Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.5

Maniac Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman December 1, 2018

Maniac is set in “The Camargue,” an area in Southern France known for its wildlife and perpetual violence. But the setting is of little importance. This vintage Hammer Horror feature tells a slow-burn and highly combustible story of murder, forbidden romances, and double crosses, typical genre fodder that is not much improved upon here. The film elevates to modest heights and finds simple thrills in its twisty-turny tale of misdeeds and misleads and surprise reveals that rewrite the story as the truth comes to light. Directed by Michael Carreras, son of Hammer co-founder James Carreras, and Written by Jimmy Sangster, who penned several screenplays for Hammer including The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula, craft a competent picture, one that is well acted and appropriately paced, refusing to overstay its welcome with a curt runtime that allows the story just enough time to establish, develop, and reveal without much wasted, superfluous screen time.

In the French countryside, a young girl named Anette (Liliane Brousse) is brutally raped. Her assailant is subsequently brutally murdered by her father, Georges. Georges' crime, if one can call a father avenging his daughter's rape a crime, has gained worldwide attention under the title "The Acetylene Murder." It lands him in an asylum for the criminally insane. Four years pass. Anette and her mother Eve (Nadia Gray) operate a small bar into which one day walks an American artist named Jeff Farrell (Kewrin Matthews) who finds himself drawn to Anette. Eve has eyes for him herself, and as his stay extends, he gradually finds himself falling for Eve until the two engage in a fully realized romance. It is not long until Eve reveals her secret, that her husband Georges is serving time in the nearby facility. She convinces Jeff to help her execute a plan to break him out so he can sneak away and the two can more openly, and more fully, explore their feelings for one another with Eve's husband finally out of the picture. But little does Jeff know that he is not being told the entire truth and that his relationship with Eve, and his part in the jailbreak, could cost him dearly.

Maniac sets itself in motion with a very deliberate opening that’s more psychologically visceral than it is overtly gruesome, but beyond that it feels a bit stiff and stuffy and seems to promise little more than a basic Thriller made of recycled components and transparent plot devices. Beyond the shocking open, the film maneuvers through elementary ebbs and flows of character introduction and development but gradually finds its draw, and its strengths, once the more depraved story details and twisting surprises come to light. Even then, the film never stretches the genre to much narrative or stylistic evolution, never mind epic satisfaction, but the slow-burn story unfolding and a couple of surprising reveals evolve the film into a fairly chilly, engrossing picture that is very nicely acted, particularly from Donald Houston in a role that to describe in detail would be spoil some of the fun. But Houston’s performance gives the movie a creepy, haunting edge that makes the slow construction to the final act well worth the wait.

But that steady, deliberate pacing is necessary for Jeff to become believably caught in the web of lies and part of the trap and scheme in which he plays a critical part. He must come to know Eve, trust her, and fall in love with her to the point that he would agree to go to great lengths, outside the law and pushing the bounds of his own code and basic morality, to agree to be a part of such a brazen break-out and break-up of a family. As the trap is set into motion, the audience perceives something afoul in the relationship, but poor Jeff does not, not immediately, anyway. Nadia Gray and Kerwin Mathews are strong in the leads, with the former particularly adept at hiding her true motivations while the film is rightly reluctant to even hint at what may be driving her story as she woos Jeff and sways him towards her scheme.

Maniac Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Maniac's 1080p Bu-ray is another nice catalogue release from Sony. The native film-sourced photography maintains an extremely fine grain structure that lends to the picture a beautifully filmic texture. Details are very crisp and naturally sharp, presenting the beautiful French countryside with striking clarity and razor definition, whether paved roads, trees, or automobiles. Rich textures around town are the norm while character details such as skin and clothes rarely disappoint. The grayscale is nicely graded with appropriately deep blacks and balanced brighter highlights. There is some slight flickering at times, a few stray vertical lines, and a generally light infestation of print scratches and pops that do not interfere with every scene. The image is otherwise in very good shape and fans should be delighted with Sony's presentation.

Maniac Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Maniac features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack. The musical elements, notably the opening title theme, do not play with perfect clarity. There's an obvious muddiness to it and a hard-edged scratchiness that together don't allow for a perfectly rich, detailed presentation. Music additionally favors the middle portion of the stage, never seeming to stretch as far as the front-side stage will allow. Music plays well enough against barroom din in chapter two, and the two channel track makes an honest attempt to create a sense of place and draw the listener into the environment. A nice little feel of location reverberation in the climactic sequence stands as amongst the most prominent and enjoyable sonic moments in the film while additional, and infrequent, effects beyond basics like footfalls are handled with sufficient clarity. Dialogue rightly finds a middle location and does not struggle with clarity or prioritization.

Maniac Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Maniac's Blu-ray release contains only the film's theatrical trailer (1080p, 2:28). No DVD or digital copies are included, and this release does not ship with a slipcover.

Maniac Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Maniac does not rise to the level of distinguished cinema, but audiences should find it an agreeably paced and suitably mysterious time waster in the spirit of so many otherwise campy films that aim to play it straight down the middle. Little about the movie proves the least bit memorable beyond Houston's work in the third act, yet it's strangely alluring thanks to a legitimate shroud of mystery, a few good performances, tight pacing, and nicely composed framing and photography courtesy of DP Wilkie Cooper. Sony's Blu-ray release of Maniac offers no special features beyond a trailer. Video is generally strong and audio presents the largely uninteresting sound design well enough. Worth a look, but don't forget that Mill Creek released the film as part of a double feature earlier this year which includes another movie and currently costs less than half of what Sony is asking for this.