Remember that ridiculous scene at the end of The Return of the King where the Fellowship surprises Frodo in his recovery bed with a giant reunion tickle party? Well, imagine if that had just been a hallucination, some kind of neurosis caused by the repressed desire for second breakfasts. When Elijah Wood shifts back to reality, he is abed with a pile of mannequins, each one with a lifelike wig made out of the scalps of the different members of the Fellowship whose bloody rotting corpses lie around the room covered with flies.
Transplant that from Middle Earth to a modern-day Western city, and you're pretty close to having a grasp of what Maniac, the stirring update of the 1980 cult film, is all about. Directed by Frank Khalfoun and bearing the stamp of horror darling Alexandre Aja (whose Haute Tension is freaking ridiculous), this film follows Frank (played by Elijah Wood), owner of a mannequin shop, on a killing spree. However, Frank reaches a turning point when he meets the sympathetic young artist Anna (Nora Arnezeder).
The first thing that makes Maniac stand out is that it is shot entirely in point of view (POV), mostly from the perspective of Frank. We see the whole story from his eyes, only seeing Elijah Wood's creepy mug in reflections and mirrors. While originally the filmmakers surmised Wood wouldn't have to be on set, Wood decided to forgo a hand double and show up for the entirety of the film so he could play the character fully. Props to him for that"”it plays well. Who knew Elijah Wood could play such a grotesque and tortured figure?
Apparently, though, the star has a penchant for horror. He recently started his own production company, SpectreVision, which is working on an Iranian vampire western called A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, shot entirely in Farsi.
Yeah, that's happening.
The POV thing is part of what makes this film so wonderfully disturbing"”the audience is the killer. We are asked to sympathize, even become the villain in this journey. Thus, when Frank finally gets a victim that puts up a credible fight, the audience starts cheering"”for their own demise. This viewer-response device echoes the internal struggle of Frank, whose self-loathing for his crimes leaves him with his own subconscious deathwish.
Thank goodness in an age when every slasher or mainstream horror release tries to heavy-handedly "psychologize" everything, there are artists around who can actually pull off a smart, well done psycho horror flick.
The gore, too, needs its own shout out. The gore in this movie is refreshing. It avoids the crude realism and sheer quantity of most of the genre's current offerings. Instead, it is disturbing but just campy and suspenseful enough to draw audience yells and screams with a tinge of fun to them.
The downside to this movie goes back to the philosophy of POV. The film, by putting them in the head of the killer, accuses audiences of their own sin. That is all well and good, but the ending offers none of us a way out. Thus, the film does nothing to exhort viewers to a particular way of life, it offers them no path to salvation"”a staple of the traditional horror formula. Telling a bunch of human beings that the fight to escape their inner evil is ultimately pointless and hopeless is, err"¦wrong. People need to be scared in a certain direction.
Ultimately, though, Maniac is enjoyable and comes at a time when good horror is badly needed. Fans of the genre should not miss it.
