Your first impression upon seeing the 1934 film MANIAC will most likely be a simple one: WTF???

The film, based very loosely on the Edgar Allen Poe story “The Black Cat”, is about a mad scientist, Dr. Meirschultz (Horace B. Carpenter) and his assistant Don Maxwell (Bill Woods). Meirschultz is working on a formula to bring the dead back to life. Frustrated over his inability to find a suitable corpse to work from, he instructs Maxwell to shoot himself and the good doctor will then bring him back to life. Instead Maxwell shoots the doctor. As luck would have it, Don Maxwell is not a trained medical assistant, but is in fact a vaudeville actor who’s apparently hiding out from the police. So Maxwell uses his make-up and impersonation skills to take over Dr. Meirschultz’s life.

Things quickly go downhill from there as Maxwell spirals further and further into insanity (we know this because not only does the film interrupt the narrative with occasional title cards describing different forms of mania, we are also shown Maxwell’s hallucinations in the form of clips from other movies like the 1925 MACISTE IN HELL where the devil takes the character Maciste to Hell in order to corrupt him), leading him to inject a living man, Mr. Buckley, with the doctor’s formula, turning him into a raving lunatic, then setting it up so that Mrs. Buckley and Maxwell’s own wife will kill each other and he can be free.

However, if you’ve been paying attention--especially to the source material--you can pretty much figure out what happens in the end.


This movie was a trip. I couldn’t believe it was made in 1934, considering there was so much nudity, plus a scene where Maxwell squeezes a cat’s head until the eye pops out and then Maxwell swallows it. I mean, you just didn’t see stuff like this back then.

There was so much wrong with this movie, but for being so daring at that time, I have to say there was so much right with it as well.

No, it’s not a great movie, it did have plenty of flaws. The acting is so over the top there were times I was actually embarrassed for them, especially Carpenter as Dr. Meirschultz. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I can tell you that. The Buckleys, likewise, were too much.

Whoever edited the movie butchered it, and I mean hacked it to pieces so bad the cuts are all over the place. Yet at times the cinematographer got it dead-on, especially a very creep scene with Maxwell crawling through a tunnel, which looked like it was filmed in that sped-up way popular in a lot of horror movies of the early 2000s, like Samara’s walk from the television to Noah at the end of the first RING. That was a beautiful shot and a wonderful surprise in this movie.

Dwain Esper directed and this was his 5th movie in 4 years. He only directed 5 more after, and that was over a period of 14 years so he either started spending a lot of time making his follow-ups, or just couldn’t get the work. Looking at MANIAC, it really could be either. While I can’t imagine this movie took more than a week to film (it’s only 51 minutes), I think it definitely shows he knew how to make a good movie, even if he couldn’t direct a good performance from one if he had to.

I’m honestly still a bit stunned over this movie. While the good and the bad are about equal here, I think it’s the fact that it was made so long ago and yet seemed to be so daring for that time that leaves me in awe. The actors were horrible, but given what Esper accomplished, I still have a tremendous amount of respect for his vision. I think based on that, it absolutely deserves the title “horror classic” and I eagerly recommend it.


other Horror Classics
Carnival of Souls
Atom Age Vampire
Creature from the Haunted Sea
Nightmare Castle
Black Dragons
The Invisible Ghost
One Body Too Many
White Zombie
Attack of the Giant Leeches
The Screaming Skull
The Beast of Yucca Flats
The Terror
Revolt of the Zombies
The Giant Gila Monster
The Fatal Hour
Dead Men Walk
The Mad Monster


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age