Maniac

Maniac is one of the lesser known of Hammer's "psychological thrillers" made in black and white around the 1960's. It's not fiendishly clever enough to be really memorable but it does have a few interesting twists. Basically the plot sees Kerwin Mathews stranded in a small French town where he books into a hotel and starts to feel attracted to the owners sexy young step-daughter. Soon after this, he also starts feeling attracted to the more mature but still sexy step-mother as well! Apart form this love triangle, there is a further problem, in that the missing family member in this scenario is the father, who is currently locked up in an asylum for a violent blow-torch murder committed years ago…now but he wants out, and our hero is about to be roped into aiding in his escape! The film doesn't hang together very well for the beginning hour or so, sadly mainly due to Kerwin Mathews' wooden performance. Seeing him flirt with the daughter and then casually drop her and turn to her mother left me feeling quite disconnected from the plot as I found him a very unlikeable character. However when the plot to spring the insane killer gets going, things get to be more fun, and its after this point that a few nice twists start being revealed. I didn't guess the ending, which I am glad to say.

The movie is nicely shot, and makes a lot of use of it's location, with some very nice location filming, especially a very odd ruin/cave which features in the finale. Although why it's set in France at all is of no consequence, they really could have used the exact same plot and just stayed put in England. Anyway it's nice to see these old movies again, and luckily this is out on DVD. It's worth a look.

American landscape painter Geoff Farrell (Kerwin Matthews), stranded in Europe, is attracted to Annette, a young French barmaid, but ends up falling for her seductive step-mother, Eve (Nadia Gray), instead. Four years earlier, the teen-aged Annette was raped on her way home from school and her father, Georges, institutionalized for taking an acetylene torch to her assailant. Eve soon convinces Geoff to help her husband, now a local hero, escape from the insane asylum but, once free, a frightening series of events makes it look like Georges was a homicidal maniac after all...

In the wake of PSYCHO, England's Hammer Studios made a few black and white "mini-Hitchcock" thrillers that tried to emulate the "Master of Suspense". PARANOIAC, MANIAC, and HYSTERIA all featured real or imagined madness, murder, sex, and deception -along with numerous plot twists- to keep viewers on the edge of their seats with varying degrees of success. There's a stark, creepy, noir-like quality to MANIAC and the unseen rape, torture and murder in the beginning is quite disturbing. The location shooting in the isolated region of the French Camargue is a decided asset and the compelling story, written by Jimmy Sangster, includes a number of suspenseful sequences before a surprise revelation that is near impossible to see coming. I've read complaints that this wasn't directed by Freddie Francis but Michael Carreras does just fine with the gialloesque material. Recommended.

I'm a fan of Jimmy Sangster's work and after reading a few reviews of this movie here I was anxious to see it. Unfortunately I can't give this one a rave review. The best I can say is that it's not a bad movie and it's worth seeing once. After an intriguing opening the movie proceeds at a snail's pace for the longest time. It is excruciatingly slow. Since the actors involved are all as exciting as cardboard you can imagine how much slower that makes an already slow pace feel. Finally business picks up and then we're bombarded with one plot twist after another, not one of which is particularly impressive. The only twist I didn't see coming was one that was out of left field and there were no clues in the movie beforehand so it felt like a cheat. It's like Sangster knew his twists couldn't match Psycho so he decided on quantity instead of quality. If you're a fan of Jimmy Sangster or Hammer, then check it out but keep expectations low.

Maniac is directed by Michael Carreras and written by Jimmy Sangster. It stars Kerwin Matthews, Nadia Gray, Lillian Brouse, Donald Houston and George Pastell. Music is by Stanley Black and cinematography by Wilkie Cooper.

Vacationing in the Carmarque region of France, American artist Jeff Farrell (Matthews) gets more than he bargain for when he becomes romantic interest for mother and daughter Eve (Gray) and Annette (Brousse) Beymat...

Out of Hammer Film Productions, Maniac is one of a number of psychopath themed thrillers that followed in the footsteps of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Filmed in black and white on location in Caramarque, the film opens with a tremendous whack as young Annette Beynat is abducted on her way home from school and raped (off camera) by the side of the road. This crime is witnessed by a local man who fetches Annette's father who promptly captures the rapist and gets medieval on his ass with a acetylene torch (again off camera). It's quite an opening, but then the film settles into a leisurely pace for the next hour as Carreras and Sangster build their story in preparation for a big finale. Then things get tricky, and I'm not just talking about for handsome Jeff Farrell...

Realising they have gone for a "major" slow build and are desperate to add some added bite into what was becoming a bona fide sub-genre of thrillers, the makers cram so much into such a short space of time it collapses under its own weight. We know there's going to be a twist, the whole story is geared towards this fact, but they instead keep twisting, and twisting until it no longer becomes interesting. While the actual finale is something of a damp squib. There's a big problem with the location as well, Carreras' flat direction is unable to draw anything substantially atmospheric from the locale. True, a chase and reveal at the climax gets a splendid back drop in which to unfold, but it's a rare moment of inspiration and you are kind of taken out of because of piecing together the threads and implausibilities.

It's a very frustrating film, one where the usually great Sangster over reaches himself and Carreras doesn't come up to the standard of Terence Fisher or Freddie Francis. It holds the interest, is decently performed, has good production value and is fleetingly attention grabbing, but this should have been much much better. Both visually and with plot machinations. 6/10

A Hammer production, filmed at M.G.M., and released through Columbia. Sound confusing? Well, so is the plot to this attempt at out-psycho-ing "Psycho".

Kerwin Matthews is actually pretty good, in this tale of an American artist visiting France, who gets mixed up with both a young woman, and the woman's stepmother (notice she's a "stepmother"; hint, hint, wink, wink). For some reason I had an easier time believing Matthew's interest in the young woman, but not so much in her stepmother (whose high painted eyebrows, and puffy bouffant hair reminded me of Divine). Along the way Matthews learns of the older woman's husband, and how he committed a crime trying to protect his daughter years before. They try to help the husband escape from an asylum (so they can be together), and then the confusion starts.

Though the location footage, and stark black and white photography help this film create a good atmosphere, the direction is somewhat muddled, as is the dialogue, which at times I found difficult to follow. The French accents, in addition to some questionable dubbing make it hard to understand what they are saying. When I could understand the dialogue, it seemed forced and elementary; characters having to explain things that just happened, to further the story (and make sure that we get it).

Overall a slow start and a bunch of interesting twists in the latter half, but only a couple mildly startling moments. I found myself rather unsatisfied at the end. Perhaps this would have benefited by being directed by Freddie Francis...his collaboration with Jimmy Sangster that same year, for "Paranoiac", produced a much better film then this is.