It’s fair to say that William Lustig’s filmography isn’t exactly “high art.” Between the hilariously exploitative Maniac Cop franchise to whatever Uncle Sam was trying to be, Lustig’s films often toe the line between schlock and provoking entertainment without really diving headfirst into either category. If anything, going into a Lustig film means you can expect an overwhelming sense of seediness and sleaze.
But one film of Lustig’s in particular not only embodies this idea to a T, but it does so in a genuinely thrilling, spine-tingling fashion. Originally released in 1980, Maniac, at first glance, is a perfectly unassuming slasher film. The graphic box art depicting a pair of legs clad in denim, one hand clutching a bloodied mess of hair, the other squeezing the handle of a hunting knife, sets the stage for a bog-standard slasher starring the same hulking, gruff type we’ve seen time and time again. But, across a brisk eighty-eight minutes, we’re treated to something a little different. Instead of a hulking monster, we get the ups and downs of a regular-looking guy in the form of Joe Spinell. Instead of rampant sex followed by extreme violence, the latter often comes first, broken up only by periods of self-loathing and contemplation from our opportunistic killer.
Maniac would be remade in 2012 with Franck Khalfoun in the director’s char. Lustig would give his input as a producer alongside Alexandre Aja of High Tension fame. Khalfoun’s filmography isn’t exactly stunning, but Maniac stands out as both a quality slasher film and as a re-imagining of Lustig’s original masterwork. The same rough plot beats are met, but extensive creative liberties were taken in making an experience thoroughly detached from the original film, all while embodying the same concepts the original was drowning in.
Seeing as how we’re more than forty years removed from Maniac’s original release and ten from the 2012 remake, it’s high time to examine how each film presents its story, as well as how our lead role of Frank Zito differs between them.
A brief synopsis of Maniac is necessary in understanding what each film does differently. A lone serial killer in a dense metropolitan city suffers from the effects of childhood trauma. What does he do to cope with said trauma? He stalks women, kills them, scalps them, and attaches said scalps to mannequins. You know, the rational thing. But, when a photographer starts to show a genuine interest in our killer, he finds himself caught between his murderous escapades and a desire to appease his newfound positive influence. Predictably, our killer’s past comes back with a vengeance as his world collapses around him, culminating in his precious mannequins coming to life and tearing him limb from limb in the isolation of his apartment.
Both Maniac films are told from the perspective of a single character, with the film’s focus being exclusively on them. That character is Frank Zito. A man broken by a childhood riddled with abuse and neglect, his inward trauma is taken out on innocent people via the aforementioned murder and scalping, all while desperately trying to justify his actions in myriad ways.
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The original Maniac saw character actor Joe Spinell prowl the streets of New York. Being a character actor, Spinell’s history in films leading up to Maniac often consisted of minor roles that helped prop up other actors in bigger productions. The Godfather, Rocky I & II, and Taxi Driver are some of the more notable examples of this. Spinell rarely took the spotlight in a leading role, making Maniac an intriguing example of what he could’ve brought to the table. Suffice it to say, it’s one hell of a performance.
Spinell’s Frank Zito is a troubled, violent man. He relishes in the violence he inflicts on others, yet once the killing stops and the scalps are attached to mannequin heads, the “high” comes down, and the realization of what he’s done hits him like a hammer to the skull. He’s a deeply damaged man, breaking his streaks of violence with mumbled ramblings and quiet sobs. Underneath the gritted teeth and piercing gaze, Spinell’s pained gasps and distraught cries in the isolation of his apartment reveal the inner pain that plagues Frank’s perception of the world.
He comes off less as a glitzy “character” and more like someone you could meet in reality. We see everything out of his performance short of genuine happiness, and the way he can bounce between these emotions based on his ability to harm others in the moment feels earnest and spine-chilling. In a way, Spinell avoiding the spotlight in his previous roles makes his Frank Zito feel horrifically genuine.
Conversely, 2012’s Maniac saw Lord of the Rings alumni and indie-darling Elijah Wood put his own spin on Frank Zito. Needless to say, it’s a pretty dramatic change.
