Maniacts
It’s hard to believe that we have been waiting 5 or so years for the release of Johnny Depp’s directorial debut ‘The Brave’ starring his good self and Marlon Brando, yet this film ‘Maniacts’ manages to make its way on to the UK DVD market.
It’s hard to believe that we have been waiting 5 or so years for the release of Johnny Depp’s directorial debut ‘The Brave’ starring his good self and Marlon Brando, yet this film ‘Maniacts’ manages to make its way on to the UK DVD market. But I fear that having not seen the former, the two are incomparable, as Maniacts is a straight to rental market movie that misses its audience, due to the issue that it is dire in just about every respect. When you think back to the 1980’s when the straight to video movies included titles that were unmissable such as ‘Assault of the killer Bimbos’, ‘Prison’ ‘Pin’ and ‘Chopping Mall’, it is hard to imagine what has gone wrong and how the market has denegrated to the level it is currently at. With a Director/Writer in his 50’s and a crew well over a hundred, I am dumbfounded that a movie can be allowed to turn out the way this one has.
It stars one of the all time pretty boy bad actors Jeff Fahey, as a backward lunatic who meets the love of his life, whilst he is being abused in an institute for the criminally insane. The two escape and settle in to an ideal life where there relationship can mature. Well I say mature, what I actually mean is Fahey can loose his virginity and his empty headed girlfriend can scream the house down. How funny.Then after this his girlfriend, who herself is insane (believing that she has Royal blood), hears that the Queen of England is coming to America and decides that she must risk their ideal life on the run and meet with her relative - The Queen. Then a shootout happens (and a bad one at that) and then thank god, the film ends.
Not that easy to classify, as it poorly blends genres, it opts for a comic tone that means that every actor is doomed to embarrasment. It has gore, including a head crushing and a head splitting in two (due to the hire pressure of a water hose) but it lacks the nudity that this type of market demands if the movie is really bad. I don’t mean this in a derogatory way but I’m sure you know what I mean. However that would still render the film unwatchable but it would meet its market. I think part of the problem with Maniacts is that it is directed by a guy who was originally a writer. If it was put in the hands of a new talented director the results may have been a lot different. It lacks any kind of story telling skills and cohesive style. This really is junk food minus the food.
The movie comes in a pan and scan version and its picture quality is marred by pixelations at certain edit points. The sound offers 3 choices : Dolby Digital Stereo and 5.1 and DTS Digital Surround 5.1. However, when you break the sound down you are left with poorly recorded location dialogue, a decent fist at sound effects and a music score that left me feeling sorry for the movie’s composer who must have realised they were taking a step backwards in their career when they were confronted with the picture edit and asked to make the film watchable. The mix of these 3 elements is competent but it is still impossible to polish a turd.
There are no extras of any significance, even though you could watch an original trailer if you wanted to see how the film was sold. Strangely it appears that it was pitched to the B-Movie fans out there. The Fahey character is called Joe Spinelli and the film is dedicated to Joe Spinell. To those who have seen Maniac (which is mainly memorable for Tom Savini’s gore make up) which starred Spinell, this still suggests B-Movie credibility for Maniacts. However, as Spinell died in mysterious circumstances, let’s hope that in this particular circumstance art will indeed imitate life and that having split its own wrists Maniacts will die a lonely death, permanently hid behind the DVD case of Maniac in all major retail outlets.
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