Not The Usual Wood

Elijah Wood continues to reshape his image with 'Maniac'. When the first trailer came out I thought this was hit or miss. Looked as if it could have depth or might just be high-class exploitation. That's probably because it was a green band trailer. This new edit is most definitely red band and it benefits from not trying to pretty up or tap dance around gory content. We get a clear and fairly direct eyeful -- a good thing for movies like this.

If Wood's portrayal lives up to the potential inherent in this kind of plot 'Maniac' could be an excellent character study. People will be talking about this one, however, whether it's brilliant, shocksploitation, or just lousy.

'Maniac' is one of those movies.



Here's a German cut with a bit of different footage which is very much worth a look. Have to say, this looks great dubbed in German. It feels like a Euro flick.



Here's a clip/trailer for the 1980 original by Bill Lustig. There's a savvy depth of character rendition here if you analyze how the killer operates.


























.