Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Siflutter It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

soulexpress Ed Wood must have seen MANIAC in his youth. The montage scenes in his first movie, GLEN OR GLENDA?, hearken back directly to those here. And William C. Thompson, MANIAC's cinematographer, went on to do cinematography for Wood. Alas, those 20 additional years of experience taught the man nothing about his craft.This bizarre, unsettling exploitation fest is virtually incoherent, but I'll attempt a plot summary. Dr. Meyerschultz (Horace B. Carpenter) is a mental-health expert who spends his off-hours attempting to resurrect the dead. Assisting him is Don Maxwell (Bill Woods), a washed-up Vaudeville impressionist who helps the doctor in exchange for room and board. As Maxwell's sanity starts to slip, he kills Meyerschultz. To avoid being charged with murder, he hides the doctor's body behind a basement wall and disguises himself as Meyerschultz. Eventually, the police get wise to Maxwell and put him away—but not before a mentally ill patient (Ted Edwards) of Meyerschultz visits the doctor's office in desperate condition. Maxwell, not knowing what to do, injects the man with a random liquid, immediately sending the patient into a psychotic break.The acting here is so overblown, it crosses the line into self- parody. Horace B. Carpenter is particularly blustery as the hypertensive Meyerschultz. I've heard of hamming it up, but this guy was trichinosis incarnate! Bill Woods is no less subtle in his performance as the increasingly insane Maxwell. His Meyerschultz disguise is not overly convincing, either. And Ted Edwards' turn as the psychotic patient is truly memorable—in the way that French- kissing a metal pipe in sub-freezing weather is memorable. There's also a weird sub-plot involving cats and rats, which culminates in Maxwell/Meyerschultz popping the eye out of a live cat and eating it! Suffice it to say, animals were indeed harmed in the making of this film.But wait, there's more! Gratuitous footage of scantily-clad (and even topless) women, assorted blood and gore, two feral women tearing each other to pieces, and a scene in which Maxwell/Meyerschultz lecherously looms over a woman who is clothed only in the broadest sense of the word. Between all this, we're inundated with screencards offering clinical definitions of the various types of mental illness (while syrupy strings play on the soundtrack). There's also an actress named Phyllis Diller—though not the wild-haired comedienne of the 1960s and '70s.I'm guessing director Dwain Esper disguised MANIAC (originally titled SEX MANIAC) as an educational film to get around the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (A/K/A the Hays Code). This happened a lot back then so that exploitation vehicles could legally be shown in theaters. From what I've heard, they were total crap.

ofpsmith With the foreword and the lines of text that occasionally interrupt the film to lecture us on the conditions of being a maniac, it's pretty easy to see how this is a public service announcement in the form of a feature film. The question is, what exactly was Maniac trying to tell us. The film is just so odd, with so many nonsensical elements, that it's pretty hard to find a message in this film. Well, a message other than, some people are just maniacs. Don Maxwell (Bill Woods) is a vaudevillian who now works for mad scientist, Dr. Meirshultz (Horace B Carpenter) who specializes in reanimating corpses. When Meirshultz asks Maxwell to shoot himself so he can use Maxwell as a test subject, Maxwell shoots Meirshultz, hides his body, and uses his impersonation skills to look like Meirshultz. To be fair when Meirshultz asked Maxwell to shoot himself, he was laughing like a lunatic. When a couple of people come to the lab, Maxwell as Meirshultz prescribes a treatment that turns a patient into (what else) a maniac. So for a film whose only purpose is to show what a maniac does, it certainly is short on the maniac. The plot is (for the most part) coherent and it has a story, but there are some places where the film is just so odd. The acting for the most part is okay. Watching Carpenter as the insane Meirschultz is pretty fun, but as a film I can't really recommend it.

jadedalex Upon second viewing, Dwain Esper's 'Maniac' had the offbeat charm of an amusing Ed Wood movie. Esper must be credited with offering up what in its time may have been the worst movie ever made.On the plus side, the nudity contained in the movie is surreal and enchanting in its leering way. Scenes are very brief and fairly provocative. Frankly, I needed these scenes to wake me up. Wood's 'Orgy of the Dead', by contrast, becomes a ninety minute 'borefest' of titty dancers; it is presented in such an insipid way. For sheer bizarro value, I have frankly never seen a cat's eye gouged out, and then eaten by the sadist, who likens the eye to a 'grape'. (We've long ago ALMOST forgotten Divine eating poodle poop in 'Pink Flamingos'.) And I must admit, Bill Woods is not bad in the demented lead. In fact, this film could have made a decent horror movie had not the story stopped frequently to strains of sappy music as the screen displayed psychobabble supposedly describing the story in 'clinical' terms. These interruptions are comical and annoying at the same time. And Horace Carpenter would have fit beautifully into the strange Ed Wood entourage. It was hilarious as Carpenter accuses Woods' character of being a 'ham'...as Horace chews the scenery like a ravenous screen glutton! (Carpenter may have thought he was in a silent film for all I know!)This is a bad film, and I refuse to read any deep artistic value into what was done here. It lacks the sophisticated humor of 'Plan 9 From Outer Space'. And Bill Woods is no Tor Johnson. If you feel compelled to watch this oddity (maybe you loath cats), try to remember this cinema will never be confused with 'Citizen Kane'.

arfdawg-1 Don Maxwell is an ex-vaudeville ham, wanted by police, who has now found himself as the unlikely assistant to Dr. Meirschultz, a mad scientist in the business of reanimating corpses. Maxwell's gift of impersonation gets him and Meirschultz past the guards and into a morgue where they use a special serum to revive the corpse of a pretty young woman. But that's nothing. Dr. Meirschultz has a heart beating in a jar of solution and is eager to put it into a corpse that really needs it. Meirschultz gives his assistant a gun and advises him to commit suicide, so that he can put the heart in him, but Maxwell shoots and kills the scientist instead and hides the body. People will miss Meirschultz, Maxwell quickly realizes, but no one will miss his lowly assistant; and so Maxwell dons eyeglasses and a fake beard to become his onetime benefactor. The trouble is, he impersonates the mad doctor too well and goes crazy himself. Bleached out sometimes out of focus print, but sound was good.Lots of overacting. Lots of talking. In fact, too much talking. Makes the 50 minute length seem like 3 hours. I didn't see any nudity,, but then my mind was drifting in and out because this is not a good film.