Maniac

This movie comes from the family of works like The Prowler (1981) and The Toolbox Murders (1978) – it is a brutal splatter slasher, depravedly relishing the most violent murders of randomly selected victims. The film follows the murderer from the first minute to the last and, by making us listen to his constant growling, pretends to be a psychological probe into his mind... ahem. There is one effective scene (the jump on a car with a shotgun), one scene with suspense that actually works (the underground restrooms) and an unexpected, surprisingly good ending – these are the things that salvage this piece of B-movie crap, so I’m giving it two stars. (17/02/2009)

Straight psychological slasher (those words don’t go very well together, but I don’t know how else to describe it) with a great Joe Spinell in the main role. The murder scenes are good, and two of them are actually excellent, it’s a shame that they aren’t supported by a better story, but let’s not kid ourselves: the psychology is good, the story not so. Without any doubt, the atmosphere reaches its peak with the toilet scene, I almost couldn’t breathe because of the tension; if the entire film was like that, it would be among my top favourite. 70% and I’m rounding up to four stars because of the poster, it’s really great. (05/05/2008)