Maniac Tales

Maniac Tales: Anthology film set in New York but filmed in Spain. In the framing sequence, Juan, an immigrant fleeing from ICE is offered a job as a doorman/janitor in an apartment building. It has a variety of eccentric tenants but one of them, a screenwriter, is missing. There is a reward for the (also missing) manuscript of the last episode of the TV horror series she was writing. As things get weirder in the building Juan decides to watch other episodes in the horror series. We see burglars who just want to hang out finding a skull and getting a Monkey's Paw style wish; a yiung girls is used as bait to track down her sister's killer; a conman trying to cheat older women who he meets on dates suffers a grim setback; a real estate agent makes an odd discovery in a basement. Quite gruesome and gory action as peopke chopped up meet the undead, strange relatives and are devoured by a monster. Not for the squeamish. Well worth watching especially the Cimbeline vigilante/revenge story which was was shot digitally and then animated using interpolated rotoscope. Directed by Denise Castro ("Skull of Desire" segment), Enrique García ("The Perfect Moment" segment), Abdelatif Hwidar ("The Visit" segment)., Kike Mesa ("Zimbelin" segment), Rodrigo Sancho, (main segment); Written by Enrique García, Salva Martos Cortés, Kike Mesa, Lluís Segura. On Netflix. 7/10.

Interweaved tales of horror with not much imagination or scares to be honest.

I am still waiting for someone to bring out a series of tales as good as they were done by Hammer horror studios 50 years ago but it seems with the oodles of CGI and money we just do not seem to be able to accomplish what we did all those years ago.

Where are the writers with imagination and directors who know how to weave the stories together - Tales Of The Unexpected and Tales From The Crypt still have 100% more imagination, scares and a twist in the tale than anything I have seen lately and this movie whilst filmed well and has a few moments just sinks into the mediocre minefield of stinkers - Best walk around and avoid this one!

I liked the way this film was made, with the four different short maniac tales that juan watches while he has nothing to do. Skull of desire is like monkey paw and the makeup of the zombie type girl was nice. Overall not a very long section, but it shows how greed can make you corrupt. Then we had zimberlin. A very surreal looking film that was part animated with real life and was about a father and daughter looking for the man that did something bad. It was the best section of the film in my opinion and would watch a full film of it. The perfect moment was a little creepy about a man going on a date with a seemingly normal woman but things take a dark turn as we get to the end. Lastly we have. The visit. A man comes to look for a little girl that's chained in a basement but we don't know why. Really all four are well directed but I would have liked to see them be a bit longer. Finally the main section with juan the janitor who has to look for the writer of manic tales lost script this is pretty interesting and I like how it all ties together. Overall a pretty interesting film with some good acting which could be even better in a sequel.

Low-budget Spanish horror anthology Maniac Tales stars Enrique Arce as homeless illegal Mexican immigrant Juan, who is given the opportunity to evade the police by Mr. Travis (Carlos Reig-Plaza) from the local shelter, who offers him a job as doorman in an old apartment building, home to several eccentric people.

Juan learns that one of the occupants was a TV writer, creator of the hit show Maniac Tales, who went missing before she could deliver the final script for the next series. A reward is being offered to anyone who finds the script and so Juan searches the woman's apartment. While there, he watches the previous episodes of the show...

Tale one is The Skull of Desires, a monkey's paw style story of wish fulfillment that goes awry. This one is spoilt by the strong accent of one of the actors (I couldn't understand what he was saying) and the fact that the reanimated, two-year-old corpse of a girl doesn't look like she's been dead that long.

Tale two is Cimbelin, in which a young girl helps her father to hunt for the man who killed her sister. This one is almost unwatchable thanks to the really bad filter that is applied to the live action footage, the aim presumably for it to look like animation (like A Scanner Darkly). Instead, it just looks cheap and nasty.

Tale three is The Perfect Moment: a man tries to interest his date in a business proposition but gets more than he bargained for. This one has a wafer-thin plot, but is the most twisted of the bunch, making it my favourite.

Tale four is The Visit, in which a man visits a religious woman to try and convince her to sell her property for development. While there, he discovers that the woman is keeping a young girl chained in the basement. He succeeds in freeing the girl, but she turns out to be a monster (a crap CGI demon). Not a great story but it does manage to deliver a spot of gore.

Between watching these episodes, Juan investigates the building, learns more about the strange people living there, and becomes concerned that he is being prevented to leave by Mr. Travis. Juan is right to be suspicous, for Travis has plans for the doorman to become the star of his very own Maniac Tale...

As anthologies go, this one is fairly weak, more miss than hit. The Spanish cast, speaking English, are often hard to understand, and I would have preferred them to have delivered their lines in their native language with subtitles. And that filter... ugh!

3.5/10, generously rounded up to 4 for IMDb.

I was taken in with this film. Very well made. It's not really a horror movie, but different stories, connected with it's gruesome interweaved stories.

It's well made, well acted and very different.

It's well worth a watch, and far better than the rating here tells. Give it a chance if you like gore.