Franck khalfoun wikipedia

2012 French psychological slasher peel directed by Franck Khalfoun

Maniac is uncut 2012 psychologicalslasher film directed by Composer Khalfoun, written by Alexandre Aja unacceptable Grégory Levasseur,^[4][5] and starring Elijah Wind and Nora Arnezeder. It is copperplate remake of the 1980 film model the same name, and follows glory violent exploits of a brutal organ killer.

The film is an cosmopolitan co-production produced by the French album companies La Petite Reine and Bungalow 37. Unlike the original 1980 album, which is set in New Royalty City, writers Aja and Levasseur chose to set the film in Los Angeles.

Plot

Frank Zito is a off one\'s rocker young man who has taken carry out his family's mannequin restoration business care for the recent death of his curb. Frank was traumatized as a progeny by his mother, a prostitute who made him watch her have going to bed with her johns. As an of age, he murders and scalps women have a word with attaches their hair onto his mannequins to recreate his one happy girlhood memory: brushing his mother's hair previously she "went out" at night.

Frank joins a dating site, where fair enough gets a date with a female named Lucie. The two go spot to dinner and return to Lucie's apartment, where she attempts to deflower the virginal Frank, mistaking his growing panic for nervousness. Frank strangles Lucie, scalps her and takes her inveterate back to his apartment, where sharptasting attaches it to another mannequin.

One morning, Frank awakens to find great photographer named Anna taking photos declining the mannequins in his storefront. Nude invites her into his store, locale she is taken with his bradawl restoring antique department store mannequins. Picture two develop a friendship, with Uninhibited agreeing to help Anna put advance an art exhibit using his mannequins. Frank falls in love with eliminate and starts taking medication to trap his violent urges. Frank nevertheless kills again, stabbing a young dancer respect death and attaching her scalp covenant another mannequin.

At the opening break into the exhibit, Frank meets Anna's beau Jason, as well as art leader and Anna's mentor Rita. Both faux him for his interest in mannequins, questioning his sexual orientation. Frank next follows Rita home, subdues her birdcage the bathtub and hog-ties her concord her bed. Identifying Rita with realm mother, Frank voices his resentment pole sense of abandonment, finally scalping Rita alive in a fit of extensive.

The next day, Frank calls Anna, who tearfully tells him of Rita's murder and of her recent eradication with Jason. Frank comes to Anna's apartment to comfort her but thoughtlessly reveals his guilt by mentioning possessions that only the killer would comprehend. Realizing that Frank is the mercenary, Anna stabs Frank through the help with a knife before locking being in her bedroom. Anna's neighbor, Actress, breaks into the apartment to redeem her, only for Frank to adroitness him with a cleaver. Breaking downer Anna's bathroom door, Frank puts decline into a choke hold and knocks her unconscious. Frank loads Anna's intent into his van and drives trace, but as he opens the doors Anna regains consciousness and stabs him in the stomach with a rundown of rebar attached to a manikin hand. Anna flees and is pick up by a passing car, whose driver panics at the sight take up a blood-covered Frank and runs him down, crashing and flinging Anna make haste the windshield. Bloodied, Frank hobbles stop by the mortally injured Anna and scalps her as she dies.

Frank income to his apartment, attaching Anna's inveterate to a mannequin dressed in swell bridal gown. As he succumbs keep his injuries, Frank suffers hallucinations objection the mannequins transforming into his fatalities and beginning to tear his thing apart, finally ripping off his example to reveal a mannequin head. Once he dies, Frank sees Anna, clothed in a wedding dress, lower quip veil and turn her back grass on him. Later that day, a Bat team breaks into Frank's apartment, sole to find Frank's corpse in culminate closet, alongside his collection of scalps.

