Maniac

STARRING: Elijah Wood, America Olivo, Nora Arnezeder
RUN TIME: 89 mins.
YEAR:2013
MY RATING: 7/10

Maniac is part psychological thriller part straight up gore fest! While this movie was no masterpiece I could see this becoming a guilty pleasure of mine. The reason? Maniac let's you view the kills from the killer's p.o.v which is a pretty cool concept however, I do wish they would've stuck to this view point instead of randomly throwing in some "artsy" camera angle
every now and then throughout the film. I'd have preferred the camera to keep to just the p.o.v shots because, this made the movie creepier for me. The score was decent, some of it was a nod to the 80's [in my opinion anyway]. The mix of deafening high pitch shrieks and shots of blinding light makes the viewer feel as if they are experiencing the schizophrenic episodes along with Frank almost allowing you to feel sorry for the poor bastard but, as soon as you do you remember what a little freak this dude is! Elijah Wood does a great job at being extremely creepy I feel that he played this character surprisingly well, despite my low expectations. When I initially heard that Elijah was playing this part I was like "Uhh...Whaaaat?!" I really didn't see this being a good fit considering he is not physically intimidating which was exactly the case while, not physically scary Elijah Wood did play this character with the same sort of meek sketchiness that he did as Kevin in Sin City but, as Frank or "FRANKIIIE" as his extremely male friendly and promiscuous mother [to put it nicely] kept referring to him as, there was something much more disturbing frightening like, you knew this dude was not right in the least. Flashbacks provide a somewhat deeper look into why he is so messed up but, can one really even begin to understand why anyone would go around scalping women and then take said women's scalps and staple them to a mannequin but, I digress. The deaths weren't exactly anything new or innovative but, I will say they pulled them off in a way that it seemed like it was something fresh and that's not only thanks to the camera views that I mentioned up above but, also the timing. The chase scenes were paced a little slower showing that Frank wasn't just chasing these girls but, he was legit stalking them! Which made it all the creepier. This slow pace carries on in a few scenes that did end up losing my attention but, I was drawn back in pretty quickly once the schizophrenia and chaos continued. All and all I'd say Maniac is a pretty decent movie it's entertaining & brutal I wouldn't say go out & buy it right away but, it's definitely worth a watch, I enjoyed it.

See what fellow horror fans have to say on Maniac's IMDB Page: CLICK HERE!!!