Sadly, at no point was there flash-dancing
in this film…
Making
a movie with a gimmick proves to be a tricky proposition, as once you commit to
said gimmick, you have to truly commit. So making a film entirely from the
perspective of the main character can be a severe boon overall to the film’s
quality, but fortunately the makers of
Maniac
find a way to make it work. Remaking William Lustig’s 1980 slasher classic,
Maniac chronicles the trials of
disturbed young man Frank Zito, who spends his days working in his shop of
mannequins and his nights stalking and scalping young women. For all the
technical props you could give the film (and you could give it much, considering
Franck Khalfoun’s inventive direction), the film lives and dies by Elijah Wood’s
performance as the killer we rarely see. Wood manages to do the unthinkable and
outcreep original
Maniac Joe Spinell,
but what is possibly most creepy about his performance is how human he makes
the character, allowing the audience to truly view the world through his broken
perspective. Couple all of that with am awesome synth score that would make Nicholas
Winding Refn weep, and you have yourself a modern classic.
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