Maniac
Psychotic Joker Antecedent Probes the Unsettling Line Between Romance & Murder

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A recent viewing of the 2012 movie Maniac remake made me question the unsettling parallels between a man hunting for love and one hunting with murderous intent.

The film is very good if you like a giallo slasher in the style of Dario Argento. Producer of both versions, William Lustig, even worked on the Italian master’s excellent Tenebrae. Both versions are about a psychopath with mother issues who murders women and staples their scalps onto his collection of mannequins.

The unique element in the remake was portraying most of the film through the point of view of the serial killer, played by Elijah Wood. With a few exceptions, he’s mostly only visible in mirrors throughout. This aesthetic, forcing the viewer to imagine themselves as the killer, elevates it beyond genre exploitation. Maniac becomes an exploration of the frustrated and perverse sexual impulses of the antagonist and the tragic (albeit somewhat unrealistic) love story at its core. In fact, this version of the film was even screened out of competition at Cannes.

The P.O.V. in film is a very context dependent tool. A cinematographer could evoke gritty realism of the “male gaze” by panning the camera to follow a woman. Are we watching a horror film with the knowledge that some of these women are future victims? Or are we watching a testosterone fueled Miami Vice-style crime noir boastfully showing off the sex of the city?

One of the interesting thoughts that this film provokes is the overlap between the hunt of the serial killer and the normal seduction. When a man sees an attractive woman, he begins tracking her internally, perhaps strategizing whether and how to woo her. She may not welcome his advance, unless she knows he is extraordinarily chariosmatic, attractive, rich, popular, etc.

This means the average-to-below-average man must consciously be willing to transgress her personal boundary. This is why some modern men do not approach women at all: there will never come an ideal situation in which a woman “invites” the man to seduce her. In a society obsessed with microaggressions, some polite men would rather remain silent and alone than risk offense.

In the approach he may scare her, embarrass her, or disgust her and yet he must be prepared to subject her to these things if he doesn’t want to become the perpetual “invisible man.” Not only that, but he must risk the condemnation of onlookers who may judge him as inept or creepy if his well-intentioned come-on misses its mark. The anxious male may look around to see if the coast is clear, like one about to engage in a criminal act.

Whether the man is a movie serial killer or an innocent looking for romance he must play the predator to her prey, in the sense that he must hunt and be willing to harm, even if it is only by being an annoyance. A further parallel is how gazing at a beautiful woman even a second too long can provoked in her a fear response, establishing the natural hierarchy of male physical dominance over the feminine. Any man can be a physical threat to any woman, and not the other way around. Part of the fascination of the serial killer fiction is in how the deranged individual refuses to avert his gaze but actively stalks his prey, how he not only doesn’t care about offending her but neither about explosive acts of violence.

The enduring popularity of these psycho-sexual slasher films exists at least partially due to men and women enjoying a space in which they can experience the fear of going or being taken beyond the boundaries of the normal rules of seduction. In Nietzschean terms, the slave morality of the good man will always cause him to question whether he has gone “too far.” The woman is caught between neglect of the man who doesn’t go far enough and fear of the man who goes too far. Perhaps there is catharsis in giving into our worst fears in the safety of a cinema.

This film is a remake of Maniac (1980) starring Joe Spinell, a bit actor who plays supporting roles in several huge films in the 1970s like Rocky, Taxi Driver, and The Godfather I and II. The original film used the traditional 3rd person point of view but has many of the same narrative beats as the remake, until some substantive changes in the final act. Both versions feature antagonist Frank Zito, developing a relationship with an attractive photographer in the midst of his psycho-sexual killing spree. However, Elijah Wood is more believable in this situation since Spinell, by contrast, was old, overweight, greasy and acne scarred.

My primary criticism of both versions is that it’s hard to suspend disbelief at the forwardness of the women towards the deranged psychopaths. For instance, one of female victims in the remake begs Frank, under the pseudonym of “TimidMan” on an online dating site, to not be so shy and send her a photo (since his profile didn’t have one). In real life, no woman would give a thought or response to a profile without a picture.

Despite thematic similarities to the so-called “incel film” Joker (and Taxi Driver besides), Frank is not an incel. Two attractive women are bizarrely into him. Yet there is still the through-line of the quiet, loner struggling to contain volcanic emotional impulses within until they explode all over the screen.

Anna, the “last girl,” is friendly and flirtatious with shy Frank when they meet in his mannequin restoration shop. She goes on dates with him: to watch The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and a romantic stroll through the park, despite having a boyfriend. When Frank arrives at the art gallery where Anna is featuring an exposition of her mannequin photography, Anna dismisses herself from her boyfriend to assertively greet him with welcoming eye contact. In a real world situation, a quiet man who stands alone without initiating conversation would be viewed at best as an awkward loser and, at worst, a creep.

I was shocked that the actor cast to play the boyfriend of beautiful blonde Anna was a black man. Although the boyfriend is a jerk and we do not empathize with him, it creates a bit of a troubling subtext about the quiet white boy being a secret psycho when, in reality, black men are much more likely to commit domestic violence against women. The unfortunate casting choice introduces a distracting, and hopefully unintentional, racial theme which detracts from the whole. Yet he is a minor character with few scenes.

Overall, if you’re a cinephile who gets down with blood and guts horror, you’ll like this one. The changes that this film makes stylistically and thematically, make it a stronger film than the original, a rare, if not unprecedented, feat for a remake.

Jason Kessler is the author of Charlottesville and the Death of Free Speech, available now from Dissident Press. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, Odysee, and Gab. Also follow Dissident Press on Twitter/X. We follow you back!