Maniac
Director: William Lustig
Year Released: 1980
Rating: 1.0
A psychopath in New York unleashes his torment on young women, scalping them and nailing their scalps to the mannequins in his apartment. During its release, there was a lot of talk about its misogyny, but I found its attempt at Freudian psychoanalysis - boiling down the killer's rage to his problems with his prostitute mother - to be the truly offensive part. Joe Spinell is memorably over-the-top as the killer and cult hero Tom Savini's makeup work is quite gory, but it's still a cheesy horror film, and too slap-dash and silly to make a big deal out of the sexual politics - the history of horror films is that of stalking/killing/dismembering women (in films directed - and starring - mostly men), so that's not exactly an exciting new angle, now is it?
