CANNES - Theres nothing cuddly or Frodo-ish about Elijah Woods psycho killer in French director Franck Khalfouns haute-horreur remake of the low-budget 1980 William Lustig movie thats become something of a grubby touchstone among genre fans.
Woods limpid saucer eyes are used here to telegraph unhinged blood-lust and insanity, even if only sporadically, as he plays a sicko with mommy issues who scalps his female victims. The twist, and what helps elevate the nasty, no-holds-barred Maniac from the grindhouse to an out-of-competition midnight-screening slot in Cannes, is that the entire movie is shot from the killers POV we only glimpse Wood in reflection and in photographs.
EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS: THR's Cannes 2012 Portraits
Its a daring decision, potentially stripping the film of the suspense of not knowing where the killer is and obliquely inviting the audience to have empathy with him. For the most part Khalfoun and cinematographer Maxime Alexandre pull it off, although the technique more than once tips over from inventively arty to film-school-grad pretentious.
Slasher-movie fans, however, need not be put off by the stylized camera work and arty patina: this is down and dirty genre filmmaking, and the various slaughters, excruciatingly detailed scalpings and other atrocities are no less gruesome because of the highfalutin approach.
Khalfoun worked as an actor on the similarly stylized 2005 French horror movie High Tension, written and directed by Alxandre Aja, who serves here as co-scriptwriter and producer. Both have evidently watched a lot of Dario Argento movies.
In Lustigs original Maniac, Joe Spinell played the serial killer Frank as a sweaty, overweight and overwhelmingly physical monster who terrorized the women of grimy 80s-era New York. Khalfoun shifts the action to downtown Los Angeles (Disney-fied New York being far too clean and shiny now) and, taking advantage of Woods ethereal delicacy, makes him a slender, shy, creative type who is, in the end, no less creepy.
Frank works alone in a store that once belonged to his mother, restoring vintage mannequins. He has some issues. Hes completely deranged in fact, stalking his female victims, stabbing or strangling them and sawing off their scalps to bring home in the belief it will bring the mannequins to life and thus fill the void left by his neglectful, promiscuous mother. Or something.
When he meets Anna (French actress Nora Arnezeder, who starred with Ryan Reynolds in Safe House), an artist who specializes in photographing mannequins, they form an attachment based on their mutual interest in plastic people. But then Franks headaches start up and things go off the rails.
The movie is essentially a sadistic art-house bloodbath, with opera music and ballet dancers and funky little art galleries. The nerve-shredding score, by the mono-monikered Rob, salutes the music Italian prog-rockers Goblin provided for Argentos early horror-thrillers, the 1980s electronica lending a deeply melancholic city-at-night vibe.
Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Out of Competition)
Cast: Elijah Wood, Nora Arnezeder
Director: Franck Khalfoun
Production companies: La Petite Reine and Studio 37Director: Franck KhalfounScreenwriters: Alexandre Aja and Gregory Levasseur
Producers: Alexandre Aja, Thomas Langmann, William Lustig
Executive producers: Daniel Delume, Antoine de Cazotte, Alix Taylor, Pavlina Hatoupis, Andrew W. Garroni
Co-producer: Emmanuel MontamatDirector of photography: Maxime AlexandreProduction designer:
Costume designer: Mairi Chisholm
Music: RobEditor: BaxterSales: Wild BunchNo rating, 89 minutes
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