Maniac: A Dusty Old Trip Into The Deep End

Is it worth your time?

If you are the type of person who digs through archives to find the weirdest, grimiest corners of early cinema, then Maniac is going to be your new best friend. If you want a movie that makes sense or features, you know, pacing, stay far, far away. This is for the oddballs.

Honestly, the whole thing feels like a fever dream that someone forgot to wake up from. Our lead is a former vaudevillian, which is a great excuse for him to make some truly wild faces whenever he is on screen. His eyes seem to be constantly trying to jump out of his skull.

The Science of… Whatever This Is

The mad scientist character basically just wanders around looking stressed while trying to reanimate corpses. It is all very low-budget and high-anxiety. There is this one shot where he is fiddling with some equipment that looks like a toaster taped to a car battery. It stays on the screen for way too long. I think I counted four blinks before it cut away.

The transition between his 'science' and the actual plot is, well, practically non-existent. One minute he is talking about electricity, and the next, our vaudevillian pal is losing his mind. It reminds me a bit of the frantic energy in Kino Eye, though obviously in a much darker, sweatier way.

• The makeup on the 'corpses' looks suspiciously like wet cardboard.
• The lead actor’s commitment to acting unhinged is honestly kind of terrifying.
• There is a cat in one scene that seems more confused than the audience.

I found myself wondering if anyone actually checked the script, or if they just pointed a camera at these people and said 'do something scary.' It works, in a weird way. It is not polished, it is definitely not prestige, but it has this raw, grimy texture that modern movies just cannot fake.

Is it a masterpiece? Absolutely not. But compared to something like The Polite Burglar, which is way too neat and tidy for its own good, this movie is a total mess. And I kind of loved the mess. It felt like it was crumbling apart in real-time, just like the characters.

The ending hits you like a truck out of nowhere. No big buildup, just a sudden halt. It’s almost funny how abrupt it is. 😵‍💫