News: “Maniac” Remake Gets A Killer Wood

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Arleigh

If there was ever a film that many people who hate grindhouse and exploitation films always like to point out as a perfect example of films that should never have been made it would be William Lustig’s classic 80’s splatter film, Maniac. This film has been called depraved, misogynistic, obscene and those are just the tame labels heaped on this horror film.

There had been talks down the years to make a direct sequel to the film, but the many plans to do so always never got past the development stage. In late 2010, the remake rights to Maniac was obtained by a French company and it looks like the world will soon be seeing a new take on this controversial film hitting the theaters in a year or so.

The film will be produced by the kings of horror remakes, Alexandre Aja and Grégory Levasseur, with Franck Khalfoun (director of the underrated P2) set to helm the project. It’s the role of the serial killer Frank which has been much discussed by fans of the film who either hate or love that a remake was being of it. While names such as Tom Sizemore has been discussed the role finally landed on the lap of a very unexpected choice: Elijah Wood.

Elijah Wood would be the last pick many fans of the original film would make, but I think this pick is interesting in many ways. For one thing, Wood can definitely pull off the serial killer look, just not the beefy way Joe Spinell did. Wood already has done the serial killer role as the mute and creepy Kevin in Sin City. Wood’s casting as Frank can also go a long way in making sure this remake puts it’s own stamp on the character and story. Finally, Wood has the boy next door look that goes against the stereotypical film serial killer.

While I’m still hoping that Aja would do more original film projects instead of remaking past horror films, I am impressed at how he has done with past horror remakes like The Hills Have Eyes and Piranha. Even though he’s producing and not directing I hope he still brings the sort of manic glee to the production that the two previously mentioned films seemed to have which translated to the screen.

My opinion is that if this remake recreates the Disco Boy scene in all its glory then the remake will be the greatest ever.

So, grindhouse fans what do you think of this remake and the casting?

Source: Bloody Disgusting

6 Trailers of Separation

Posted on July 16, 2011 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi there! Welcome to the latest edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Trailers.

1) Ghost Town (1988)

Let’s start things out with this film from 1988. I haven’t seen this film but the trailer has a certain silly charm to it and how can’t you enjoy the use of the fake lightning special effect? Plus, those finger nails screeching across the car — Agck! Freaky.

2) Blue Sunshine (1976)

This is one of my favorite movies. Basically, a bunch of hippies take some really powerful acid in 1968 and then, eight years later, they end up having the worst flashback ever! To say that Zalman King gives an “interesting” performance as the film’s hero is a bit of an understatement.

3) Road Games (1981)

“Jamie Lee Curtis is…Hitch.” Well, that would probably explain why she was destined to end up hitchhiking. Seriously, parents — give it some thought before you give your child any old name. Anyway, Road Games was director Richard Franklin’s follow-up to Patrick and it’s one of the better slasher films of the early 80s.

4) The Dungeonmaster (1985)

Oh my God, this looks like a bad movie. The trailer, however, is just so silly and kinda endearing in the way that it seems to desperately be saying, “No, it’s not as bad as it looks! Look — we have ice people!”

5) Conquest (1983)

All I need to say here is that this film was directed by the one and only, Lucio Fulci.

6) Maniac Cop (1988)

Finally, let’s end this latest edition with Bruce Campbell, shall we? This is the trailer for William Lustig’s Spinell-free Maniac Cop.

The Daily Grindhouse: Maniac (dir. by William Lustig)

Posted on October 16, 2010 by Arleigh

The newest flick to make “The Daily Grindhouse” is the controversial slasher/splatter offering from one of the 1980’s masters of the American grindhouse cinema. William Lustig’s Maniac definitely fits the criteria of what makes a grindhouse flick.

Lustig’s flick helped start the so-called “splatter film” subgenre in horror. While more mainstream (and I used that term very loosely) horror like Friday the 13th and Black Christmas brought the “slasher film” genre to the public eye it was the release of Maniac which gave “splatter” the notoriety it craved. It was a flick which was released by it’s distributor as unrated since they refused to let the MPAA screen it for certification knowing the it would automatically get the dreaded “X-Rating”. This rating would kill off any attempt for it to get shown in cinema theaters (even some owners of grindhouse theaters would deny to screen it). But it was a colleague of special effects and make-up artists (also an actor in Maniac) who gave Lustig and it’s distributor the backdoor way to get the flick seen.

George A. Romero’s classic epic zombie film Dawn of the Dead was released unrated and it still made quite the box-office haul that it gave future filmmakers a way out of the MPAA’s X-Rating hell. Maniac would get the same treatment and, while it didn’t get quite the box-office success as Romero’s zombie opus, it did make enough coin to be become one of Lustig’s moderate successes.

The flick was controversial not just for the decision to release it unrated but also for the label of misogyny it received from film critics who did see it. It didn’t help Lustig’s cause that the film was practically about a pyschotic and schizophrenic man who murders and scalped beautiful women to help decorate the mannequins he kept in his home. This flick was the grindhouse version of Hitchcock’s Psycho (to me a film that would be grindhouse if not for Hitchcock being the filmmaker thus given classic status by the elite cineaste crowd) and where Hitchcock kept the violence as something to be imagined Lustig went for the jugular and showed everything.

The most controversial scene would forever be the slow-motion sequence of Joe Spinelli’s killer, Frank Zito, taking a shotgun and shooting Tom Savini’s character point-blank in the head. The scene was so horrific and realistic in its execution that people left the theater right after the scene ended thinking even worse things were to be shown for the next hour (acclaimed film critic Gene Siskel left right after that scene). Tom Savini’s experience as a combat photographer during the Vietnam War gave him the necessary know-how to create the “Disco Boy Scene” so realisticly and which made him one of the early “fathers of the splatter genre”.

Maniac would propel Lustig to cult-status in the horror genre not because of the quality of his work, but for how he pulled no punches in showing the violence in his films even if got him labeled misogynistic and exploitative in mainstream cinema. His flicks were average for the most part, but they were definitely grindhouse in that they spoke to the most base denominator and that’s sex and violence sells and he didn’t sugarcoat it.