Every now and again, the horror genre produces a film that becomes a bona fide classic. In 1980, director William Lustig and co-writer and star Joe Spinell teamed up to make what may be the defining film of the 42nd Street grindhouse era: Maniac.
The film has it all, a serial-killing protagonist who scalps women while sobbing about his mother, buckets of gore from an early-career Tom Savini, and all the usual suspects of late-’70s Times Square: hookers, drugs, and utter despair.
A remake, directed by Franck Khalfoun, written by Alexandre Aja, and starring Elijah Wood, arrived in 2012. This time, the action shifts to Los Angeles and leans more heavily into the mannequins that served as surrogate girlfriends in the original. Does it rise to the occasion and meet its predecessor on its own terms? We dig into that question, and much more, on this Twice Told Tales edition of the show.
Films Mentioned in this Episode:
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You can’t be a horror fan and not know who Tom Savini is. It really is simple as that. Growing on horror in the late ’70s and early ’80s, Savini was simply a god to us fans. We knew that if he worked on a movie, it was going to be worth going to see, on that fact alone. And he never disappointed. Just look at this filmography from that time. Friday the 13th, The Burning, Maniac, Prowler, and the list goes on and on. Over the years, fans idolized Savini because he even though he was a master in the special makeup effects world, he was also just like us… a fan.
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