Maniac

William Lustig's Maniac is another infamous horror title starring the late, great Joe Spinell in probably his greatest role as the Maniac of the title.

Seen from the maniac's perspective (taking an almost sympathetic view of his development), we see Joe droning away to himself in excellent psychotic fashion as he goes around killing then scalping females and nailing their scalps to mannequins.

In true Psycho style we find he has one of those now classic mother fixations. He soon befriends the lovely Caroline Munro along the way, which eventually leads to more problems.

Tom Savini supplys some excellent gore effects, including his own explosive demise and the legendary scalping scene.

This film still causes problems with censors and was recently knocked back by the British censors again when submitted by the folk at Exploited Video.

The print is a lovely widescreen with dolby 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo, and is packed with great extras. These include an entertaining audio commentary by Lustig, Savini and pals, more trailer variations than you can shake a stick, deleted scene and the promo reel for the never released Maniac 2.

An essential purchase.

*Maniac fans may want to chase down Joe Spinell's other great flick with Caroline Munro "The Last Horror Film" - a great relief "side order" to Maniac".