Maniac

Maniac is one of those rare Hammer films, a truly suspenseful horror. Its wonderful to watch, and so much better in widescreen. The unseen story intrigues, where the visual whets the appetite. A truly twisted story of intrigue and unrequited love, with a macabre twist that could only come from the studio that bred Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing as the ultimate horror team.

Although not as good as some of their other work, nevertheless, I was kept guessing as the plot became more complex, and enthralled by the scenery and style.

What is more, it is a contemporary film (well, 1963) and set in modern France, with real French actors!

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.

I found this interesting enough at the start particularly with the bold and brave opening but I was soon hearing that good old postman ringing once if not twice and I rather took my eye off the ball as twist followed twist and the leading man switches from daughter to mother and back again and back again. Location shooting effective except the completely wasted finale scenes and the look generally was okay. Certainly it looked better than it sounded. Even on my shiny new Blu-ray the dubbed and undubbed accents were a strain to follow even with the dialogue being somewhat repetitive. The stuff with the blowtorch is fine and perhaps if there had been some more hard hitting sequences instead of all those loving clinches after only a couple of exchanges things might have been more involving, and believable.

I'm a fan of Jimmy Sangster's work and after reading a few reviews of this movie here I was anxious to see it. Unfortunately I can't give this one a rave review. The best I can say is that it's not a bad movie and it's worth seeing once. After an intriguing opening the movie proceeds at a snail's pace for the longest time. It is excruciatingly slow. Since the actors involved are all as exciting as cardboard you can imagine how much slower that makes an already slow pace feel. Finally business picks up and then we're bombarded with one plot twist after another, not one of which is particularly impressive. The only twist I didn't see coming was one that was out of left field and there were no clues in the movie beforehand so it felt like a cheat. It's like Sangster knew his twists couldn't match Psycho so he decided on quantity instead of quality. If you're a fan of Jimmy Sangster or Hammer, then check it out but keep expectations low.

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.