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Maniac
And he’s dancing like he’s never danced before.
1980
Review: November 25, 2005
Director: William Lustig
Starring: Joe Spinell, Caroline Munro, Tom Savini
Probably a good idea.
THE SETUP:
The daily life of a serial killer.
DISCUSSION:
I had seen the poster for this movie around and heard that it was a legendary cult film, so of course I was somewhat interested to finally check it out. I read somewhere that people are somewhat disturbed by the BULGE on the guy in the poster, as people generally don’t like male bulges and find them repulsive and unsightly. Well, not me, and from my point of view, I really don’t need to be treated to the sight of tits everywhere. Britney’s tits, or J.Lo’s tits, or Mariah’s tits, or Gwen’s tits, or Angelina’s tits, so get over it. Anyway, in this case it turns out that the bulge is very well placed, as the movie is about the intersection of male sex and violence gone awry.
Joe Spinell plays the maniac in question, whom we first meet stalking some couple on the beach, in a scene that doesn’t really have much to do with the rest of the film. Then there is a long and pretty good dialogue-free sequence as this guy, our friendly neighborhood serial killer, gets dressed to go about his day. This is when you begin to get the sense that this movie is going to be a bit like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer [which I only saw once, long ago] in that it’s going to follow the mundane daily life of this brutal killer. So that’s somewhat interesting, but it doesn’t stay that way for long.
The fist proper victim appears after we get some coverage shots of New York while some awesome sounding disco song plays [apparently the numbers are by Don Armando’s 2nd Avenue Street Band]. Then we meet these two prostitutes, our killer hires one, and they go into this hotel. The scene around the desk in reminiscent of the hotel desk in Basket Case. They go into the room, where the killer wants the woman to dance for him. This is where things start to get disturbing, and the real imprint of this film becomes apparent: that it is going to spend an inordinate amount of time, I think a somewhat pornographic amount of time, in setting up the final moments of these women who we as an audience know are going to be killed. In this scene, the “seduction” goes on so long that I am pretty sure we the audience are supposed to be somewhat turned on, and part of that excitement is in knowing the girl is going to get it. Plus, the woman herself is supposedly getting excited. “Oh, you’re good,” the prostitute says in pleased surprise moments before she is strangled. Yeah, it’s ugly, but the whole of the movie is so interesting it kind of makes up for these massive excesses. And of course, the massive excesses ARE the movie.
Then the killer goes home and plays with his mannequins. He has one for every woman he has killed, and he staples what we’re supposed to understand are their scalps to the heads of the mannequins, while he holds long internal [or external] monologues with what I presume is his other personality. At first I thought these things were supposed to be, you know, mannequins, but later in the movie it occurred to me that they’re supposed to stand in for his real victims. It seems more likely that a real killer would take home his real victims to play with, but you can’t show—even in this movie—a guy humping a mutilated body, so I think the mannequins serve as a stand-in. It’s interesting in the first half of the movie, but I found myself getting a little bored in the second. Plus, I had just moved into my new apartment [this was the first movie I watched there], and I hadn’t found the remote to my DVD player yet, so I was unable to fast-forward, which I’m sure I would have done.
In the next killing Tom Savini, who did make-up effects for this film as well as for [but you know this] Dawn of the Dead, stars as “Disco Boy,” who picks up “Disco Girl” and they go underneath a bridge to make out. You then get a pretty serious Tom Savini make-out scene, which was fine with me, as he’s got a nice ‘stache and I like those kind of horny straight guys. Anyway, things end poorly for our hapless duo, as you can imagine.
By now you’re starting to get the idea that this movie is going to be a bit repetitive. Killer talks to himself, killer goes out stalking, scene of suspense, killer kills. And you would be right.
The next victim is a nurse who leaves work and is chased into the subway. This chase sequence, showing each party’s walking feet, is surely based on the famous stalking sequence from the original Cat People. The nurse eventually winds up in a bathroom [back when the New York subway had bathrooms], and it was here that I started to resent the musical effects, because I thought the film could have been much more effective without a loud musical sting every time something creepy happened. Anyway, in an EXCRUCIATINGLY suspenseful scene, the nurse hides in a bathroom stall and tries to stay quiet. This scene goes on so long, staring straight at the woman’s face as she sobs and makes wild eyes, that it really becomes sadistic and virtually pornographic, because the excitement the viewer is supposed to feel is in watching her extreme terror while knowing that she is going to die. I confess that I covered my eyes during this part—not out of moral outrage, but because I can’t stand that “when is he going to jump out” kind of tension, and that’s what this scene dragged out for what seemed like ten minutes. Anyway, I found it a little distasteful, as it really is about getting off on watching a woman be absolutely terrified. Also on the distasteful side is a killing a few minutes later in which a woman in a bathtub is obviously becoming aroused by our protagonists attempt to kill her.
Things start to take a slight turn here, which is good, as it was getting a little dull, as our maniac befriends a photographer. There is some unintentional comedy as he knocks on her door, they meet for the first time, then immediately go out to dinner [she says she’ll be ready in five minutes], whereupon they talk as though they are deeply in love and have been in a committed relationship for several years. Later he shows up unannounced in her apartment, and they decide to go out again, RIGHT THEN. I had no idea that chic and cosmopolitan New York high-fashion photographers were always free at the drop of a hat.
Now, imagine my shock and delight when I found this amazing factoid in the trivia section for this movie on IMDb: Apparently there was a theme song to this film, but ultimately they decided it would be inappropriate to use [and it would have been]. The song was eventually retooled and ended up being a big hit from the movie FLASHDANCE.
This movie is extreme not so much in its gore [though there’s plenty], but in the hardcore sadism it represents, and that which it evokes in its audience. But the killer’s psychology and the amount of time the film is willing to devote to detailing his daily life and interactions make it really quite something and definitely worth seeing.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
Yes.
