By Marcey Papandrea, MoreHorror.com

Remakes seem to be the norm these days, and when you think about it, the early days of cinema had many different versions of the same thing. Take Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde for example, there are so many different film versions from the early days, with different studio’s and countries giving that adaptation a try. So why is it that remakes seems to annoy so many of us now? Mostly I think in the Hollywood system they just seem to be cash grabs, so many are just generic films and it feels like the idea’s have run out.

There are remakes out there however that do it right, take 80’s classics like The Thing and The Fly, those are fantastic remakes. They pay homage to the original, give it a fresh twist and are overall just great films. Now in the 00’s it seems difficult to find the remake, reboot, retool, reimaging that actually feels like it is accomplishing something. As far as horror goes, I’d say that The Hills Have Eyes and Dawn Of The Dead remakes are pretty good, but in the genre they feel hard to come by.
So when it was announced that early 80’s shocker Maniac was getting remade, I groaned.

The original film is strong, and it was a stand out of that era, I wasn’t sure how anyone could make a good film by remaking it. Then names were announced, like Elijah Wood as the star and I was then compelled to follow the progress. When my city recently had its big film festival and Maniac was one of the films screening, I was absolutely excited to see it and a friend who had seen it raved about it, I felt sold that this could be one of the good ones. So with my excitement and expectations in check, I sat down to watch Maniac, and within 10 minutes I was sold on this film. Yes it is a good film, it isn’t too much of a remake and it has this classic European style with a 70’s/80’s exploitation flavour.

The story may not seem unfamiliar but the way it is told feels fresh, we have Frank Zito (Elijah Wood), who owns a mannequin store and as we see he has a very strange fetish with said mannequins. He makes them his women, and the actual real women he encounters end up getting scalped, with the scalps kept for trophies. He is then challenged when a woman comes into his life Anna (Nora Arnezeder), he falls for her and we are left to wonder whether this will change him. His past is always there haunting him, with a mother who abused him (America Olivo) and memories he can’t get passed.

Some may say Maniac uses a gimmick, as it is shown entirely from Frank’s perspective. The only time we see Frank is through reflections, or when he is having a fantasy/flashback. This for me didn’t feel very gimmicky, it really became an immersive experience and it really placed me in his shoes. We the audience see what he sees, there is no holding back at all, and it really becomes quite the voyeur experience. In this way, it was rather disturbing, I personally felt like I was stalking these women and having been in a situation where I had been followed (and managed to get away) it just added to the whole experience. It felt real in some ways, other things felt very silly but this in a way eased the situation. There is no doubt Frank is one messed up man, and the fact that he looks unsuspecting adds to how chilling it was for me. When the killer of the film looks normal, like the person who could be living next door, someone who I even feel a bit of sympathy for, I am disturbed. This in a way reminded me of Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer, they have a lot of things in common, from the terrible upbringing and abusive mothers, to having a woman come into their life and challenge them, to that aspect where they can feel very normal and sympathetic. This is a portrait of a man going absolutely insane, which worked well for me.

I really have to give props to Elijah Wood; he did a great job as Frank. This is such a different role for him, this isn’t comedic like his recent work in Wilfred, and there is much more going on and real character developed than Kevin in Sin City. Gone is that innocent of Frodo or from his earlier works like Flipper and Deep Impact. He brings forth a true presence and a very frightening character; he sold me completely on what he was selling. He really is the film, and what a great job he has done here. Nora Arnezeder is adorable, she really is just lovely, she brings so much to Anna that this attraction Frank feels for her seems very natural. It is a really strong performance, and this woman worked wonders with her character. No one is bad in this film, the performances are strong and convincing, the victims each did fantastic jobs and while we didn’t get to know them, I for one actually didn’t want to see anything bad happen to them.

Franck Khalfoun did a really solid job as director, this wasn’t an easy film to make and he pulled it off successfully. The script by Alexandre Aja, Grégory Levasseur and C.A. Rosenberg was fantastic; they really crafted something here. I also need to give a shout out to Maxime Alexandre, whose cinematography was just jaw dropping, really brilliant stuff. For me Maniac was a great film, I had a very unique experience with it, it was an arthouse slasher film, an exercise in European style with a sense of exploitation. As I said when I walked out of the theater, ‘scalping as never looked so artistic’.