Maniac! [4K Ultra HD Blu-ray]

Overview

Joe Spinell, who appeared in Taxi Driver, stars in this unsavory horror film as Frank Zito, a character reminiscent of an even more disturbed Travis Bickle. Frank is an embittered loser who talks to himself and his dead mother, stalks a pretty model (Caroline Munro), and spends his spare time brutally murdering women. He then scalps his victims and puts the trophies on mannequins which he takes to bed with him at night. An unpleasant film with a relentlessly downbeat tone, Maniac! features graphic, bloody special-effects makeup by cult favorite Tom Savini, who meets a gruesome end in a cameo as "Disco Boy." Highlights include a realistic scalping by Exacto knife and an exploding head. The ending takes an interesting twist as Spinell hallucinates his victims returning to life and tearing him limb from limb. Spinell and Munro reteamed in 1982 for The Last Horror Film. Adult film star Sharon Mitchell (whom director William Lustig discovered in The Violation of Claudia) appears briefly as a nurse.

Product Details

Release Date:	05/26/2020
UPC:	0827058750196
Original Release:	1980
Source:	BLUE UNDE
Language:	English
Time:	1:28:00
Format:	Blu-ray
Sales rank:	11,176

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Joe Spinell	Frank Zito
Caroline Munro	Anna
Gail Lawrence	Rita
Kelly Piper	Nurse
Rita Montone	Hooker
Tom Savini	Disco Boy
Hyla Marrow	Disco Girl
James Brewster	Beach Boy
Linda Lee Walter	Beach Girl
Tracie Evans	Street Hooker
Carol Henry	Deadbeat
Nella Bacmeister	Carmen Zito
Louis Jawitz	Art Director
Denise Spagnuolo	Denise,Billy,Park Mother
Frank Pesce	TV Reporter
Candice Clements	Park Mother,First Park Mother
Kim Hudson	Lobby Hooker
Terry Gagnon	Woman in Alley
Joan Baldwin	Model
Jeni Paz	Model
Janelle Winston	Waitress
Randy Jurgensen	Cop
Jimmy Aurichio	Cop
Sharon Mitchell	Nurse
William Lustig	Motel Manager
Jay Chattaway	Composer

Technical Credits

Joe Spinell

C.A. Rosenberg

Andrew Garroni	Producer
Judd Hamilton	Executive Producer
William Lustig	Producer,Director
Tom Savini	Special Effects
Joe Spinell	Executive Producer,Screenwriter
C.A. Rosenberg	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

Serial killers come in all shapes and sizes. Those who like 'em paunchy and whiney need look no further than director William Lustig's low-budget cult classic Maniac, with Joe Spinell in the lead role as Frank Zito. The film is straightforward, serial-killer-on-the-loose fare, following the creepy Zito from victim to victim in extended, suspense-filled sequences that reek of Hitchcock. There's plenty of mania in Maniac, too, as Frank hears voices and has extended arguments with himself (and, in another nod to Hitckcock, his dead mother). There is also a bit of violence, of course, which is quite graphic and gory thanks to slasher-makeup king Tom Savini, who also makes a cameo. Ultimately, though, Maniac is an oddball character study, and Spinell, who also wrote the script, is truly spectacular in the lead. With a bulging midriff, pockmarked face, and bad fashion sense, Spinell's Zito looks every bit the early-'80s lunatic, making the film's odd romantic subplot particularly precious. And Maniac saves its best for last, building to a superbly surreal denouement. The Anchor Bay DVD includes audio commentary from director Lustig and several production team members, a radio interview with Lustig, Spinell, and costar Caroline Munro, a Joe Spinell documentary, and theatrical trailers.

Barnes & Noble - Gregory Baird

Directed by William Lustig (who also made the adult film The Violation of Claudia under a pseudonym and would later go on to direct Maniac Cop (1988), among others) and starring the late great character actor Joe Spinell (who also wrote and co-produced the film), Maniac was for many people the poster child for everything that was wrong, vile, and dangerous with the horror film genre. Even fans of the genre had a hard time defending the film and it is not difficult to see why. The film's aggressive onscreen violence is notorious and still packs a sickly punch today. Outside of the Italian horror films from the late '70s and early '80s, which gave audiences a heavy dose of giallo-styled mayhem and lurid, mondo-cannibal films, very few American films have ever pushed the cinematic violence meter so thoroughly over the top as this film did. Wes Craven's seminal revenge film Last House on the Left (1972) and Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre from 1974 came close (even though the latter's violence was pretty much always off-screen or implied), but Maniac left them in the gutter. The film's graphic special makeup effects were created by Tom Savini, a legend in his field due to his involvement in this film as well as his earlier contributions to George A. Romero's zombie classic, Dawn of the Dead (1979). With its plethora of realistic scalpings, stabbings, shotgun blasts to the head, beheadings, and more, Maniac challenged the stamina of many a jaded horror film fiend and, for better or worse, helped spawn the bloody tide of the 1980s horror film boom.

All Movie Guide - Derek Hill