| Maniac | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | William Lustig |
| Produced by | Andrew W. Garroni William Lustig |
| Written by | C. A. Rosenberg Joe Spinell |
| Starring | Joe Spinell |
| Music by | Jay Chattaway |
| Cinematography | Robert Lindsay |
| Editing by | Lorenzo Marinelli |
| Distributed by | Analysis Film Releasing Corporation |
| Release date(s) | December 26, 1980 |
| Running time | 87 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $550,000 |
Maniac is a 1980 American slasher film (though considered more of a splatter film), about a disturbed and traumatized serial killer who scalps his victims. It was directed by William Lustig and written by Joe Spinell and C. A. Rosenberg. Joe Spinell also developed the story, and stars as the lead character.
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Frank Zito is a middle-aged, overweight, Italian-American loner living in an unspecified borough of New York City, where he works as the landlord of a small apartment complex. Unbeknown to his tenants, Frank is a schizophrenic serial killer who spends his nights stalking and killing women, scalping them and bringing the scalps and their clothing back home to decorate his steadily growing supply of mannequins. Once a mannequin has been decorated to his satisfaction, Frank sleeps with it for several nights, using them to carry on one-sided conversations with his deceased mother, an abusive prostitute who subjected him to years of physical abuse before dying in a car accident and leaving him orphaned. Inexplicably, after several nights, Frank grows tired of each mannequin, posing them around different parts of his apartment before seeking out another victim.
One afternoon, Frank sees that his picture has been taken by a fashion photographer named Anna. Getting her name off of the luggage tag she keeps on her purse, Frank tracks her down, but is impressed enough with her artwork that rather than kill her, he begins dating her. While visiting her on the set of her latest photo shoot, he is so taken with Rita, one of Anna's models, that he steals a piece of Rita's jewelry, using it as a pretext to come to her apartment later that night so that he can kidnap her. Frank takes Rita home, where he addresses her as his mother, declaring his undying love for her before stabbing her to death. He then mutilates her body and disposes of it, later attending the funeral with Anna.
His grip on reality quickly deteriorating, Frank takes Anna to his mother's grave one night on the way to the movies. At the cemetery, Frank tries to kill Anna, but she wounds him with a shovel left lying by a freshly dug grave and escapes. Frank begins suffering disorienting, disturbing hallucinations of his mother's corpse rising up from its grave and of his mother beckoning to him from her bed. He returns to his apartment, where he has a vision of the mannequins transforming into the vengeful reanimated corpses of his victims and tearing his body apart.
The next morning, two police detectives, apparently alerted by Anna, break down the door to Frank's apartment. They find him on his bed, bleeding from the stomach as the result of a self-inflicted knife wound. The detectives, upon seeing Frank's mannequin collection, leave the apartment, at which point Frank opens his eyes and the film ends.
The film is unrated because it was not submitted to the MPAA; if it had been, it almost certainly would have been given an X rating. The poster does say that "No One Under 17 Will Be Admitted", a practice theatres used for ultraviolent unrated films such as Dawn of the Dead.
The film's, arguably, most graphic scene is the "Disco Boy Scene", in which special effects man Tom Savini, playing a small role and dressed in full 1970s disco regalia, has his head blasted off with a double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun while making out with a woman in the front seat of a vintage car fired by the killer through the car windshield at close range (loosely inspired by the real life Son of Sam killings of serial killer David Berkowitz who shot people in parked cars with a .44 Magnum revolver). The scene, filmed in slow motion from three different camera angles, and lit entirely by the reflected headlights of the car, is extremely graphic and realistic in its depiction of the damage caused by the man's head being blown apart at point blank range by 12-gauge buckshot. Savini was a Vietnam War veteran and used his firsthand knowledge of the carnage he saw on the battlefield to create the effect.
Film critic Gene Siskel vociferously described how sickened he was by the film on Sneak Previews, and walked out thirty minutes into the film (after the shotgun murder scene), saying the film "could not redeem itself" after the amount of violence shown up to that point. However, in the 1990s Siskel was asked if he had ever walked out of a film and did not mention this one, instead saying he left the 1996 film Black Sheep, because of his dislike for Chris Farley, and the 1971 Disney film The Million Dollar Duck.
Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "Good sense, if not heaven, should protect anyone who thinks he likes horror films from wasting a price of admission on "Maniac," a movie that shows how an aging, pot-bellied maniac slices up young women of no great intelligence."[1]
Stuart Galbraith IV DVD Talk said of the film, "Despite some good direction and a sincere, even daring performance by character actor Joe Spinell (Rocky), who also co-produced and co-wrote its screenplay, Maniac (1980) is alternately repellent and boring, despite the obvious intelligence that went into its making. A low-budget slasher film notable for its extremely graphic splatter effects by Tom Savini - who also appears in the picture - Maniac is mostly a character study, anticipating the much superior (if no less unpleasant) Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)."[2]
Tom Becker of DVD Verdict said, "That the film is so effective is due in no small part to the performance of Joe Spinell as Frank, the schlubby-looking guy whose darkness overwhelms him. This is not the standard, amateurish, paint-by-numbers horror villain turn. Spinell creates a fully formed portrait of this monster that goes far beyond the surface. He mutters to himself, talks to mannequins, growls like an animal when stalking his prey—yet he can be charming as well, and while the pairing of Spinell and Munro as lovers has a definite Beauty and the Beast quality to it, it's not entirely unbelievable. Had Maniac been more of a mainstream film, Spinell might have been remembered as one of the great horror heavies."[3]
J.C. Maçek III of WorldsGreatestCritic.com wrote, "It won't ever be much more than a B-Movie that never quite took off, but those in the mood for some Fulci-esque violence, blood and gore all to the tune of a soundtrack so garish it makes The Hearse sound like Beethoven, this is your flick!"[4]
Maniac was nominated for a Saturn Award by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, USA, for Best Low-Budget Film in 1981.[5]
Many scenes had to be filmed guerrilla-style because the production could not afford city permits. The infamous shotgun sequence was one of them; it was filmed in just an hour.
Tom Savini got the part of the male shotgun victim because he had already made a cast of his own head. He then filled the head with left over food from lunch and fired live ammunition at it. Immediately after firing the shotgun Savini then threw it into the trunk of a waiting car, that an assistant then drove away with, in order to avoid being caught by police .[6]
Spinell planned to make a sequel titled Maniac 2: Mr. Robbie, in which he would have played a host of a children's television series who murders the abusive parents of his fans. A short promo film was made in 1986 which was filmed, produced and directed by Buddy Giovinazzo and written by Spinell and Joe Cirillo, but Spinell was unable to find financial backers. Portions of the film can been seen on the latest 30th Anniversary DVD release. After nearly three years, financing for a Maniac 2 sequel was indeed raised and it was scheduled to go into production in March 1989, but the sudden death of Joe Spinell two months earlier cancelled all plans for the sequel.
Blue Underground released the Blu-ray on 26 October 2010.[7]
The song "Maniac" was written by Michael Sembello and Dennis Matkosky, after Matkosky had been inspired by the film. Its lyrics about a killer were rewritten so that it could be used in the 1983 film Flashdance. The song's use in Flashdance earned it an Academy Award nomination, but it was disqualified when it emerged that the song had not been written specifically for the film.[8]
An extract of dialogue from the film's trailer was sampled on the song "Frank Zito, The Maniac" by metal band Frightmare on their album Midnight Murder Mania.
Death Rapper Necro recorded a song titled "Frank Zito" on his album Brutality Part 1.
Lustig planned a remake of his movie.[9] During the 2009 edition of the New York Horror Film Festival, while receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award, Lustig announced that the deal for a remake has been sealed. During a Q&A session at the Sunshine Cinema in New York City on November 19, 2010, Lustig announced that the remake rights had been acquired by a French production company with Alejandre Aja attached. He also stated that he would love to see Tom Sizemore take over the Frank Zito role, as he feels Sizemore is a lot like Spinnell, and that he had recommended as much to the French production company. On November 4th, 2011 Elijah Wood has been cast as Frank Zito and plan is to begin filming later this year [10]. In December, America Olivo and Morgane Slemp land in the remake [11] [12] [13], also star alongside previously announced Nora Arnezeder and Genevieve Alexandra.
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