Maniac (1980) on Netflix
Abused as a boy by his mother Carmen, Frank Zito murders young women in New York City and scalps them. He nails their hair to the mannequins in his apartment.
- Netflix2.6/5
- IMDb6.3/1022,740 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes40%
Trailer
Plot summary
Frank Zito lives in New York City and works as a landlord there. His mother Carmen, a prostitute, abused him when he was a boy, and scars from that time cover his torso. He murders young women and scalps them, fastening the hair to mannequins in his apartment. He tells himself that beauty is an offense punished by death. After a nightmare in which he kills a couple on a beach, he heads into Times Square, where a prostitute invites him into a hotel.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Maniac (1980)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Expecting an X rating for Maniac's gore, William Lustig submitted the script to the Screen Actors Guild, whose contracts then excluded X-rated films from union oversight. When the first script was not rejected, he sent a revised one with exaggerated violence, and SAG turned it down.
- Daria Nicolodi, Dario Argento's wife, was considered for the role of Anna D'Antoni in Maniac but was filming Inferno in Italy. Judd Hamilton then provided the money to finish the film on the condition that his then-wife Caroline Munro be cast instead.
- The scene where Frank murders the boyfriend was loosely inspired by the real "Son of Sam" murders: David Berkowitz shot people in parked cars with a .44 Special revolver.
- The sound of Frank ripping the prostitute's flesh as he scalps her was created by twisting a leather wallet near a microphone.
- Maniac was shot on location in New York City on a $48,000 budget in 26 days. Many scenes had to be filmed guerrilla-style because the production could not afford city permits.
- Britain's BBFC refused Maniac a classification for its original cinema release and banned it on video in 1998. It was passed at an 18 certificate in 2002 with 58 seconds of cuts, and in 2022 the BBFC passed the film uncut.
- While never prosecuted for obscenity and never officially listed as a video nasty, Maniac was seized by various police forces across Greater Manchester and Lancashire in England during the video nasty panic, apparently because of its reputation overseas.
