Elijah Wood and Nora Arnezeder star in this 2012 horror remake of the 1980 film. Wood (The Faculty) plays Frank, a mentally disturbed, young man who is fixated on youthful beauty. He starts murdering women and removes their scalps to place on mannequins. Soon, he meets photographer, Anna (Arnezeder) and starts to fall for her. Eventually, Anna learns that Frank is not whom he appears to be. This is a pretty good remake, Wood is great in it, I like some of the POV shots and there's some gruesome make-up effects. I recommend this.

William Lustig's original Maniac, released in 1981, was both a personal project for lead character actor Joe Spinell, who also co- wrote the screenplay, and an exercise in exploitation scuzziness destined for grindhouse notoriety. For all the flaws that came with such a low-budget guerilla horror movie, it was an interesting portrayal of an unhinged killer bolstered by an impressive, underrated performance from the genuinely intimidating Spinell. As the trend goes these days, it was always destined for a remake, and this 2012 update from director Franck Khalfoun and producer Alexandre Aja at least attempts to be its own movie by making the risky decisions of shooting the entire thing POV style from the psychopath's perspective, and in casting baby- faced nice guy Elijah Wood as the titular maniac.Frank Zito (Wood) is a mannequin restorer living a reclusive lifestyle in his dingy store. By day he obsessively fiddles with his antiques and talks to the voices in his head, but by night he stalks the streets for potential prey. He meets a pretty photographer named Anna (Nora Arnezeder) who is impressed with his collection and wants to utilise them for her art opening, and the two seem to hit it off. Frank becomes enamoured but doesn't want to kill her, so he scours dating sites for unwitting victims instead. He has a fondness for scalping his victims after they have been strangled, and decorates his mannequins with them as he tries to recreate the various women in his life, including his mother, who we learn from flashbacks was promiscuous to say the least. Alone in his room, Frank communicates with the figures, using insect repellent as the flies gather around the decomposing flesh. With Anna, he seems to have finally developed a normal, sustainable relationship, until he finds out she has a boyfriend.A lot of positive things have been said about Maniac, from the ambitious technical approach to the against-type performance from Wood. While it gets tiresome rather quickly, the POV gimmick is at least interesting, forcing us to try empathise with a remorseless monster as he carries out his heinous crimes, and offering only glimpses of Wood's saucer-eyes in reflections. Yet Wood is merely okay in the role, and most of the plaudits seem to stem from the fact that film plays with our expectations in casting an actor of such small physical stature. Although, in his defence, he spends the majority of time off-screen. The remainder of Maniac consists of extreme, ugly violence towards women, sensationalised ever further by the visual gimmickry on show, and late night chases through inexplicably abandoned streets, where all roads lead to dark alleyways. This schlock approach could almost be forgiven if the film had the aesthetic and mood to get under your skin (something the original succeeded in doing), but it doesn't. It's certainly something gore-hounds will love, but I enjoy my horror served with more substance.

I watch a LOT of horror, from quality to sh*t and I generally try to look for the positive aspects in even the poor ones, but I have my standards (as I do with every other genre, horror doesn't just get a free pass although I am more lenient in suspending belief). I do have my limits as to what I'm willing to believe or take seriously ...First of all, the first person thing has been done to death at this point and really doesn't add much to this specific movie. Nothing original there.... that being said, the cinematography is beautiful and the soundtrack is awesome. That's about all this movie has going for it.The acting is pretty atrocious by most of the cast including Elijah Wood himself. The dialogue seems so forced and unnatural by him and the first few females he encounters. It all sounds incredibly scripted and forced....and corny.The intro to the movie starts out by showing the night lights of the city, people mingling and walking around, city full of life...yet for some reason every time he decides to stalk a female in this very lit up city, not a single soul is anywhere within sight conveniently enough, regardless of desperate screams and plodding chase scenes. It feels incredibly silly. This is not a minor detail and cannot be brushed aside. The only people that seem to be conveniently around at JUST the right moments are the beautiful females he encounters, who regardless of how unsettling and creepy (Elijah) looks and behaves, somehow become attracted/infatuated with him and hand themselves over on a silver platter. There's one scene specifically where the girl is asking him to grab her breasts and he does...only thing is his hands have cuts, bruises, dirt, scabs and everything else you can think of, yet she doesn't bat an eye.I found the entire film to be rather pretentious, and each scene more predictable than the previous. I was incredibly bored and rather irritated. I tried to like it, but it is just not a very good horror flick...

Well if you like gore and want to know what our little Hobbitsis friend has been up too now that he's a 'Maniac' (see what I did there? The film is called maniac so I......oh never mind) with a slightly unhealthy relationship with his mother.No I'm not talking about M.J either.But seriously, if you would like to squirm and look away, well I bet you do it at some point during it - then this might be for you. I like to say this film fits into a surreal context due to his imagination and as other dear reviewers point out - the streets seem empty when he's on the prowl.Definitely underrated and one to watch.