‘Maniac’: The all-time great horror story that became one of the worst movies ever
Sometimes, all it takes is the right title. In 1934, Dwain Esper unleashed his exploitation horror opus Maniac on the world. Despite tailoring the film to suit the exploitation roadshow circuit, the movie sank without a trace. Unwilling to give up on his masterpiece, Esper retitled the film. Maniac was a flop. Sex Maniac, however? Now, we’re off to the races.
It might just be the ultimate of Bart Simpson’s PR genius. Putting sex on anything really does get people’s attention, whether it’s a campaign for class president or one of the worst films ever made, and however you want to call it, Maniac or Sex Maniac is one of the worst films ever made. Seriously, Esper must have believed in this film with the self-confidence that only a white, cis man can achieve.
Because when the world rejected this crass, tasteless mess, he doubled down on it. A picture with hilariously bad acting, a witless script and cameras that only seem to move when they don’t want them to. The film is the story of Don Maxwell, a former vaudeville impersonator who currently works as a laboratory assistant to the insane Dr Meirschultz, who’s (naturally) trying to bring the dead back to life.
Spoiler alert: Maxwell kills Meirschultz for reasons that are never adequately explained and then tries to take over his life and finish his work. Also, for reasons that are never adequately explained.
From then on, all bets are off. There are escaped mental patients, injections of adrenaline, an estranged wife who is a former showgirl having catfights with the wife of a zombie, it’s all completely insane and accidentally, utterly hilarious. The director seemingly tried to make a genuinely outrageous piece of scandalous psychological horror, but fell flat on his face.
One can see this by looking at the ending, which seems to mash together two of the stories by one of the greatest writers in the history of horror.
Is the horror movie ‘Maniac’ an adaptation?!
You see, popping up right at the end is a neighbour of Maxwell and Meirschultz (who’s been there the whole time just doing other things, I guess), who calls the police on the house when she hears the commotion caused by the aforementioned catfight. The police arrived and followed the sounds of the neighbour’s cat as he led them right to the body of Meirschultz, who had been trapped in the walls of his former residence.
The eagle-eyed among you will know that’s a somewhat ham-fisted reference to the Edgar Allan Poe story The Black Cat. In Poe’s story, a narrator murders his wife and his cat, hides them in his wall, before the sounds of its yowls alert the cops to their presence. Of course, Poe’s story is an artfully horrifying study of the way a guilty conscience unravels one’s very being. Maniac seems to think that inserting a still featuring the dictionary definitions of different forms of mental illness qualifies as a theme.
There are also a few references to the Poe story Murders in the Rue Morgue, as well. Mainly due to the film taking place mainly in a morgue. Yet, despite all this, there is still a weird charm to Maniac that’s impossible to ignore. It’s a passion project in the truest sense of the word. The work of someone who wanted to channel their love for the godfather of American horror and did just that. He didn’t do it well or even competently, but nonetheless, he did it.
In fact, there’s a lesson in there that all of us could learn from when it comes to realising our dreams.