Maniac 1963 123movies

Watch: Maniac 1963 123movies, Full Movie Online – Kerwin Matthews, playing a dissolute drifter down on his luck, Jeff Farrell, is stranded in a cheap bar in France where he falls for Annette, the proprietor’s pretty stepdaughter, played by Liliane Brousse. Annette’s stepmother Eve, played by Nadia Gray, gradually shifts the young man’s attentions to herself, rather than her stepdaughter, and together Eve and Jeff concoct a plot to help free Eve’s estranged husband from the institution in which he’s been confined as a homicidal maniac these past four years after committing the so-called “Acetylene Murder”, when he killed with a blowtorch the man who raped Annette. The idea is that Georges, the husband, will leave the country, but, unknown to Jeff, it’s not Georges who escapes but Henri, the guard who has become Eve’s lover . . ..
Plot: When a stranger enters a quiet, country town and is seduced by a sensuous married woman he unwittingly finds himself at the centre of a storm of sexual guilt and murder.
Smart Tags: #psychotronic_film #one_word_title #camera_shot_of_an_eye #freeze_frame #camera_shot_of_eyes #minibus #secretly_observing #criminal #lighting_a_cigarette #riding_a_bicycle #fight #male_female_fight #witness #teenager #teenage_boy #teenage_girl #rapist #violence #sexual_violence #sexual_harassment #rural_setting

Find Alternative – Maniac 1963, Streaming Links:

123movies | FMmovies | Putlocker | GoMovies | SolarMovie | Soap2day

Ratings:

	5.9/10 Votes: 1,355
	N/A | RottenTomatoes
	N/A | MetaCritic
	N/A Votes: 24 Popularity: 2.611 | TMDB

Reviews:

The Imbecilic Maniac
If Hammer movies had been released the same way as vinyl records “Maniac” would be a typical B-side effort; meaning it’s an extremely low-keyed, low-budgeted and nearly forgotten little black-and-white thriller that understandably stood in the shadows of the studios’ contemporary Grand-Guignol horror productions, like the Frankenstein cycle starring Peter Cushing and the Dracula series featuring Christopher Lee. There are quite a bit of hidden treasures to discover amongst Hammer’s modest thriller productions of the 1960’s (“Scream of Fear”, “Hysteria” …), but sadly “Maniac” isn’t the studios’ – or writer Jimmy Sangster’s – finest piece of work. The film nevertheless opens very promisingly and provides a fairly large number of slick and unpredictable plot twists during the grand finale, but everything in between is dull and incredibly uninteresting. But what a great opening! In the usually quiet and peaceful French Camargue, a father catches the rapist of his 15-year-old daughter in the act and promptly extracts his bloody vengeance with a blowtorch! Hell yes! Four years later, the man – Georges – resides in a mental asylum while his gorgeous wife and astonishing daughter both fall in love with the traveling American painter Jeff Farrell. In return for his wife, Jeff agrees to help Georges escape from the institution and out of the country. But the plan goes horribly wrong and the blowtorch will have to be used some more! The basic plot is ingenious and suspenseful enough, but the 90% of the film revolves on the dire and slowly unfolding triangular relationship between the American, the mother and the daughter. The “maniac” in question also doesn’t really deserve to be referred to as a maniac, as he doesn’t come across as very menacing and makes a couple of really dumb moves during the climax. Still, the killer’s choice of weapon is original and Michael Carreras occasionally generates a tense and unsettling atmosphere. “Maniac” is reasonably interesting material for Hammer fanatics, but not exactly recommended viewing.

You take a man’s wife, Mr. Farrell, but not his money?
Maniac is directed by Michael Carreras and written by Jimmy Sangster. It stars Kerwin Matthews, Nadia Gray, Lillian Brouse, Donald Houston and George Pastell. Music is by Stanley Black and cinematography by Wilkie Cooper.

Vacationing in the Carmarque region of France, American artist Jeff Farrell (Matthews) gets more than he bargain for when he becomes romantic interest for mother and daughter Eve (Gray) and Annette (Brousse) Beymat…

Out of Hammer Film Productions, Maniac is one of a number of psychopath themed thrillers that followed in the footsteps of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Filmed in black and white on location in Caramarque, the film opens with a tremendous whack as young Annette Beynat is abducted on her way home from school and raped (off camera) by the side of the road. This crime is witnessed by a local man who fetches Annette’s father who promptly captures the rapist and gets medieval on his ass with a acetylene torch (again off camera). It’s quite an opening, but then the film settles into a leisurely pace for the next hour as Carreras and Sangster build their story in preparation for a big finale. Then things get tricky, and I’m not just talking about for handsome Jeff Farrell…

Realising they have gone for a “major” slow build and are desperate to add some added bite into what was becoming a bona fide sub-genre of thrillers, the makers cram so much into such a short space of time it collapses under its own weight. We know there’s going to be a twist, the whole story is geared towards this fact, but they instead keep twisting, and twisting until it no longer becomes interesting. While the actual finale is something of a damp squib. There’s a big problem with the location as well, Carreras’ flat direction is unable to draw anything substantially atmospheric from the locale. True, a chase and reveal at the climax gets a splendid back drop in which to unfold, but it’s a rare moment of inspiration and you are kind of taken out of because of piecing together the threads and implausibilities.

It’s a very frustrating film, one where the usually great Sangster over reaches himself and Carreras doesn’t come up to the standard of Terence Fisher or Freddie Francis. It holds the interest, is decently performed, has good production value and is fleetingly attention grabbing, but this should have been much much better. Both visually and with plot machinations. 6/10

Other Information:

Original Language en
Runtime 1 hr 26 min (86 min)
Budget 0
Revenue 0
Status Released
Rated Not Rated
Genre Crime, Horror, Mystery
Director Michael Carreras
Writer Jimmy Sangster
Actors Kerwin Mathews, Nadia Gray, Donald Houston
Country United Kingdom
Awards N/A
Production Company N/A
Website N/A

Technical Information:

Sound Mix Mono (Westrex Recording System)
Aspect Ratio 2.35 : 1
Camera N/A
Laboratory N/A
Film Length N/A
Negative Format 35 mm
Cinematographic Process MegaScope
Printed Film Format 35 mm