That is why I have decided to start a new segment centered around this redheaded stepchild of a subgenre that is so near and dear to my heart: the horror remake. Welcome to Remaking, where we take a look at remakes, reboots, and reimaginings without getting really mad about it.
We can all agree that the best remakes go after material that isn't that well known or successful, films that were lacking in some way but still memorable and could use a second draft. John Carpenter's The Thing and David Cronenberg's The Fly are prime examples of this and are usually the first to reference when talking about beneficial remakes. Both directors took schlocky childhood favorites and brought them into the 80's with incredible special effects and gutting new pathos. They recognized that a relic of the atomic age could be reapplied to a new generation, old imagery being paralleled with modern fears.
Enter Maniac, possibly the most demonized slasher film of its time, and its perfect reapplication to the internet age.
Both films tell the same story. Frank is a lonely man who has a nasty habit of compulsively murdering women. He keeps mementos of them by taking their scalps and their clothes in order to decorate mannequins in their image. Over the course of the film, he builds a collection that begins to crowd his apartment with bloodied plastic ladies. He eventually meets a beautiful photographer and they start a seemingly sweet relationship. But Frank's demons continue to eat away at him as he whispers to his mannequins and suffers flashbacks from his traumatic childhood. We learn that Frank's mother was a neglectful prostitute and he is haunted by abuse from his broken home. The climaxes of the two films are different--both involve his girlfriend realizing what he is and all hell breaking loose--but it all ends with a mortally wounded Frank taking shelter in his apartment, only to watch his mannequins to come to screaming life and dismember him. The cops find Frank the next morning having succumbed to his wounds, his doll collection looking on in silence.
Don't let anyone tell you that either film is a fun watch. If Maniac were a carnival ride, it would be one that broke down years ago, boarded up and covered in "do not cross" signs. We, foolish thrill-seekers, hop the fence and get in the cart anyway, only to be slowly wheeled through a dark tunnel that we steadily realize isn't a ride at all but a tour through the cavernous home of a psychotic bum, and somehow he's been expecting us. The experience of watching the movie is much like taking the hand of a lunatic and letting him show you around his world. Try to smile politely when he introduces you to his girlfriends.
If there is one thing distinctive about the original Maniac that sets it apart from other grindhouse fare of its time is that it never loses focus off of Frank. A lesser film would spend more time getting to know the pretty ladies he's stalking, maybe check in at the police station for any hot leads, leaving time for only a few terrifying glimpses of our killer before the big showdown where the monster is finally vanquished. Maniac does not follow the rules, let alone narrative beats. The only outsiders we spend any amount of focus on happen to be victims of his stalking, seen through windows or looming just over their shoulder. What little we know about these doomed women is learned all while we're biting our nails waiting for Frank to strike. We don't get to see them as people with lives--only prey completely unaware that they're being hunted. We are in Frank's head, and that is where we must stay.
Sadly, this innovative point of view is precisely what sank the film. The only thing most critics took seriously about Maniac was its somber depiction of violence, adding it to an already substantial pile of slasher films to play scapegoat for all the modern world's problems, and dooming the film to a vile reputation even all these years later. (It always amuses me how critics have skewered just about every psycho killer movie as uncultured trash, yet still maintain that Halloween--the demon seed that arguably started this whole slasher craze--is untouchable, a masterpiece never to be rivaled in all the history of cinema.)
They failed to recognize that Frank is a far cry from other crazed villains seen before. He's not Norman Bates, with disarming good looks hiding a split personality. He's not Michael or Jason, bloodless immortal machines who kill without passion or reason. There are no pithy one-liners or philosophical musings or peals of evil laughter. Aside from Tom Savini's head getting blown off, there are no spectacular kills designed to titillate the audience. Compared to its flashy contemporaries, Maniac may be the most utterly joyless slasher film ever made.
Frank Zito is, in a word, conflicted. Yes, we see him slaughter and scalp women, but we also see the emotional turmoil he goes through in the aftermath. One of the first scenes in the original movie depicts Frank strangling a prostitute, only to instantly vomit and dissolve into sobs just after the light leaves her eyes. When we hear his inner thoughts, they are an untraceable blend of guilty conscience, crazed motivations, and somewhere in there, the remains of a man trying desperately to hold on to the last shreds of his humanity. He knows what he's doing is wrong and he hates himself for it, but he feels he has no choice. He's compelled, he's addicted.
His flavor of crazy stands out from the rest because he is so human. He has no distinct personality disorder we can prescribe, nor any single traumatic moment we can truly sympathize with, yet we do. There are many painful little moments in Frank's life that are almost too familiar--a gentle rejection from a love interest, a flippant comment from a stranger, a late night alone in an empty apartment. Perhaps that's why Maniac is such a hard watch: there's a moment, maybe several, that cause you to stop and say "I can relate to that." Maybe you didn't go and kill anybody over it, but Maniac suggests that none of us are as far away from it as we would like to be.
