2 reviews
An American painter has an affair with a bar owner in a French village and agrees to help her murderer husband escape from a prison for the criminally insane.
Hammer were known for Grand Guignol/ gothic chillers, but they also tried their hand at psychological thriller. Like Taste of Fear, Maniac ratchets up the chills gradually until breaking point. After a hard hitting intro, where a girl gets molested by a fiend, who himself is dragged to a garage by her father and blowtorched, and consequently sent to the prison for the criminally insane, the film gears down when Kerwin Matthews ( the American painter) appears, and even in the surroundings of the Camargue, and it's deceptive calmness, you can sense the creepiness. You know something is not right, but you don't know what it is. Because of this your nerves get tighter.
It's one of those films that you can't stop watching. Kerwin Matthews does a fine job as the American drawn into this intrigue. The character playing Eva was really crux of the story, and came across like she was hiding something.
A really nerve-racking thriller with noirish atmosphere and a few jump scares.
Hammer were known for Grand Guignol/ gothic chillers, but they also tried their hand at psychological thriller. Like Taste of Fear, Maniac ratchets up the chills gradually until breaking point. After a hard hitting intro, where a girl gets molested by a fiend, who himself is dragged to a garage by her father and blowtorched, and consequently sent to the prison for the criminally insane, the film gears down when Kerwin Matthews ( the American painter) appears, and even in the surroundings of the Camargue, and it's deceptive calmness, you can sense the creepiness. You know something is not right, but you don't know what it is. Because of this your nerves get tighter.
It's one of those films that you can't stop watching. Kerwin Matthews does a fine job as the American drawn into this intrigue. The character playing Eva was really crux of the story, and came across like she was hiding something.
A really nerve-racking thriller with noirish atmosphere and a few jump scares.