Venganza diabólica

Hammer Studios will always best be remembered for the horror movies they made but their ventures into other styles were by no means negligible and this neat little mystery is a good example of the thrillers they embarked upon now and again. Kerwin Matthews is Paul Farrell ,an American stranded in a small French village in the Camargue ,where some four years earlier a young girl had been raped and her attacker murdered by her father ,who is languishing in prison for the crime.The girl works at the hotel/bar where Farrell is staying and she falls in love with the personable young American who in turn is attracted to her mother ,Eve ,played by Nadia Gray.Together Farrell and Eve plot to help her husband escape and flee the country so they can be free to pursue a relationship. The plot goes awry and soon they are coping with a body in the trunk of their car and mysterious activity in their garage .The twist ending is neat and unexpected . The acting is a little under powered but the whole thing is a neat little piece of double bill fodder that will keep an audience diverted till the main feature arrives.

American landscape painter Geoff Farrell (Kerwin Matthews), stranded in Europe, is attracted to Annette, a young French barmaid, but ends up falling for her seductive step-mother, Eve (Nadia Gray), instead. Four years earlier, the teen-aged Annette was raped on her way home from school and her father, Georges, institutionalized for taking an acetylene torch to her assailant. Eve soon convinces Geoff to help her husband, now a local hero, escape from the insane asylum but, once free, a frightening series of events makes it look like Georges was a homicidal maniac after all...

In the wake of PSYCHO, England's Hammer Studios made a few black and white "mini-Hitchcock" thrillers that tried to emulate the "Master of Suspense". PARANOIAC, MANIAC, and HYSTERIA all featured real or imagined madness, murder, sex, and deception -along with numerous plot twists- to keep viewers on the edge of their seats with varying degrees of success. There's a stark, creepy, noir-like quality to MANIAC and the unseen rape, torture and murder in the beginning is quite disturbing. The location shooting in the isolated region of the French Camargue is a decided asset and the compelling story, written by Jimmy Sangster, includes a number of suspenseful sequences before a surprise revelation that is near impossible to see coming. I've read complaints that this wasn't directed by Freddie Francis but Michael Carreras does just fine with the gialloesque material. Recommended.

Maniac is one of the lesser known of Hammer's "psychological thrillers" made in black and white around the 1960's. It's not fiendishly clever enough to be really memorable but it does have a few interesting twists. Basically the plot sees Kerwin Mathews stranded in a small French town where he books into a hotel and starts to feel attracted to the owners sexy young step-daughter. Soon after this, he also starts feeling attracted to the more mature but still sexy step-mother as well! Apart form this love triangle, there is a further problem, in that the missing family member in this scenario is the father, who is currently locked up in an asylum for a violent blow-torch murder committed years ago…now but he wants out, and our hero is about to be roped into aiding in his escape! The film doesn't hang together very well for the beginning hour or so, sadly mainly due to Kerwin Mathews' wooden performance. Seeing him flirt with the daughter and then casually drop her and turn to her mother left me feeling quite disconnected from the plot as I found him a very unlikeable character. However when the plot to spring the insane killer gets going, things get to be more fun, and its after this point that a few nice twists start being revealed. I didn't guess the ending, which I am glad to say.

The movie is nicely shot, and makes a lot of use of it's location, with some very nice location filming, especially a very odd ruin/cave which features in the finale. Although why it's set in France at all is of no consequence, they really could have used the exact same plot and just stayed put in England. Anyway it's nice to see these old movies again, and luckily this is out on DVD. It's worth a look.

When the American painter Jeff Farrell (Kerwin Mathews) dumps his girlfriend in Camarga, France, he meets the eighteen year-old waitress Annette Beynat (Liliane Brousse) in a bar and decides to stay in the town on vacation at a bed and breakfast owned by her stepmother Eve Beynat (Nadia Gray). Jeff feels a great attraction for Annette but soon he is seduced by Eve and has a love affair with her. He learns that three years ago Annette was raped by a man called Janiello (Arnold Diamond) and her father Henri (Donald Houston), who is locked in an asylum, killed the man using an acetylene torch. After visiting Henri, Eve tells to Jeff that he accepts to let her go with him provided they help him to escape from the asylum driving a runaway car to the harbor. Jeff decides to help Henri but soon he is visited by Inspector Etienne (George Pastell) and discovers dark secrets.

"Maniac" is a combination of film-noir with psychological thriller by Hammer having a triangle of love to complete the big picture. The sexual tension between Henri, Annette and Eve is constant and the relationship of Henri with the two women is unusual and strange. The plot has many twists and is engaging. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Maniac"

A Hammer production, filmed at M.G.M., and released through Columbia. Sound confusing? Well, so is the plot to this attempt at out-psycho-ing "Psycho".

Kerwin Matthews is actually pretty good, in this tale of an American artist visiting France, who gets mixed up with both a young woman, and the woman's stepmother (notice she's a "stepmother"; hint, hint, wink, wink). For some reason I had an easier time believing Matthew's interest in the young woman, but not so much in her stepmother (whose high painted eyebrows, and puffy bouffant hair reminded me of Divine). Along the way Matthews learns of the older woman's husband, and how he committed a crime trying to protect his daughter years before. They try to help the husband escape from an asylum (so they can be together), and then the confusion starts.

Though the location footage, and stark black and white photography help this film create a good atmosphere, the direction is somewhat muddled, as is the dialogue, which at times I found difficult to follow. The French accents, in addition to some questionable dubbing make it hard to understand what they are saying. When I could understand the dialogue, it seemed forced and elementary; characters having to explain things that just happened, to further the story (and make sure that we get it).

Overall a slow start and a bunch of interesting twists in the latter half, but only a couple mildly startling moments. I found myself rather unsatisfied at the end. Perhaps this would have benefited by being directed by Freddie Francis...his collaboration with Jimmy Sangster that same year, for "Paranoiac", produced a much better film then this is.