Much like what was done with him in SIN CITY, director Franck Khalfoun and writer Alexandre Aja (THE HILLS HAVE EYES, HIGH TENSION) have subverted Elijah Wood’s inherently sweet and adorable features and brought out their hidden creepiness for MANIAC, the remake of the 1980 horror thriller that starred the great Joe Spinell. And so far, this looks pretty good.
Below we have a NSFW teaser trailer that was first featured on the Cannes website. For some reason, the encoding of the original video is all off, but FirstShowing.net has attempted to fix it and posted a video of their own which you can check out below. Note that the final portion of the trailer is missing due to the encoding error, so please make due with it until a better version comes along.
MANIAC will soon premiere at the Cannes International Film Festival. There is no North American release date as of yet.
Synopsis: Just when the streets seemed safe, a serial killer with a fetish for scalps is back and on the hunt. Frank (Elijah Wood) is the withdrawn owner of a mannequin store, but his life changes when young artist Anna (Nora Arnezeder) appears asking for his help with her new exhibition. As their friendship develops and Frank’s obsession escalates, it becomes clear that she has unleashed a long-repressed compulsion to stalk and kill.