It’s been quite a while since a horror film left me pleasantly disturbed and adequately intrigued. To my surprise, Maniac,directed by Frank Khalfoun, snuck up and did the trick with both shocking delight and irritating repulsion. Written and produced by Alexandre Aja (The Hills have Eyes). Maniac is a remake of the 1980 film of the same name by William Lustig.  In this new version, Frank, played by Elijah Wood, is a socially awkward storeowner that repairs old mannequins. His life changes when he meets Anna, a young French photographer, played by Nora Arnezeder.  Frank meets Anna outside his storefront where he discovers her taking pictures of the mannequins in his display window. A friendship eventually develops and he ends up assisting her with her photo exhibition. Meanwhile, however, Frank’s dark compulsion to stalk and kill escalates. Khalfoun’s uniquely stylized film has a distinct 1980s vibe and a wonderfully dark soundtrack by Rob that re-imagines ’80s new wave with eerie synthesizer-heavy sound reminiscent of ’80s horror, it feels like a Dario Argento, retro-Eighties, millennium fusion.

While I do love the horror genre, my personal dilemma with this film—and with the slasher genre—is its misogynistic, brutal treatment of women. Slasher films such as Maniac seem regressive and gratuitously sadistic. I was consumed by these thoughts during the first fifteen minutes of the film’s bloodletting—it doesn’t waste time, as the film opens with the first victim being pursued—but despite my feminist concerns I soon settled into a thrilling roller-coaster ride of shock and fear. There was something very familiar, yet, quite fresh happening on the screen.

Elijah Wood’s performance is effective; as Frank, he’s both sweet and disturbing at the same time, which allows us to have empathy for him, despite the fact that he’s a serial killer. Not that he’s a killer with a heart of gold that deserves salvation, but he is trying, he doesn’t want to kill. Flashbacks provide a reason for his insanity, and Anna, a nice, pretty girl with a French accent has a positive effect on him which makes him even more likable. Wood has plenty of screen time through the use of fantasy sequences and a creative but controlled use of reflections (mirrors and windows). While the POV is not annoying, Wood’s voiceover often sounds unnatural as though he’s reading from a script.  It becomes more tolerable as the film progresses.