Maniac

If you have never seen a Dwain Esper film you might feel nervous sitting in a room with people who have seen and enjoy them. Curiously there is no middle ground for Dwain Esper, you either love his films or you hate them. He was no filmmaker; originally he was a real estate agent and one of his clients defaulted on a mortgage and left a house full of filmmaking equipment. Esper was wondering what to do with all the stuff and suddenly the movie making bug bit him and that was that; he had a new career. Dwain was no Edward D. Wood. Eddie's films have a laughable ineptness but the sincerity was there despite the shortcomings, and they were legion. He wasn't even comparable with Andy Milligan whose filmic efforts make Ed Wood look like John Ford by comparrison. If I HAVE to compare Dwain with someone it could only be David Friedman. Both went directly for the cinematic equivalent of a heart punch and gave us images so unrelentingly gritty and brutal they dared us to keep looking. Having seen most of Dwain's movies I have to say MANIAC is his magnum opus. Horace Carpenter, a former director of silent westerns (check out FLASHING STEEDS sometime) and member of Cecil B. DeMille's stock company (ROMANCE OF THE REDWOODS, JOAN THE WOMAN, etc) plays Dr. Mierschultz, the maddest doctor to step in front of a camera. Bill Woods is his assistant, the dangerously neurotic Maxwell who is on the run from the police (we never find out why but Dwain was not one to clutter up his screenplays with needless facts). Neither of these characters is playing with a full deck. Meirschultz restores life to a dead woman and wants to restore someone else by transplanting a living heart into a dead body. When he demands that Maxwell shoot himself it brings an abrupt end to their employee/employer relationship and Maxwell kills him and decides to take his place ("I not only look like Mierschultz, I AM Mierschultz! I will be a great man!") And this is where the movie gets REALLY weird! The film has lately been restored and it available on both video and DVD so I don't want to spoil the surprises; and there are a lot of them in the 55 minute roller coaster ride of a movie. I will warn all cat lovers to avoid this movie. There are one or two scenes that will bother them, but there is no animal cruelty! That one eyed cat was a real one that Dwain bought from an animal shelter. Dwain always claimed he was making educational films to warn people against drugs, promiscuity, and to enlighten people about mental illness. He must have known it isn't WHAT you say but HOW you say it. So pop this cassette into your VCR. Good luck to you all. Viddy well, little brother, viddy well.

The longer I live the more surprising things I see. Here's a movie from the '30's that has bare boobs, gore and a shot of a man popping a cat's eye out. I don't know if it was real--the cat didn't seem to mind much so I doubt it was.

This has the feel of an Ed Wood exploitation opus--all over the place story-wise (a guy impersonates a mad doctor to promote his own mad ideas and a lot of people aren't thrilled with it, and some end up dead). It's clearly an exploitation film--it takes place in one room and plot is forsaken in favor of grisly ideas and action, deception, slutty women and over-the-top acting. Like many movies from this era it's too slow and grainy for most people to enjoy and certainly too poorly made to recommend, and the rewards are slim. I'd keep the fast-forward handy and the alcohol too--the title placards that try to legitimize the movie by suggesting it's an essay on different forms of madness is pointless and irritating, really.

The best news is that it's short and there's more action than talking--too bad more movies aren't like that these days. Oh, and there's the oddity of an actress named "Phyllis Diller" being in it, no relation to the wild-haired 60's stand-up comic, of course.

This film has no cohesive story, go figure it's an exploitation film, and as a true exploitation film it provides an abundance of spectacle. Maniac is about a......well a maniac. Throughout the film intertitles appear that define aberrant mental states (dementia, praecox, paranoia, etc..). Spectacle is furnished scenes such as a man popping a cats eye out of it's head and eating it, two women lounge about in their underwear, two women fighting with syringes!! Finally the last two scenes are nudie strip scenes, and are inserted for titillation sake only! Suicide recovery, cat chasing mouses, mad scientists, and a guy ranting "rats eat raw meat--you know, cat carcasses...so the rats eat the cats, the cats eat the rats, and I get the skins", are all part of this disjointed viewing experience everyone should see!!

All right, I admit that "Reefer Madness" had continuity one could follow; but after you lose interest in 'counter-culture' naughtiness, that movie does get a little dull quite often.

The thing I like about "Maniac" is that it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Although narrative bits and pieces are borrowed from mainstream horror films of that era, and of course from the stories of Edgar Allen Poe, they're never actually woven together in any coherent manner. Nor is there any relationship established between these and the recurrent dictionary definitions of various psychoses that appear on title cards with syrupy strings playing in the background.

And of course none of it's believable in anyway - especially the make-up when the killer 'disguises' himself as the mad scientist.

However, I will say that the pacing here is swift, the dialog hilarious, the acting overwrought to the point of pure self-parody, and, after all, folks - it's only 51 minutes.

And it only cost me $2 - one just has to do one's shopping more carefully.

In the 1980s, thanks to the Brothers Medved, "Plan 9" earned the reputation as the worst film of all time. In the 1990s, thanks to MST3K, "Manos, the Hands of Fate" earned the worst film moniker.

Allow me to submit the film "Maniac" as the very worst. This film is so wretched, so fallible, so awful, it's impossible not to have an opinion about it.

"Maniac" is a film of almost no reputation. However, cult film critic Danny Peary called it the very worst. It's easy to see why. "Maniac" has almost no frame of film that is expertly produced. The film is grainy, shots are poorly executed, actors are rendered unseeable by being filmed standing behind test tubes.

"Maniac" easily has the worst acting in any film, from any time, any country. Overacting must have been a prerequisite to being hired for this film. Everyone talks in such an imposing, declaratory style, you'd think you were watching a session of Congress. At least "Plan 9" has professional actors such as Lyle Talbot; at least "Manos" has interesting characterizations. "Maniac" cannot boast any of that, except that actor Horace Carpenter once worked at Biograph with D.W. Griffith. What a comedown for him to be in this film.

Don't get me wrong; the film is a hoot to watch. From the incredible cat's eye scene to the cat fighting to the women fighting with syringes, "Maniac" has it all.

This film, made in 1934, may surprise people with its brief nude scenes. But it was a "roadshow" movie, so it's not really surprising at all. This was the kind of movie that could only be seen in burlesque houses or tent shows. Often, a promoter would put ads about the movie in the local papers, gaining huge interest in the film. The promoter would pitch a tent on the outskirts of town for the screening of the film. The promoter all too often would have to fold the tent and get out of town quickly, trying to avoid local authorities and local moral laws.

Do yourself, do your family, do your community a favor. Rent "Maniac" and see if you don't agree it's the worst ever.

You'll howl, you'll cry, you'll kiss your rental money goodbye!

See! Incredible eye-popping scenes! See! A bevy of chorus beauties! See! Mad scientists go even madder! See! How long you can stand watching it!