GL84 Still affected by his mother's death, a psychotic serial killer begins stalking the streets of New York for potential targets only to find a potential romance that might quell his vicious streak and struggles to control his murderous urges before they return to affect his quest.This here was one of the more overrated slasher efforts of the time. The main problem here is the fact that the movie focuses on the killer more than the victims he goes after, being a character study rather than a truly enjoyable body count hacking. This is the real crime of the movie since he isn't one of the more fascinating serial killers in cinema history, so it can become boring if you're not in the right mind-frame. There are long stretches between kill scenes where you are just begging for something to happen, and all we get is watching him wander around looking for nothing or simply focusing on some old guy who keeps a part of his victims around and talks to them. That really loses the dread in the killer, since it either looks ridiculous and we laugh at him now or it's a trait that isn't very accurately represented throughout the whole movie. Here, it doesn't really invoke terror when a man scalps women to use their hair to dress up mannequins, then he begins talking to then while he's administering the hair to the mannequin. That looks silly instead of terrifying and when it comes into play as often as it does here with the utterly clichéd and wholly overused motive of childhood abuse from his parents as the catalyst for the rampage just making the whole thing even more problematic. There's also the utterly ridiculous romance angle that comes into play here that's incredibly difficult to rationalize why that occurs as it does here since there's very little about it that's believable why someone in her position would fall for an overweight, grimy person like him in the condition she does and it simply reeks of being there for envious purposes only. These here are really damaging and hold this back so much that the few positives here aren't that worthwhile. For the most part, nearly everything enjoyable with this one involves the gory killings which makes out nearly every single wound is like cutting through an important artery in the body. We get a slew of graphic kills here, mutilating the body with a series of intense work full of incredible effects work that gets featured. From the early random attacks, including the rather chilling stalking scene in the subway station to the attack in the friends' apartment to the gruesomeness of the utterly savage finale that ends this on a strikingly vicious moment, these here are quite good. Still, there's way too many flaws here to really mean anything here.Rated R: Extreme Graphic Violence, Brief frontal-full Nudity, and Language.

Predrag This is quite possibly the best film depicting a serial killer, the story is about a serial killer who goes out onto the streets of New York city each and every night looking for his next victim, first stalking them and when the time is right "making his move". The killer (played by Joe Spinell) is very disturbed and unlike most horror films of the times it goes into the background of why he is the way he is, showing the reasons why people turn into such monsters. The character has deep hatred for women and most of his victims are indeed women,(except in the scene where a couple are making out in a car and one of the most sickest and brilliantly done killings occurs) the story also follows him during the day when he is not killing anyone, this lets you see just how insane he is, by the way he is so normal around people and even gets a girlfriend, but when he is alone just how sick his mind gets.There is a lot of scenes that would make even the veteran horror fans stomach churn. Banned in the UK ever since it was made (way back in 1980), as it was the last film to star the great Joe Spinell (who died shortly after its release) and he was very proud of it.I will leave you with the words of the late Joe Spinell "I don't even think of Maniac as a Horror Movie, the horrible thing is that people like this really exist"Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

chaos-rampant Horror is most purely about the violent impulse that surges from behind the eyes, the mist it creates; a story can be anything. Here it's the simplest story, man goes crazy in the big city, unable to contain the impulse, the whole seen through his mist. There's a trauma that haunts him we find out, his cramped apartment is the mind then that fixates on memory and dwells among the fragments. The walls are lined with old photos of women, mannequins are scattered around; objects of a dead representation that he hoards unable to let go. Quite a bit more of that story is explained to us later on, not much interesting; Freudian stuff about a mother, a vengeful child who never grew. But there's nothing we can't know by just seeing him pace up and down in his apartment, muttering to himself.There's later a human connection to a photographer girl who snaps a picture of him one day in the park. The scenario is completely forced, a stranger and complete weirdo knocks on her door one day and they're best friends within minutes. It's something a weirdo much like the character would imagine (or write about). But it's an opportunity to get closer to the real source, put our finger on the pulse; she a photographer who also freezes life into image but she's able to let go of it and share it in the open, while it just drives him to madness. We see her fuss with her models during a shoot much like he does with his gruesome mannequins; but her fiction has life, playfulness. There's of course the violence, though it doesn't cut like perhaps it did then. It's still bloody and vivid. But what makes it powerful in its niche is the air of desperation around it, the whole film an internal monologue carving its garbled madness on the body of the night. New York looks suitably barren, from the time before the makeover when people would walk down streets as bleak as in this film to see movies like it in dingy fleapit cinemas down 42nd street. The film is from that time when horror could still unsettle with the thought that somewhere in the same city, deranged souls very much like the character skulked around with a camera having horrible thoughts like this.

gwnightscream Joe Spinell and Caroline Munro star in this 1980 horror film. This takes place in New York and Spinell (Rocky) plays Frank Zito, a mentally disturbed guy who has been traumatized since childhood because his mother abused him. He goes on a murder spree killing women and removes their scalps, placing them on mannequins in his apartment to preserve their youthful beauty. Munro (The Spy Who Loved Me) plays photographer, Anna D'Antoni whom he gets to know and she eventually learns he's ill. The late, Spinell is great in this because he's not only creepy, but you feel a little sympathy toward his character. Tom Savini not only does great with the make-up effects as usual, but also appears as a victim with an elaborate death scene, The director, William Lustig also appears as a motel clerk and Jay Chattaway's score is chilling. I recommend this good psychological horror flick.