Maniac [Reviewed by Lackey]

88 min., 1980
Directed by William Lustig
My rating:
IMDB • Netflix

It’s a serial killer movie. A serial killer movie, that’s for sure.

* * *

Premise

Frank Zito is a serial killer who scalps the women he murders.

That’s it?

Pretty much, until the photographer shows up, and even after that things don’t change much.

Review

Every so often we get a film with what I like to call Two Movies in One Syndrome. Sometimes it’s a deliberate choice on the part of the filmmakers. Sometimes it’s a result of the filmmakers not knowing how to pull off shifts in tone. Sometimes it’s a result of the filmmakers feeling the need to throw every damn thing they can think of into the movie. And sometimes it’s a result of different members of the production team having different ideas of what the finished product should be.

Maniac seems to gain its case of Two Movies in One Syndrome as a result of that last issue. Screenwriters Joe Spinell (who also stars as Frank) and C.A. Rosenberg seem to want to Maniac to be a character piece, a psychological exposé of a serial killer with mommy issues. On the other hand, director William Lustig, who’d go on to direct the Maniac Cop, wants to make a gore movie. The result is a movie that alternates between being a psychological thriller and a gore movie, instead of being a gory psychological thriller–if you catch my drift.

As a character, Frank is more pathetic than he is scary–he spends a lot of time whining and talking to himself, and it’s clear that his woman issues stem from an abusive childhood. Spinell does an excellent job of pulling off the “sorta creepy guy who can nevertheless just about pass for normal” (see also: Roberts Blossom in Deranged) and knows when to play it straight and when to overact (unlike, say, Jack Nicholson in The Shining).

However, Frank is pretty much the only character that gets any development over the course of the screenplay–for that matter, he’s one of only a couple of characters that appear in more than two or three scenes. The weird result of this is that I’m not really rooting for Frank (my emotional investment makes me wish he’d stop killing and scalping women and get some therapy), and yet my lack of interest in the victims (as a result of the fact that they seem to wink into existence ten minutes before Frank is scheduled to kill them) keeps me from caring about their deaths one way or the other.

The screenplay is also inconsistent–there’s a sort of “lather, rinse, repeat” vibe to the first few kills, but at least the pacing is strong. Then, about halfway through, Frank (through some series of events I’m still not entirely clear on) manages to score himself a love interest: an attractive, up-and-coming high-fashion photographer named Anna. Their relationship is the weakest element of the film, no argument brooked. The hot and British-accented Anna falls for Frank waaaay too quickly–particularly considering that Spinell doesn’t do “charm” very well and doesn’t have any chemistry with actress Caroline Munro. (My favorite: Anna, an upwardly-mobile, ambitious and busy professional, twice drops everything she’s doing to go on spur-of-the-moment dates with Frank, a not-entirely-charismatic guy she just met.) And on top of everything else, it’s not like the relationship actually adds anything to the picture.

There are some other problems with the story. Considering that Frank doesn’t have a fixed M.O. (his weapon changes from attack to attack–in fact, in the opening attack he uses two different methods to kill his victims) I’m a bit dumbfounded as to how the police and the media know that all the murders are the work of a single killer. (I think the implication is supposed to be that the scalping is the tip-off, but since the scalping isn’t always shown to happen–and one instance where it couldn’t happen–it’s hardly clear. I’d actually like to write a bit more about how I don’t buy Frank’s lack of a fixed M.O., but to be honest, that’s just a quibble.) Then there’s the film’s climax, or more accurately, the point where things just stop happening for no apparent reason.

However, Lustig’s direction is competent and for the most part deflects attention away from the story’s flaws. Maniac’s vision of “sleazy New York” isn’t the equal of Taxi Driver or even Basket Case, but it’s still very vivid. The cinematography’s pretty good, and the subway sequence is amazing. The gore–provided by Tom Savini–is fairly decent, but is more than a little reminiscent of his other work (particularly a certain movie about flesh-eating corpses). However, I could never quite shake the feeling that Lustig didn’t integrate the gore into the tone of the film well enough–as I said earlier, the difference between “a psychological thriller with gore” and “a gory psychological thriller.” I’m not opposed to splatter when it belongs in the movie, but here the grosser stuff (in particular the final sequence) just seems gratuitous and unnecessary.

To me, Maniac is a case of not-fully-realized potential: Frank Zito may have been a great creation, and Joe Spinell’s performance is top-notch, but both are a bit underserved by a weak story. That being said, it’s hardly seminal, but it has its bright spots.

Fun Fact!

Michael Sembello wrote the song “Maniac” after having seen this movie. The lyrics were originally about a serial killer, and then hastily rewritten for use in the film Flashdance.

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