Seeing MANIAC at The Circle Cinema last night was one of the - TopicsExpress

Seeing MANIAC at The Circle Cinema last night was one of the weirdest and most rewarding movie going experiences I’ve had in a long time. The circumstances were weird because I thought I was going to see the classic William Lustig film from 1980s. When I got to the theater I discovered it was a recent remake (I didn’t know there was a remake) produced by Lustig, and furthermore, everyone showed up for the 10PM showing (I didn’t know there was a 10 PM showing) because there was a Skype interview with the director afterward (I didn’t know there was an interview). I was the only person in the theater; David Nofire, who always introduces the midnight movies, came in and gave an introduction (it was more like a conversation) and once the movie started 4 more people showed up. WOW! The whole film is shot in the first person; the only time you see the killer (Elijah Wood) in his reflections, and the only time you leave the first person POV is when he dreams, hallucinates, or has a memory (and there’s a lot of all the above going on). The two things I kept thinking were (a.) the film was like a virtuoso version of Michael Powell’s PEEPING TOM (so much so that at the end of the film I was expecting to hear “Good Night Mommy, hold my hand” – but on the way home I remembered that the line was from PEEPING TOM -only it’s addressed to “Daddy”) and (b.) This is everything Gene Siskel feared horror cinema would become! (Siskel was morally outraged at seeing murders through the POV of the killer in films, such as FRIDAY THE 13TH.) There’s even a scene in a theater (I believe it was Pauline Kael who pointed out that there’s an extra level of anxiety of a horror movie having a scene in a theater – it brings the horror one step closer to the audience watching it in a theater). MANIAC was a gripping, tour de force. It’s not as grimy, yet still manages to go a little more over the top than the must maligned original. It’s a small gem of the art house splatter genre. It’s playing tonight too!