The 2012 remake took this "portrait of a serial killer" a step further by making the camera Frank's literal point of view. We as the audience become Frank, and for the next 90 minutes, we take on the everyday life of a demented killer. We see the twitches of pity and discomfort in other people's faces as they speak to Frank. We reel in confusion when terrible memories come to him. We see every moment of horror that he inflicts upon his victims, we experience every crazed outburst in the guilty aftermath, and we endure the company of his macabre housemates. We look in the mirror and we only see Frank. We are in his head, and that is where we must stay.
The most interesting difference between the films is in the physical appearances of the actors portraying Frank. The 1980 version's killer was a schlubby sweaty oaf, bulky with a weird face and haunted eyes, intimidating in every conceivable way. The kind of man any woman would be wary of passing on the street. The kind of man that causes the whole audience to point and say "Ooohhhh, that's him! There's the creep!" (No offense to the late great Joe Spinell. He's a fantastic actor and he cleans up just fine.)
Meanwhile in the 2012 version, we get a skinny nerd with an unsettling gaze. It reveals a lot about what has changed during the years between the films, how we have realized as a culture that our monsters do not always initially appear to be monstrous. And I'll just go ahead and get this off my chest: I've always found Elijah Wood to be a little creepy. I love the man, I like his work, he's a talented actor and seems like a perfectly nice guy. But there's always been something about him that seems...off.
Maybe it's those icy blue eyes of his--beautiful and chilling in their intensity--or maybe it's the way that sometimes his laugh sounds like the cackling of a perverted goblin. Yet at the same time, he's such a sweet-faced, slightly-built, soft-spoken man. He couldn't hurt a fly...or maybe that's just what he wants us to think. Somehow the 2012 version is more frightening for me because Elijah Wood is such an unassuming killer. This is the creeper of the new millennium. I've gone to school with that guy. Hell, I've dated that guy. That sweet babyface that hides something darker, that at any moment could go over the edge. Wood's Frank is that boy next door who seems a little weird but is probably harmless, but deep down you hope you never end up alone in a room with him.
To say Frank has issues with women would be putting it gently, and it is here that both films' most stunning set piece is put to brilliant use. Both films share the common element of mannequins bearing the bloody scalps of dead women posed around Frank's apartment. Grisly and beautiful, the mannequins are totems of Frank's sins and witnesses to his misery. They are his stand-ins for true companionship as well as his ultimate undoing.
Frank can't deal with living breathing women--to him, they only exist to torment: "Fancy girls, in their fancy dresses and lipstick, laughing and dancing...I know how it is with their hairs and their looks and they...they can drive a man crazy!" He tries instead to recreate them to suit his needs, taking the parts he likes and filling in the rest, stapling their essence to a plastic body he can pose to his liking. Still he knows they're no replacement, merely imitations of the creatures he so desperately pines for, yet can't connect with. He can't meet a woman or even DIY one without seeing them through his own broken lens, sticking himself in a cycle of longing and rejection that can only be quelled through violence.
Much like American Psycho, Maniac telegraphs its feelings about misogyny by marinating the audience in the worst of it, an approach that can and has been misinterpreted as a celebration of violence against women. But just like Patrick Bateman, Frank is no hero to anyone. He is a pathetic human being, his toxic view of women stemming directly from his own insecurities and twisted self-awareness. It's hard not to watch either version of Frank and hear echoes of men's right activists, and suddenly we're looking in on the private life of one of these guys that believes he is personally persecuted against by all the women around him. The message of the film really shines in Frank's final moments: he sees his mannequins become their living selves as they tear him apart like a doll, ripping open his flesh to reveal a plastic shell beneath. Perhaps only in that moment does Frank discover what he truly is: a creature that only appears to be human but houses a hollow chamber filled with angry voices.
Maniac was seen as another tasteless slasher upon original release, and until fairly recently was obscured by the deluge of similar video nasty titles of the time. The remake enjoyed mild success on the indie circuit, and word of mouth combined with a run on Netflix Instant escalated it to modern classic territory. It is a shame that the film didn't get the attention it deserved in 1980, or even now since the 2012 version is still considered something of a hidden gem. Both films attempt to express something deeper than hacking up pretty girls, but are so brutal in their execution that they almost go too deep. They are not slashers in the Friday the 13th sense, but something closer to Henry, an unrelenting examination of the grimiest pits of humanity. They are certainly not for those looking for a rollicking good time at the talkies, but highly recommended for the horror fan who is more fascinated by the what goes on inside a person's head than what comes out of it when it explodes.
All that being said, who doesn't love watching a head explode?
