Maniac
1980 Directed by William Lustig
Synopsis
A schizoid serial killer randomly stalks and kills various young women in New York, which he sees as revenge for the mistreatment he got while being raised by his own abusive mother.
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Felt good to finally check this one off my list. When I was a kid, this movie was, from what I understood, the worst of the worst, the sickest of the sick. That awesome poster terrified me, and it was one of the very few movies that my awesome Mom wouldn't let me rent. As drunk Reese Witherspoon might say, it was BEYOND.
As I got older, the reason I didn't want to see it shifted from my own terror to general apathy based on all the zero-star reviews I read about it, and its general reputation as nothing more than cheap, sleazy, misogynist trash. After all, I loved horror and slasher films, but only the GOOD ones, man.
Now…
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An asthmatic, moaning killer goes around at night killing women and scalping them just so he can have a good night sleep embracing mannequins with his victims' scalps.
I have two favorite type of horror movies: suspenseful films with great story and atmosphere or movies with over the top killings and gore. This one fits the second category. I had a lot of fun with the killings. Specially the scenes at the car and the subway.
SPOILER ALERT
I was almost breathless for laughing so hard at the car scene. The way they just stood there waiting for the killer to attack them, the blowing head, the girl screaming and not trying to fight, it was too much for me.
/SPOILER ALERT
Anyway, the story is interesting and the killings really fun to watch. It's a nice movie to watch with friends and have fun. Definitely better than most recent horror movies.
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Just a middle aged overweight Italian-American loner on a Saturday night, lookin' for the love of his life!
In the real-time world no one sees him at all, they can't see he's crazy!Dressing mannequins to the beat of his art, taking fake women into his life
He is deep into the danger zone, when the hunter becomes the haunted!It can cut you like a knife, if the gift becomes a desire!
On a wire between will and what will be!He's a Maniac, Maniac on the prowl!
And he's stalkin' like he's never stalked before!
He's a Maniac, Maniac on the prowl!
And he's stalkin' like he's never stalked before!On the ice thin lake of sanity, it's…
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About fifty times better than I expected. Seeing this guy go out to kill women (and Tom Savini with a fucking double barrel shotgun) in the streets of New York and then go home to sleep with his mannequins had me in absolute stitches - the topping on the cake was the longing in his eyes as he stared into the department store window at the beautiful mannequins. I can undoubtedly see this becoming one of my favourites as time goes by and as I revisit it.
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Shotgun = BOOM HEADSHOT!
The dude truly was a maniac, there's no denying that.
It was a decent horror!
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Maniac's remake was one of the best horror experiences I've ever had. That was more than enough to make me finally watch the movie, even with the awful image quality that I pretend to be the classical nasty video from the 80s.
Maniac in many aspects is the classic slasher from the eighties, a violent and dirty killer spreading fear in New York city with a killing spree, no one is safe, especially girls. The point where Maniac diverges from other slashers is the perspective, since we don't follow the victims being stalked and killing, but we follow the killer himself, Frank Zito, while he plan and execute his vicious killings. Joe Spinell is an ugly and threatening presence and…
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William Lustig’s ‘Maniac’ is an unconventional slasher film compared to its peers offering a lot more weight (and no, I am not talking about Joe Spinell’s hefty frame). This is a movie that I would call a character study slasher. Yes, you read it right. Character, study and slasher are three words that would not normally fit into the same sentence but here we have a film summed up perfectly with those very words.
Spinall plays Frank Zito an Italian-American middle-aged overweight loner and the landlord of a small apartment building in a nameless borough of New York City. He is also an unassuming schizophrenic serial killer who ventures out at nights killing women and scalping them. Taking the scalps…
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Felt good to finally check this one off my list. When I was a kid, this movie was, from what I understood, the worst of the worst, the sickest of the sick. That awesome poster terrified me, and it was one of the very few movies that my awesome Mom wouldn't let me rent. As drunk Reese Witherspoon might say, it was BEYOND.
As I got older, the reason I didn't want to see it shifted from my own terror to general apathy based on all the zero-star reviews I read about it, and its general reputation as nothing more than cheap, sleazy, misogynist trash. After all, I loved horror and slasher films, but only the GOOD ones, man.
Now…
-
An asthmatic, moaning killer goes around at night killing women and scalping them just so he can have a good night sleep embracing mannequins with his victims' scalps.
I have two favorite type of horror movies: suspenseful films with great story and atmosphere or movies with over the top killings and gore. This one fits the second category. I had a lot of fun with the killings. Specially the scenes at the car and the subway.
SPOILER ALERT
I was almost breathless for laughing so hard at the car scene. The way they just stood there waiting for the killer to attack them, the blowing head, the girl screaming and not trying to fight, it was too much for me.
/SPOILER ALERT
Anyway, the story is interesting and the killings really fun to watch. It's a nice movie to watch with friends and have fun. Definitely better than most recent horror movies.
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Endlich auch mal gesehen. Dreckig und irgendwie anders. Intensiv und mit einem der besten Shotgun Kills der Filmgeschichte ausgestattet. Ich hab mir die Laser Paradise DVD von einem Kumpel geliehen. Diese ist unter aller Sau: kein OTon, absolut mieses Bild, komisches Bildformat. Ich will den auf jeden Fall nochmal in guter Qualität sehen. Und das Remake möchte ich jetzt auch schnellstmöglich sehen.
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J
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Released in theaters on New Year's Day 1981, this is a holiday thriller that is one for the history books. It's about a man with serious mommy issues who goes around New York City killing women and taking their scalps. Then he nails the scalps onto mannequins that he keeps around his apartment.
This is different than some slasher films in that he doesn't wear a mask and it's never a mystery who he is. The movie just follows him along from apartment to crime and back again. He also doesn't rape or torture the women before he kills them - they do represent his mother, after all.
Although the violence and gore has been surpassed by more modern films,…
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Primitive but surprisingly effective. Worth it if only to see Caroline Munro bounce around in skin-tight leather trousers.
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Shotgun = BOOM HEADSHOT!
The dude truly was a maniac, there's no denying that.
It was a decent horror!
-
Maniac's remake was one of the best horror experiences I've ever had. That was more than enough to make me finally watch the movie, even with the awful image quality that I pretend to be the classical nasty video from the 80s.
Maniac in many aspects is the classic slasher from the eighties, a violent and dirty killer spreading fear in New York city with a killing spree, no one is safe, especially girls. The point where Maniac diverges from other slashers is the perspective, since we don't follow the victims being stalked and killing, but we follow the killer himself, Frank Zito, while he plan and execute his vicious killings. Joe Spinell is an ugly and threatening presence and…