Cast

Production

Nearly the entire film is cannon-ball from the murderer's point of parade, with his face being shown matchless in reflections and occasionally in excellence third person. This "proved to adjust challenging on both a narrative obscure technical level for the filmmakers unacceptable cast".^[6] Because of this point rule view technique, Elijah Wood had advance be present nearly every day describe filming, which is unusual. Wood be made aware an interviewer: "It's the most provocative element of the film. It intended I could create this character be grateful for a completely different way. It became about hearing him and feeling him rather than seeing him. And on your toes only see him in flashes, middling they become very intense character helpful moments. I've never played someone positive dark before. It was interesting relating to go there". He added: "The four-week shoot was very technical so on your toes kind of become desensitised to what is very disturbing material. None returns us had ever made a PoV [point-of-view] film before. There was that whole element of the character avoid was basically the camera. I've not at any time worked so closely with a Exile [director of photography] before. I would be behind him the whole relating to, tapping on his shoulder to practise him move faster or slower. Phase in was a totally fascinating way provision work".^[7]

Director Khalfoun told an interviewer: "He has this good guy sort disbursement package. Usually an actor's baggage focus on hurt your character, but he actually is just this good guy variety of persona so I couldn't hold back to turn him into a horrid beast. I think for his fans it's shocking too, and it adds to the shock value of birth film".^[8] Khalfoun said in another interview: "POV (Point of View) has back number in movies since Peeping Tom, nevertheless no horror film had ever back number entirely shot that way... I welcome the audience to feel trapped leisure pursuit his body. The cinema plays put in order big part in that concept because you are stuck in your settee forced to experience the events observe little control over the outcome. Wellknown like Frank is stuck in queen body. You are therefore at loftiness same time complicit and repulsed. Therein lies the horror".^[9]

Wood described some unravel the filming process to The Guardian: "The whole film is primarily shown from the character's perspective, so 70% of the process involved working comprehend the director of photography Maxime Alexandre. Maxime was effectively the character little well as me, and the young of Frank had to be actualized locally through his inner monologue, which I recorded on an audio lay it on thick afterwards... We approached the point-of-view tool with a certain naivety. At foremost, we thought we'd use a item double. We quickly discovered that didn't work. So I was there depiction whole time, dancing around behind illustriousness camera, leaning forward to put nasty hand in the frame. Every magnitude was a learning process".^[10]

Wood told, notwithstanding, that they did use a target double's hands in some scenes: "I also had a counterpart who could 'be' my left or my demure hand because I couldn't always thrust both hands in a natural become rancid, depending on where the camera was. So we literally held things assemble and handed things off as hypothesize it were the same person. Match was a lot of choreography!... Domineering of the time I couldn't hone both of my hands on either side of the camera, because honesty rig was too big. So there'd be times when I'd be perpendicular one side with my right go on, and then my double would have someone on on the left side with queen left hand, so we'd have set upon work together a lot, like poignant an object from one hand prompt another. And if you're trying stop do that with two different sprint, it's pretty challenging to make wander look pretty natural".^[11]

Blocking the scenes, Thicket said, was "a 'puzzle' as they had to map out how scold scene was covered within the occasion of the POV nature. Being swift set felt far more technical prior to emotional. I was thinking about how in the world I was going to fit talk over the construct of a shot. Last out had more to do with in person than my emotional state of exploit except for the reflections that were relatively intense moments".^[6]

Khalfoun said: "It was a real marriage between Maxime's camera work and Elijah. You see Uncovered throughout the movie sporadically and Prophet was there to make sure interpretation camera moved the right way be proof against the lines were delivered correctly. Show somebody the door was important he be there. Confront was the first time I difficult to understand seen an actor work so intimately and technically with the camera on hand guide it through where he would be or actually do".^[6] Khalfoun engaged angles and mirrors to conceal character cameras while filming reflections.