Wood isn’t physically imposing, nor does he reach the level of sheer intensity that Spinell brought to the table. But he makes up for it in a plethora of other ways. His child-like features, his vacant gaze, the higher-pitch tone, and the way he yelps instead of yells more directly present the trauma that Frank Zito underwent as a child. It further emphasizes the connection to his traumatic past, implying that Frank never really understood how to process what had happened beyond a stunted idea of what his few happy memories felt like.
Frank Zito’s past in the original Maniac is largely told, not shown. Outside of a scar shown on his chest towards the beginning of the film, and a horrific hallucination taking place in a graveyard, much of his relationship with his mother is indirectly told to the audience. But, this is done so in an effective manner. He rambles as he dresses his mannequins in the clothing and scalps of his victims. While incoherent at times, you can interpret his ramblings as bits and pieces of conversation. At points, he seems to interrupt himself while directly opposing his own thoughts. These conversational ramblings are likely a reflection of either his real ideas or that of his mother. In doing this, it paints the picture that Frank’s external interactions with others — the few times they don’t end in murder — feel fabricated, as fake as the stiff faces on his mannequins. The real side of him only seems to come out when he is truly alone, either standing over someone’s corpse or sitting in his rotting apartment.
On the other hand, Wood’s Frank Zito feels less like someone purposefully taking his pain out on others and more like someone who does so out of happenstance. He’s someone who, somehow, stumbled his way out of an abusive home with no real way of coping or understanding how to process his trauma. There’s a recognizance of his actions, further exemplified by the use of medication to suppress psychotic episodes and a heightened struggle to suppress his episodes in the presence of his love interest. When Frank Zito does lash out, there’s more of a visual dichotomy between this thin man and the particularly graphic act of tearing someone’s scalp off. Not cutting, mind you — tearing.
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The last major difference between the two Frank Zitos is how exactly they go about their various killings. We have to discuss this; they’re slasher films, for one thing. But, it’s worth acknowledging that each Frank Zito goes about their murderous business in a different way. The original Frank is opportunistic, taking as little time as possible to do the deed while relishing in the brief carnage. As an opportunist, Frank also doesn’t discriminate in terms of his methods: military bayonets, garrotes, his bare hands, and even a shotgun make up his various implements. The end goal is to kill, and the ensuing scalping is secondary to the act of snuffling life. Compare this to the remake, in which Zito’s kills are often tinged with more deliberate sadism. Several kills are often drawn out, either out of misplaced care or a deliberate desire to inflict as much of his inner suffering onto others as possible. He is often stuck using a large hunting knife, though a violent brawl during the film’s climax sees him taking up a hefty meat cleaver as well. This, along with the act of scalping being directly correlated to the last positive memory of his mother, is also made much more grotesque with the greater emphasis on gore.
Speaking of which, you can’t compare the two Maniac films without mentioning how each was constructed. They both carry a certain kind of voyeurism in their film-making techniques, yet they go about it in completely different ways.
It’s no secret that the original Maniac was primarily shot as a guerilla film. With a meager budget funded via Lustig’s pornographic works, shutting down entire city blocks in New York to film a handful of scenes was simply not feasible. Discreet filming of city streets and avoiding the use of permits is one thing, but one scene, in particular, could’ve sent Lustig, Tom Savini, and Spinell to prison.
The infamous car kill, where Tom Savini’s head gets turned into pulp by a shotgun, was done with absolutely no legal oversight whatsoever. Picture yourself walking by the scene. It’s the middle of the night, and a figure in dark clothing just jumped on top of the hood of a car before blowing away whoever was in the driver seat. The assailant tosses the gun in the trunk of another vehicle before being ferried away. The entire incident happens in less than sixty minutes. What else could you possibly glean from the situation other than that someone is channeling their inner David Berkowitz? It certainly doesn’t help that actual shotgun shells were used to blow up Savini’s fake head. The impact from the shotgun blast was so forceful that Savini, who handled the dirty deed, was thrown off the car, only to be caught at the last second by someone behind him.
