MANIA KILLER (1987)
A.K.A. MANIAC KILLER
Label: Full Moon Features
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 84 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1 (No Subtitles)
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.66:1)
Director: Andrea Bianchi
Cast: Bo Svenson, Robert Ginty, Suzanne Andrews, Chuck Connors
Andrea Bianchi directed a couple of sleazy euro-cult classics, Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror, Cry of the Prostitute and Strip Nude for You're Killer immediately come to mind, but I am not too familiar with most of his later stuff, except for Eurocine produced Angel of Death (1987) which he co-directed with Spanish sleaze-master Jess Franco... and sadly that was not all that impressive. Made during the same straight-to-video period we have Maniac Killer (1987), which was also produced for the notorious French distributor Eurocine.
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 84 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1 (No Subtitles)
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.66:1)
Director: Andrea Bianchi
Cast: Bo Svenson, Robert Ginty, Suzanne Andrews, Chuck Connors
Andrea Bianchi directed a couple of sleazy euro-cult classics, Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror, Cry of the Prostitute and Strip Nude for You're Killer immediately come to mind, but I am not too familiar with most of his later stuff, except for Eurocine produced Angel of Death (1987) which he co-directed with Spanish sleaze-master Jess Franco... and sadly that was not all that impressive. Made during the same straight-to-video period we have Maniac Killer (1987), which was also produced for the notorious French distributor Eurocine.
The flick is a labyrinthine mess that has a lot of moving gears that never seem mesh teeth, for starters we have a religious cult that stalks and kidnaps French prostitutes and slut-shames them while forcing them to admit they are under the influence of Satan, before killing them. The cult is lead by a guy named Gondrand (Robert Ginty, The Exterminator) who is aided and abetted by Lysia (Suzanne Andrews, Angel of Death) and a bald-headed tormenter (Stanley Kapoul, Gwendoline) who does most of the tormenting. They don cult-ish looking robes and tie the girls up inquisition-style and torment them with a cheap-looking scepter with a gold snake wrapped around it occasionally clamping their whores nipples with a pair of skinning pliers. I'm guessing this torture is meant to purify the soul before they kill them, but nothing is ever really explained in thsi flick.
Then we have Professor Roger Osborne (Chuck Connors, Tourist Trap) performing strange experiments on animals in his mansion outside of town. I was never quite sure what the doc was up to in his lab, and his later diatribes about science didn't shed much light on it either, and it doesn't matter in the scheme of things anyway. He sources his animals from the non-verbal village idiot Matthieu (François Greze), who at some point the doc starts to teach basic language skills by using an ancient 80's PC to visualize words.
Sort of tying the two storylines together we have Count Silvano (Bo Svenson, Curse II: The Bite) who hates Gondrand because the cult leader is always chasing after his wife, the Countess Silvano (Paulina Adrián). We also keep peeking in on a trio of villagers at a local bar who gossip about the missing prostitutes, the leader of the group is a trouble-making mailman, not unlike Charles Durning in Dark Night of the Scarecrow, who thinks that Doc Osbourne might be conducting human experiments up at his mansion. These guys end up teaming with Count Silvano and the local cops to do some reconnaissance on the doc's house and later storm it.
It's a pretty silly film all around, but unlike Angel of Death at least this one has some titty-pinching sleaze and a tiny but of gore, but don't get too excited, there's not that much of either, but it's there. It's also got some decent looking French locations and a weird and wonderful cast of people who had real Hollywood careers. I kept thinking to myself 'how did they get Ginty, Svenson and Connors in this, who did they owe money to?' The best of the bunch though are not any of the dimming Hollywood actors, but unknown François Greze who went onto do nothing that I can find. Greze plays the half-wit Matthieu who proves to be the most entertaining part of the film, his amateur acting is hilariously overwrought with goofy, contorted faces and a bunch of idiot-boy non-verbal grunting, I was cracking up whenever he showed up onscreen. Ginty looks really bored, but I give props to Connors who is such a professional he just goes for it his character. The flick was shot by cinematographer Henry Froges (Women's Prison Massacre) and has a score by Luis Bacalov (Django) , which also help make this a more interesting film than Angel of Death, but still nota good film, just more interesting and not as cheap looking and sounding.
I'm curious to know why Full Moon are releasing this is Mania Killer - the original title is Maniac Killer and I could not find an alternate title of Mania Killer while doing my research. Either title is lazy as fuck and not at all appropriate, but there must be a legal reason why it's been retitled, and now I am curious. If you know please clue me in!.
Audio/Video: ManiaKiller (1987) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Full Moon Features as part of The Eurocine Collection, presented in 1080p HD and framed in 1.66:1 widescreen with the "Maniac Killer" title card. Not sure what the source for this is but we do get a decent looking layer of grain, it fluctuates a bit but is more or less consistent. The image doesn't have a lot of depth, and clarity and contrast wane from time to time, but I was pleased with it. There are also some vertical scratches that pop up frequently, and while It doesn't offer the best the format has to offer it's acceptable. Audio comes by way of lossy English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo and 5.1 surround with optional English subtitles.
The only extras on the disc is the same set of euro-cult trailers that have accompanied most of The Eurocine Collection releases from Full Moon. The single-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with a single sided sleeve of artwork featuring a weird looking illustration that makes Connors look like a sweaty lizard! The same artwork is excerpted onto the Blu-ray disc.
Special Features:
- Euro-Cult Trailers: Naked Girl Murdered in the Park (2 min), Barbed Wire Dolls (1 min), Love Letters To A Portuguese Nun (3 min), Satanic Sisters (1 min), Voodoo Passion (1 min), Women In Cell Block 9 (1 min)
Full Moon continue to plunder the Eurocine vaults offering cheap action and demented horror flicks, and I hope there's much more to come. You have to come into some of these with tempered expectations, they're a mixed bag of euro-cult oddities, and while I had pretty low expectation coming into this and I was still a bit disappointed when the credits started rolling to be hones. It's the sort of movie that has four writers but somehow never comes together to make much of any sense, which us usually how it goes, the more writers the less cohesive a movie you get, and this one is a wild hodgepodge of divergent storylines. There's MST3K fun to be had here though, just know what you're getting yourself, this is some serious some z-grade straight-to-VHS euro-trash.
Screenshots from the Full Moon Blu-ray:
