Wow, I just found out about this... Am I the only one, or is it old news?

Strangely, it looks good... The trailer has a lot of the signature moments of the original in it, but I was shocked to see ol Elijah replacing Joe Spinel as the Maniac. Alexandre Aja wrote it, and he usually has a good spin on things, ie. High Tension and The Hills Have Eyes, but I just thought I'd see you guys have heard of this thing yet, cuz I was totally caught off guard while surfing you tube for new trailers.

I'm not gonna hold me breath though... The way I see it, such a remake would have to be at least on par with the ending sequence of Portrait of the Psychopath, which I just finished reading and am still floored by. What a book!! Love the Mummy!!

I love the original. This review of the remake makes me very interested to see it:



Ryan H.

I'm definitely in. Wood proved his ability to do creepy in Sin City. Plus it's just nice to see movies like that getting attention.

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He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts

Damn, I remember seeing the original in a theater; I'll HAVE to see the remake just for sentimental reasons!

Edward Lee

I believe it will be on demand on June 21st, so I hope to check it out then. A couple of original Maniac fans said they didn't like it much at all, someone else told me it was worth a look. I'm cautiously hopeful, since the Maniac fans don't seem to like anything new no matter what.

Ryan H.

I just bought the German Blu-ray. They released it in both cut and uncut versions so it took a while to find the right one at a store. I haven't seen the original in years but I'll definitely share my impressions of the remake after watching.

I thought it was one of the better remakes. Unnecessary but it did enough things differently (e.g. the first person perspective of the whole film) to justify its existance. There isn't a single thing it does better than the original, though. Elijah Wood is fine in the remake but he is no Joe Spinell. The remake has its share of nasty violence but it can't rival the stand-out gore scenes of the original. The remake tries to substitute Los Angeles for the New York of the original in order to find similarly run down environments but never matches the palpable sleaze and grime of those New York locations as captured by Lustig.

The original brings back such joyous memories, I'll buy the new one the instant I can. Didn't the original have all the makeup fx by Tom Savini? I just remember being blown away by the level of realism.

Edward Lee

Yes, Savini did the FX on the original. I got him to sign my DVD sleeve at Horrorfind ages ago. Argento's former girlfriend Daria Nicolodi was supposed to be in Maniac but it fell through for reasons they never actually finished discussing on the commentary. That really annoyed me, ha.

Ryan H.