Maniac (2012)
Directed by Franck Khalfoun
As he helps a young artist with her upcoming exhibition, the owner of a mannequin shop's deadly, suppressed desires come to the surface.
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4 films that influenced Maniac
What critics say influenced Maniac
“Didn’t Funny Games teach you anything?”
In that sense, there are echoes of Michael Haneke's similarly postmodern Funny Games .
And while this concept is nothing new (Enter the Void recently did this), it’s a refreshing take on the slasher genre that makes the viewer literally become the killer (it’s a bit like the original Friday the 13th when Pamela Voorhees stalks in the shadows).
Franck Khalfoun uses some flashy filmic techniques — an electronic-buzzing musical score and light-pulsing camera pans — but nothing to rival Gaspar Noé’s mind-boggling subjective camera work on “Irreversible” or “Enter the Void” — two far better films that clearly informed “Maniac.”
Franck Khalfoun uses some flashy filmic techniques — an electronic-buzzing musical score and light-pulsing camera pans — but nothing to rival Gaspar Noé’s mind-boggling subjective camera work on “Irreversible” or “Enter the Void” — two far better films that clearly informed “Maniac.”
Together with mononymous composer Rob’s lost-in-time score -- an alternatively seductive and repulsive mix of grimy synths and bubblegum pop -- this Maniac feels at times like the slasher celluloid cousin of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive.
An aesthetic and synthy score reminiscent of Drive also help to sustain interest in the face of the horrific acts that are explicitly and unrelentingly portrayed.