Maniac (1980 film)

Frank Zito (Joe Spinell) was abused as a child by his prostitute mother, and as a result, becomes a serial killer who murders young women, scalps them and attaches their hair to mannequins. After he awakens from a nightmare about killing a couple on a beach, he dresses and leaves his apartment towards Manhattan into Times Square. When Frank is randomly invited inside a hotel by a prostitute (Rita Motone), she kisses him before he abruptly strangles and scalps her. He returns home, dresses a mannequin with the dead prostitute's clothing and nails her scalp to its head. Frank tells himself that beauty is a crime punishable by death.

Sometime later, he dresses again and takes a collection of weaponry with him, including a double-barrelled shotgun, before leaving. He drives around Brooklyn and the Queens area, where he finds a couple exiting a local disco and parking near the side of the Verrazano Bridge. When the boyfriend (Tom Savini) starts up the vehicle after his date sees Frank spying on them, Frank kills the couple with his shotgun and then adds the woman to his mannequin collection. After seeing his recent crime on television, he talks to himself and the mannequins as he sobs himself to sleep.

During the next day in Central Park, Frank follows a photographer named Anna (Caroline Munro) after she takes a photo of him and a little girl riding a bicycle in the distance. At night, Frank sees a nurse (Kelly Piper) leaving the Roosevelt Hospital, where he then stalks her inside the subway station and murders her with a bayonet before adding her to his mannequin collection. Days later, Frank heads to Anna's apartment and is invited inside by Anna after she recognizes him from the photo she took of him. Upon him asking her out to dinner, he later shows her a photo of his mother who died in a car crash years ago. A few days later, Frank is invited by Anna to a studio during a photography session, and she introduces one of her models Rita (Abigail Clayton) to him. After seeing the two talking and holding hands, he steals Rita's necklace and leaves. Later that same night, he arrives at Rita's apartment to give her a necklace, before then attacking her and tying her to the bed. Frank begins talking and addresses her as his mother and stabs her with a switchblade before scalping her for his collection.

One night, Frank takes Anna on a date and they stop by a cemetery to visit his mother's grave. While laying some flowers beside the headstone, Frank begins to mourn over one of his early victims and attacks Anna. He chases her around the cemetery, but she hits him in the arm with a shovel before fleeing. He hallucinates his decomposing mother attacking him from the grave. He runs back to his apartment, where he sees his mannequins suddenly coming alive. They mutilate Frank with his weapons before ultimately tearing off his head.

The next morning, two police officers break into Frank's apartment and see Frank lying dead on his bed; he has committed suicide. As the officers leave the apartment, Frank's eyes suddenly open.

Director William Lustig, who previously had worked as a director of pornographic films, used profits from his 1977 film Hot Honey to make Maniac.[5]

Principal photography began on October 21, 1979, and wrapped on January 18, 1980. Many scenes had to be filmed guerrilla-style because the production could not afford city permits, including the shotgun sequence, which was filmed in just an hour.

The infamous sequence where Frank murders the boyfriend (played by Tom Savini) was loosely inspired by the "Son of Sam" murders committed by serial killer David Berkowitz, who shot people in parked cars with a .44 Special revolver. Savini, who served as the film's make-up artist, received the role for the male victim from him having already made a cast of his own head, which was filled inside with leftover food and fake blood. Since Savini used live ammunition for the scene, he immediately threw the shotgun into the trunk of a waiting car driven by an assistant Luke Walter, who was a friend of Spinell, to avoid being caught by the police.[6]

Maniac was one of the three films that Spinell and co-star Caroline Munro worked together; the other films being Starcrash and later The Last Horror Film.

According to a Variety report, Maniac was scheduled for a midnight screening at the Cannes Film Festival on May 10, 1980.[1] The film had its U.S. premiere in New York City on January 30, 1981, followed by a Los Angeles premiere on March 6, 1981.[1]

Maniac has been cited by some media outlets as one of the greatest slasher/horror films ever made. Esquire placed it at #18 in their list of "The 55 Scariest Movies of All Time".[17] It was ranked at #44 in Paste magazine's "50 Best Slasher Movies of All Time".[18]

The film is discussed, in contrast with Christo and Jeanne-Claude's artwork Surrounded Islands, in David Antin's poem what it means to be avant-garde.[19]

Maniac was nominated for a Saturn Award by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, USA, for Best Low-Budget Film in 1981.

• Edwards, Matthew (2017). Twisted Visions: Interviews with Cult Horror Filmmakers. McFarland. ISBN 978-1-476-62814-1. OCLC 959535405.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Harper, Jim (2004). Legacy of Blood: A Comprehensive Guide to Slasher Movies. United Kingdom: Critical Vision. ISBN 978-1-900-48639-2. OCLC 475680187.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Muir, John Kenneth (2012). Horror Films of the 1980s. 1. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-786-47298-7. OCLC 840902442.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Schoell, William (1985). Stay Out of the Shower: 25 Years of Shocker Films, Beginning With Psycho. Dembner Books. ISBN 978-0-934-87861-6. OCLC 804523898.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

• Maniac at AllMovie
• Maniac at IMDb
• Maniac at Rotten Tomatoes