3/5 Tom Savini's great makeup work enlivens grubby exploitation fare
  by Muzzlehatch (the walls of Gormenghast)
This gory serial killer film got some press on original release for Tom Savini's fairly gruesome shotgun-to-the-head scene which occurs fairly early in the film, and Gene Siskel famously claimed to have walked out at that point, saying that the film could never redeem itself. I'm rather divided as to whether he was right or not. On the one hand, the portrait of late 70s New York with the seedy rubbing shoulders with the wealthy and stylish is nicely done - mostly coming from the seedy and resentful point of view, there is the gorgeous Caroline Munro to look at, and Joe Spinell's Frank Zito, while not exactly the most original psycho killer ever seen (he hears voices, imagines that the mannequins he dresses with women's scalps are real women, has a mommy fixation, etc) at least seems very real - he's sweaty, fat, unattractive and ill-dressed, and does a decent job at alternating between thoroughly crazy and just slightly weird. On the other hand it beggars belief even in a low-budget horror film that Munro's supermodel photographer character would just start going out with this guy after he finds his way to her apartment (from the info he's found rooting through her belongings) with merely the excuse that he saw her take his picture in the park.

The music, photography, and acting are all certainly no worse than average for a sleazy cheapie like this, but they aren't good enough to really be noticeable either. Lustig's direction is competent for the most part, with one standout scene as our friendly neighborhood psycho slowly stalks a comely nurse victim through a deserted subway station - an excellent builing of suspense here that is sadly not replicated in the rest of the film. Savini's effects still look decent enough and the violent scenes are in general well-handled, but the film really goes downhill in the last few scenes, with a graveyard scene that wouldn't look out of place in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE leading into one of the weakest endings I've ever seen in a horror film. Oh well. For genre completists and hard-core aficionados, I would think.


3/5 Wasn't quite what I expected
  by Clayton Benge (Weimar, CA USA)
I read some reviews on this film which claimed it was one of the best in it's genre, and decided I would purchase it and hopefully have the enjoyment of owning it to view when I please. The cover of the movie alone was one of the most intriguing things about this film and made me ever so curious as to the nature of the film. It was a descent movie but not quite as good as what I had read. Although I am more of an avid zombie/monster flick fan and thus, this insight comes from someone who likes older horror movie based on gore and cheesy effects that are awesome, I do however come to appreciate at times psychological thriller type movies and even if a movie isn't super gory yet is done well I can appreciate that.

On the gore level, the movie almost seems to boast more than it actually delivers.
- a few choke scenes
- a short scalping scene
- one short stab scene
- a shooting scene (which is actually pretty cool)
- and the last crazy scene (the best one)

I guess the movie kind of made you think about why it is the character was doing the things he does, there wasn't much narrative that really explained it. He was a fat, ugly, sweaty guy so I guess maybe he just hated life cause he was so ugly, haha but not really, he's just your average disturbed serial murderer who likes to take stuff from those he kills and put them on manikins that he props up in his bed and talks to. I didn't really get it and I wasn't really creeped out by this mental but silly looking fat dude whispering to the manikins dressed like his victims. Not as intriguing as you might think I suppose if that sounds remotely cool.

Anyways the movie is around 80 minutes, kind of short, and though semi original with the ideas just didn't have quite as much of an awe that I got from one that is just a tad better being New York Ripper, which had it's own little bit of originality and had a bit more interesting death scenes although slow in some parts. I'm sorry but one of the most entertaining works of the slasher/murderer film genre to ME is some films of the Friday the 13th series. Anyways, I won't go on anymore about this film. I would recommend borrowing it from someone you know who has it or watching scenes on youtube to get what I'm talking about a bit more haha.

5/5 MURDER MAYHEM............................
  by George Carabetsos (Chicago Ridge, IL USA)
A great sick, and twisted flick. Joe Spinell is a crazed killer, who slice off women scalps after killing them. Caroline Munro is at her best. Maniac works good with Spinell being a ornery guy. Unlike like other slasher flicks, psychos coming back from the dead. Maniac is more convincing. This movie is disturbing, but to disturbing. The real prize is Tom Savini's fx. Don't believe the lame critic's reviews on this film. Maniac is a horror fan dream come true.

4/5 Ed Gein moves from Wisconsin to New York!
  by Matt the Knife (Los Angeles, City of the Dead)
In the midst of the junk-laden slasher movie craze of the late '70s/early '80s came one of those rare exceptions: "Maniac." Anchored by the brilliantly creepy performance of Joe Spinell and an atmosphere awash in grungy and claustrophobia-inducing locations, "Maniac" succeeds where the vast majority of its contemporaries failed: it's genuinely disturbing. Yes, the slasher-movie conventions are all here (except for the standard teenage morons, thankfully), but the execution is superb. I could've lived without the dopey final shot, but that's a minor quibble. Throw your "Friday the 13th" DVDs in the wastebasket and replace them with the real thing.

5/5 Very disturbing portrait of madness
  by Nats (MD USA)
I actually saw this film in a theater when it came out in 1980.
The local "word of mouth" spread like wild-fire.
Only one theater was showing it, one showing, at night!
You had to be at least 18 to get in, and in those days, they werent
kidding.
All I knew about it at the time was, nothing like it had ever been done
before, it was over the top violent and graphic.

Well, that was an understatment!
When the "maniac" title character jumped on the hood of the car and
aimed a shotgun at the driver (played by Tom Savini), I fully expected
the camera to cut! It didnt!!! Not only did the camera not cut away, we
see all the action in slow motion!! Even then, after the shotgun blast,
the camera dwells on the carnage for several seconds as we see blood and flesh drip from the car's front seat.

I knew I was in for a ride.

I think this film is shocking enough today on DVD, but back in 1980, it
was totally unpresidented. It had gotten such a negative reputation, I
had to be careful who I told I had seen it, and worse, loved it!

I was sure this one was destined for the garbage incinerator!!

Ya know, as a film buff, and having studied film in college, I can sit
and debate Antonioni, or Bresson, or whoever with the best film snob,
but this movie is one of my personal favorites.

For it's own, it works for me as cineama. It shocks and disturbs like
nothing I have seen. It possitivly suspends the viewer in utter dispare,
loathing, and fear.
By the end, I feel drained and dirty.

There is no actual story here, just a few days spent inside the head of
a very sick person. It's all from his point of view.

Unlike some of it's contemporaries like Friday the 13th, there is absolutly no snickering and giggling when a abnoxious horny teenage is
dispatched. The killings here have a gritty, dirty reality that is very
disturbing. The entire film is humorless and unrelenting to the graphic
end.

This is one of those movies, like In a Glass Cage or Salo, or Cannibal
that pushes the envelope, and puts you in a world where even your darkest
dreams never go.