Maniac (2013)
Average Rating: 5.5/10
Reviews Counted: 27
Fresh: 16 | Rotten: 11
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 2
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 1
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User Ratings: 2,033
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Movie Info
Just when the streets seemed safe, a serial killer with a fetish for scalps is back and on the hunt. Frank (Elijah Wood) is the withdrawn owner of a mannequin store, but his life changes when young artist Anna (Nora Arnezeder) appears asking for his help with her new exhibition. As their friendship develops and Frank's obsession escalates, it becomes clear that she has unleashed a long-repressed compulsion to stalk and kill. A 21st century Jack the Ripper set in present day LA, Franck Khalfoun's
Jun 21, 2013 Limited
IFC Midnight
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Maniac Trailer & Photos
All Critics (27) | Top Critics (2) | Fresh (16) | Rotten (11)
Rank even on its own terms, it's the kind of inferior remake that also invites questions about the original's cult status.
Top CriticThis is down and dirty genre filmmaking, and the various slaughters, excruciatingly detailed scalpings and other atrocities are no less gruesome because of the highfalutin approach.
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.
An irredeemable exploitation horror movie that overplays its subjective POV conceit, "Maniac" will leave viewers cold.
It's not enough to just mimic exploitation cinema, swallow its misogynistic conventions uncritically and call it an homage.
I doubt if cult status is in the offing, but who predicted a future for Michael Powell's Peeping Tom?
Aside from being an exercise in point-of-view cinema, it's not clear why French filmmaker Khalfoun (P2) bothered to remake the notorious 1980 slasher horror.
This story was first told, much better, in 1980 - a real B-movie stunner.
This Maniac may have artistic aspirations but it doesn't make the film any more palatable.
Maniac is excelled by a career-altering performance from Wood and an uncomfortable sense of realism that's vested - and maintained - throughout.
Far too busy doing the filmic equivalent of poking you with a stick to see how much you flinch, and unashamedly so.
It's hard to escape the feeling that the whole film is just a nasty, voyeuristic exercise in titillation.
I found it intestine-squishingly horrible, but also dreary.
Stylishly directed and superbly written, this is a genuinely chilling and disturbingly intense slasher-horror-thriller with a terrific central performance from Elijah Wood.
Much of the film feels graphically real but I was never convinced that some of the girls would ever have trusted him in the first place.
One for fans at the nastier end of the slasher spectrum.
So needlessly graphic and explicitly violent from the outset that it ends up catering to the desires of a voyeuristic audience much more effectively than critiquing them.
It's hard to think of another piece of filmmaking that will manage to pack the same visual invention and emotional punch into a measly 89 minutes. Do not miss.
See this and you'll never be able to look Frodo Baggins in the eye again.
At last an intelligent horror remake that understands its source material and yet brings something new to the butcher's slab.
The scuzz-chic visuals, sleaze-synth score and deep-cutting gore are effective, and shooting from the killer's POV proves a valid USP.
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Foreign Titles
- Alexandre Ajas Maniac (DE)
