[6]

If you wanted to remake William Lustig's 1980 slasher cornerstone with an abundance of point-of-view shots, you probably couldn't do a better a job than Franck Khalfoun did with this remake. Maniac is beautiful and imaginative, photographed almost entirely from the killer's (Elijah Wood's) point of view. You really only see him in mirrors and other reflective surfaces. On one hand, the conceit is clever and cool, but on the other hand, it ends up being what I'm paying attention to -- not the thin storyline or the operatic depiction of its psychologically scarred central character. I think less would have been more where the back story is concerned, and I'm not sure the perpetual POV tactic is the best way to tell this story.

I think I’d be okay with the movie’s placement of style over substance if the substance were more original or intriguing. ‘Mommy’s whoring ways’ seems like such a hackneyed explanation. Then again, this is a remake — so do you judge its content and contributions by the original, which was groundbreaking at its time, or by this remake, which somehow feels out of time and place?

The scalping effects looked pretty fake to me (do scalps really just slide off like that?), but the retro-synthy score by Rob is a winner.