Maniac is a remake of the 1980 movie of the same title. I have not seen the original so aside from some similar themes (scalping) I am not sure if the story is exactly the same, but after seeing this one have no desire to watch the original. Wood plays Frank who owns a mannequin shop and restores vintage mannequins to their original condition. But he also skulks around finding women, killing and scalping them and then stapling their scalps on his mannequins. No surprise, Frank has some mommy issues which is apparently responsible for his murderous inclinations. However, his motives are not entirely clear. When Frank meets artist Anna, he may have found someone he can truly connect with. She uses mannequins as her portraiture subjects, making them come to life, and Frank sees she looks at them and him differently than anyone else. But will he be able to resist his urges to scalp her pretty little French head?
The film is completely made in first-person. Only in dream sequences do you see Frank in a third-person perspective. It was an interesting way to present a horror movie. Giving the audience the perspective as if they were the serial killer. But because of that it lost a lot of the suspense of a typical horror film and turned into more of an artsy gore fest without a compelling story. You basically know that all of the girls he encounters are going to be killed in some way and there is not a lot of surprise there. That brings me to the other point of the believe-ability of Elijah Wood as a serial killer. There is none. It just did not work for me. Not that he can't be creepy, he was great as Kevin in Sin City. But his role in this just did not feel right.
Overall, I give it 2 skulls. Joey fell asleep after the first half of the movie, but he says he'd give it 1.5 skulls because it was boring and he didn't like what he did see.
Joey's rating:
My rating:
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