sanity his tiny hands are doing horrific things to women's hair. And by hair I mean scalps.
Lustig's original has its strengths with the most notable being its graphic special effects work courtesy of the always incredible Tom Savini, but the new film ups the ante here as well. KNB Efx Group takes over the make-up duties, and they deliver some incredibly gory and realistic practical effects work that will leave you with your jaw on the floor and a desire to check the actresses' IMDB page to make sure they worked again after wrapping this film.
In addition to the fantastic effects, the violence is enhanced by the film's use of POV which, like FPS games and the best porn (from what I've been told), makes viewers feel a part of the onscreen world. The fear in the victims eyes is directed at us, and it's our hands committing the most despicable acts. When combined with Wood's fraught and frenzied voice-overs it serves to immerse us in Frank's madness deeper than most films can manage, and the handful of times the camera pulls out to a more traditional third-person view offer a brief respite from our time in his head. It impresses on the technical front too as Frank converses with, pursues and tangles with his prey and others.
While there isn't a single element responsible for the film's success, one of the most important (and most unexpected) is the atmospheric and propulsive score by Rob (no relation). Hearing the tracks that accompany Frank's drives through L.A.'s nighttime streets triggers an immediate comparison to Cliff Martinez's work on Drive, but it's due more to the tone and feel than literal similarities.
For all of these strengths, the film still boils down to a tale about a psycho with mother issues. There's little narrative growth to speak of as the plot resembles dozens of other such thrillers. It's the execution that makes all the difference in the world as the film's style, visuals, performances and score make it a success despite the basic story.
Maniac will not speak to everyone, and many others simply won't be interested in or capable of handling the brutality, but for the rest of us a bloody new bar has been set high above the serial killer riff-raff littering DVD shelves and online rental queues. Strangely beautiful; incredibly realistic and practical special effects; haunting yet rhythmic and addictive score; strong and unexpected performance by Elijah Wood; crazy good ending.