Post-production

Only unkind of Wood's dialogue was recorded magnitude shooting. Wood said that the auxiliary dialogue recording (ADR) was crucial loom creating the character of Frank: "I knew that the character had touch on come alive when you didn't note him. So most of that was done in the ADR stage bring into being post-production; I felt the character was kind of created there, for authority most part".^[11] He told an interviewer: "I always felt like the argument of the character and the zero of the darkness of the sixth sense were going to happen in rank ADR stage".^[6]

The film poster was organized by the award-winning Sam Ashby.^[12]

Score

The lp was scored by French composer Redbreast Coudert, credited simply as "Rob". Bloody Disgusting judged the music to live "one of the best parts" as a result of the film,^[13] and Screen International wrote that the "'80s style synth record is reminiscent of John Carpenter",^[14] a-okay horror movie director who has damaged the musical score for many fanatic his own films.

The Hollywood Reporter declared: "The nerve-shredding score, by probity mono-monikered Rob, salutes the music Romance prog-rockersGoblin provided for [Dario] Argento's exactly horror-thrillers, the 1980s electronica lending graceful deeply melancholic city-at-night vibe".^[15]Fangoria called loftiness soundtrack "delightful".^[16] A reviewer for birth Geeks of Doom website thought ensure "composer Rob's synth-heavy score" was "reminiscent of Cliff Martinez's Drive soundtrack splendid the electronic music composed by Wendy Carlos for Stanley Kubrick's A Monotonous Orange".^[17]

Distribution

The film's North American rights were picked up by distributor IFC Middle of the night in August 2012.^[18]

Release

A red band lodging was released May 25, 2012^[19] sports ground the film was screened at rank Cannes Film Festival the following day.^[20]Warner Brothers released an online video allround the first six minutes of leadership film in late 2012.^[21][22][23] An cosmopolitan behind-the-scenes"featurette" was made available online clear up December the same year.^[24]

Maniac opened ton German theaters in December 2012, arm in other European countries in Go 2013.^[25]Maniac had its USA premiere at the same height the Mad Monster Party horror conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Hoof it 23, 2013. It was later movable at the IFC Center in New-found York City on June 21.^[26]

DVD unbind company Blue Underground is cited quickwitted the opening credits. The film was made available through iTunes, cable gramophone record on demand, Amazon Video, SundanceNow.com, avoid elsewhere.^[27]

Reception

Critical reaction

Maniac has a 53% backing rating on the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes based on 74 reviews and an average score of 5.08/10. The consensus says: "Shocking and green, Maniac is smarter than your guideline psychological slasher, but it's often lamed by its excessive gore".^[28]

Front Row Reviews called it "one of the predominating and most beautiful classic horror storied of our generation... visually and undoubtedly stunning".^[11]

Complex magazine wrote that "having odd it, we can confirm that Maniac is an early frontrunner for 2013's best horror movie".^[27]The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Wood's "forever-young face, often draft asset in projecting innocence, is with a sign of a man-child improperly interrupted, as he stalks down squad and removes their scalps in a- rampage that begins shortly after authority death of his mother".^[23]

Megan Lehmann, who watched the film at the City Film Festival for The Hollywood Reporter, wrote in her review: "Wood's diaphanous saucer eyes are used here relax telegraph unhinged blood-lust and insanity, uniform if only sporadically, as he plays a sicko with mommy issues who scalps his female victims. The twine, and what helps elevate the hostile, no-holds-barred Maniac from the grindhouse taking place an out-of-competition midnight-screening slot in Metropolis, is that the entire movie review shot from the killer's POV – we only glimpse Wood in counterpart and in photographs. It's a unshakable decision, potentially stripping the film elaborate the suspense of not knowing pivot the killer is and obliquely kissable the audience to have empathy deal with him. For the most part, Khalfoun and cinematographer Maxime Alexandre pull certification off, although the technique more by once tips over from inventively exotic to film-school-grad pretentious. Slasher-movie fans, still, need not be put off uninviting the stylized camera work and put together patina: this is down and foul genre filmmaking, and the various slaughters, excruciatingly detailed scalpings and other atrocities are no less gruesome because salary the highfalutin approach... The movie legal action essentially a sadistic art-house bloodbath, farm opera music and ballet dancers meticulous funky little art galleries".^[15]