While the overall production quality of Maniac makes its low budget evident, more often than not, the film’s limitations lend it a nightmarish quality. Similar to Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, the purposeful hand-held quality of many shots lends itself to an uncomfortable, uneasy feeling. We’re not meant to be seeing what we’re seeing. Yet, here we are. It ultimately leads to the film being more of a character study of Frank Zito instead of a typically-schlocky slasher, especially when placed against its contemporaries at the time. Compare Maniac to the first Friday the 13th film that same year, or Halloween II and My Bloody Valentine only a year later.
The remake of Maniac pursues this voyeurism theme in a wholly different way. We get to see the world through Frank Zito’s eyes — and no, that’s not being figurative. Almost the entire film is exclusively shot from a first-person perspective, with glimpses of Frank Zito only visible through mirrors and occasional blurring between reality and fantasy.
It’s an interesting creative decision that isn’t seen all that often in full-length feature films. The only recent example that comes to mind is Hardcore Henry, an action film that reportedly left many audiences feeling motion sick from the constant movement. Thankfully, the gimmick feels appropriate in the Maniac remake. Frank Zito’s stalking feels even more unsettling and upsetting now that the audience is directly partaking in it, from the opening scene leading to the first kill to the multiple scenes of murderous misogyny that take place from this perspective.
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As much as it creates this kind of “icky” feeling in the audience, arguably, some of the original Maniac’s effectiveness is due to how there’s still a layer of separation between the audience and Frank Zito. Instead of Frank’s issues being described to the audience with himself as an intermediary, they’re instead given prominence through dream sequences and hallucinations. Spelling things out directly instead of leaving the audience’s imagination to fill in the gaps is slightly less engaging. However, having Zito’s mannequins become “alive” once their respective scalps are attached is an interesting decision, giving us some deeper insight into how he feels about each of his victims after their demise.
The remake feels a lot slicker. The gore effects are amped to eleven, bordering on sickening at points. Visual effects distort our view of the world whenever Frank has an episode. Saturated colors, dreamlike sequences, and multiple shots of Los Angeles from Frank’s perspective give the Maniac remake a professional quality that squashes the original’s modest production. The act of filming from a first-person perspective showed tremendous technical skill and choreography from both Elijah Wood and photography director Maxime Alexandre. The two are often forced to play Frank Zito simultaneously, with Alexandre acting as his eyes and Wood acting as his hands. It’s an effective tool to make us feel like a complete creep, but on the other hand, it feels a little too well done to be something as grimy and unnerving as the original.
We also need to acknowledge how the soundtracks between the two films vary significantly. The original soundtrack for Maniac was composed by Jay Chattaway, who collaborated with Lustig for Maniac Cop and later became a composer for the various Star Trek shows of the 1990s. A product of the 1980s, you can expect Maniac to be loaded with synthesizers and drum machines. Horror strings and dark ambiance round out the soundscape, but the use of wind instruments really makes the original film’s tracks stand out. “Window Shopping,” in particular, heavily utilizes wind instruments to create a shockingly somber track, not for the slain victims but for Frank himself. Combined with high-pitched chimes, it invokes an image of a ruined childhood: the magic that once inhabited someone’s life had been reduced to nothing but a vague recollection that may not bear any truth. It’s easily a highlight of what is otherwise typical, if not compelling, slasher fare.
On the other hand, the Maniac remake’s soundtrack feels like it was directly inspired by the 1980s instead of being sourced from it. Coinciding with the film’s blurred boundaries between reality and fantasy, dreaminess accompanies most tracks, cut up with heavier synths and muted piano tones depending on the context. The film’s closing track during the credits even features breathy vocals from Cholë Alper, a wholly original composition that wouldn’t feel out of place from the era. It’s a more enjoyable listen when separated from the original film, but it feels less closely tied to the film’s events as a result.
Both Maniac films have their strengths and weaknesses. They’re not perfect films by any stretch of the imagination, but their subject matter, performances, atmosphere, and brutal kills are sure to leave a mark on any devout horror fan. If you haven’t gotten a chance to see either one yet, both are readily available on physical media and many rental services. They have also been regularly making the rounds through various streaming services, with their most recent landing spot being on the free ad-supported platform Tubi.
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