NEWS
EVENTS
A maniac just walked out of Mordor.
Monday 18th March 2013 | Suzanne
Frodo has never quite been the same after he left Mordor and this movie is proof of it. Putting all 'Lord of the Rings' jokes aside, Elijah Wood is currently the new star of horror flick ‘Maniac’, in which he plays, well you guessed it, a maniac and not in the slightest sense of the word. In this movie, he takes on the role as ‘Frank’, a murderous mannequin maker who lives and works in LA. He spends his nights prowling the streets for victims and breathing heavily; yes there is a lot of that in this movie so be prepared. He then proceeds to kill and slice off the hair of his victim’s scalps which he then puts on the mannequins in his shop. Nothing out of the ordinary about that, eh? Well, it all might sound a little disturbing at first, but it's nothing more gruesome than the ordinary horror flick, right? Well, what is interesting about this movie is that it is shot entirely from the killer’s point of view, which is quite an ingenious thing, to be honest. The killer’s face is only shown when glancing in mirrors or windows (yeah our leading man does a lot of that too).
The feel of the movie is quite eerie due to this but because of it, you get to experience something so alien to most people, first hand. The film gets portrayed as if you are witnessing and maybe even committing the crimes yourself, which makes the gore harder to watch at times than in most horror movies. The movie is a remake of the similarly named cult horror movie created in the 80’s, which had the same story line, yet wasn’t quite shot the way this movie is. Taking the viewer into the warped mind of a killer is what this movie does incredibly well; it also enables the viewer to feel a sense of insecurity. Frank prowls his victims on the streets, and if there is anything this movie taught me, it is not to walk alone at night with barely any clothing on - things go very wrong that way. Due to the movie’s casting, there were some 'Lord of the Rings' jokes blasted here and there from the audience. Hey, I even did it in this article but overall Elijah’s performance worked quite well for this movie which was a pleasant surprise. Overall, this movie is not perfect since it does have some gut wrenchingly whacky scenes in there which are more hilarious than scary but overall the effort is appreciated. This movie has taken quite a bold approach by portraying a killer from the mind itself and has given quite a new touch to the horror flick experience. So if you like gory horror flicks with psychological depth and an interesting point of view this movie is definitely worth a watch. It might shock some 'Lord of the Rings' fans though so be careful with that.
By Suzanne Alblas
