Retro Reviews: Maniac (1980)

I think I’ll take a stab at the Final Girl Film Club with Maniac.  This is a film I didn’t see until last year, though I am not sorry I waited.  It’s gritty, gory, and gross.  It feels so much longer than its 87 minutes, and I think it’s that slowness that makes is so powerful.  Um, spoilers ahead.  

Maniac is the story of schlubby, sweaty landlord Frank Zito, who happens to murder women in his spare time.  Actually, since most of what we see him do is stalk and murder, he is a murderer of women and a landlord in his spare time.  You see, Frank was abused and ultimately abandoned, due to her death, by his prostitute mother.  It would be neat to say that this movie is simply a bloodier Psycho, what with the monstrous mother and the lady killing and all.

The big difference is, Frank is presented to us immediately as a mentally ill murderer.  There is no big reveal at the end, nor is there revenge or paranormal, evil killin’ powers at work here.  This is unlike many slashers/splatters I watch because the killer is presented as very real.  Frank is just a guy who kills because he is sick.  He struggles with his guilt and self-disgust as much as his disgust with women.  This is why he stabs himself with one of his killin’ tools, and why, in his mind, it’s his victims come alive who do him in.

Okay, enough of that.  I took one psychology class one time and want to talk about other things, like some of the scenes I love from this.  I mentioned how torturously slow this film is, not only for the audience but for many of Frank’s victims.  The scene in which Tom Savini’s head explodes sticks with me not for the exploding head, but because of how long the woman in the car must wait for her inevitable death.  

The scene where Frank stalks a nurse through the subway is ten minutes long.  Ten minutes!  You must watch her try and outsmart her murderer for ten minutes, hiding and sweating and crying.  And then when she allows herself relief, you know that when she looks up he’ll be in the mirror and she will not only get stabbed but have to watch herself get stabbed.  And of course she’s in white, of course.  I just.  That scene.  Ugh.  

Maniac is simple and well done.  No one can rig up a scalping like Mr. Savini.  No one.  The late Joe Spinell does an excellent job with the acting, and I am now nervous about the remake with Frodo Baggins.  We’ll see, I have been wrong before.