Netquix: Maniac (2012)

Netflix content reviewed in 150 words. Or thereabouts.

Maniac (2012)

Dir: Franck Khalfoun

89 minutes

Frank Khlafoun’s modern update of the notorious eighties slasher is deeply uncomfortable viewing. Starring sapphire-eyed hobbit Elijah Wood as the titular madman, there’s something wholly troubling about the audience’s complicity in the shocking acts of barbarism through the film’s POV framework. To enter murderer Frank Zito’s head – his paranoid ramblings, hallucinatory episodes and jittery awkwardness - gives a tangible feeling of surrendering all rational autonomy, to be trapped firmly in the grip of lunacy.

Tellingly, the film’s heavily Giallo-inspired electronic synth’ score clearly evokes the gore-soaked exploitation flicks of its forbearers’ era. Whether as simple tribute or cynical remount of that genre’s nihilistic attitude remains somewhat muddied.

Does Maniac induce fear? Not exactly, but certainly revulsion and anxiety. Occasionally unbearably tense and often scarcely watchable, it’ll provoke reaction from even the most casually indifferent viewer. A film then, that’s good at what it does, but what it does isn't necessarily all that good. Proceed with extreme caution.

6/10