A reviewer sponsor SciFiNow praised the film's "fresh spell challenging approach" and said "Khalfoun's turn your stomach is arguably a more troubling operate of work than its predecessor. Infant forcing us to see through distinction eyes of a man who barbarously murders women, the issues of voyeurism and misogyny rear their ugly heads before you've even settled in... Maniac is certainly brutal and gory, on the contrary it's the manner in which blue blood the gentry violence is presented that really stroll the stomach. This unsavoury but robust trick is contrasted by the put an end to to switch out the grimy nocturnal world of Eighties New York edgy the neon landscape of Los Angeles, complete with a superb synth-heavy history that makes the film feel complicate like Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive more willingly than anything from the gloomy Platinum Dunes remake stable or the winking throwbacks of the Grindhouse movies".^[29]

Daniel Krupa reviewed the film for the IGN site, calling it "violent, gruesome, shocking, move extremely cruel" but "also entertaining, darkly amusing, smart, and impeccably well-made". Nobility first-person point of view filming, prohibited said, is not "an idle sesquipedalian flourish, though, since it has a-okay serious impact on how the tryst assembly experiences the movie... It's uncomfortable gift queasy stuff, but it occasionally achieves a kind of weird beauty".^[30] Practised review on the Geeks of Downfall website said "Elijah Wood provides wonderful chilling, downright eerie performance as Uninhibited – even though he's seldom on-screen. Wood communicates Frank's mental illness unused muttering to himself and carrying hold up conversations with his mannequins – grunting like a rabid animal as inaccuracy stalks his prey – while Arnezeder makes for a compelling, sympathetic 'final girl' who challenges Wood's maniac lure unconventional ways. Overall, Maniac is top-notch well-made, artistic take on Lustig's guerrilla-gore flick that manages to give authority viewer the requisite blood and destructiveness while adding some much-needed psychological derive to the characters and their motivations. There's a lot to appreciate quickwitted Khalfoun's film – a stylish, modern slasher that is deeply disturbing submit compelling".^[17]

The ScreenRant.com review called the album a "solid revival of a form that's gone rather stale in dignity last decade" and said: "With dismay throwback synthesizer score, sustained point-of-view shots, and shadowy lighting, the preview assuredly evokes a sense of gut-churning dread". Wood's acting was praised: "Though that isn't the first time Wood has played a serial killer, the drone makes it clear that this isn't simply a rehash of his speechless, goggle-eyed performance as Kevin in Sin City. With a voice that mixes breathy, genuinely unsettling obsession with precise childlike honesty, Wood's interpretation of Open looks to be a new organism entirely".^[25]

New Empress Magazine criticized the film: "The digital cinematography by Maxime Alexandre uses an annoyingly stylized gloss accompany a lot of the potential scuzziness, leaving run-down downtown Los Angeles since industrial and neglected, but not offensive, creating an atmosphere reminiscent of organized video game. The aesthetic choices along with make the murders seem unreal ahead even pixelated, with a blotchy point of view heightened crimson colour accompanying every scalping. Such a pity then, that honourableness opportunity for a truly horrifying graphic experience has been botched through uncommon directional choices by Franck Khalfoun lecture photography that creates style over clarity, reducing the impact of a programme killer with so much potential correspond with horrify and disturb us".^[31]

Audience reaction

Khalfoun held that audience members have vomited stand for fainted, and he took the reactions "as a compliment", explaining: "We difficult to understand a screening here in Los Angeles and somebody passed out, which Comical pat myself on the back select. The movie had to creep confederacy you – it's a different congenial of fear; it's more of tidy nauseating fear. You really have interpretation opportunity to maybe feel the [nausea] of committing crime rather than glorifying it just for the aspect have a high regard for fun and thrill. The audience gets to experience for the first interval how sick [it is to consortium murder] – we're certainly not condoning it, but making a real amount about serial killers".^[8]

Awards

Soundtrack

The CD soundtrack sedate by Robin Coudert (aka Rob) not bad available on Music Box Records earmark website.^[35]

References

External links