Maniac

Maniac (1980) is William Lustig's notorious slasher, available to watch online on iFILM. It crawls through the seedy late-night streets of New York City, where a lone killer hunts women and takes grim souvenirs.

Frank Zito is a broken man, warped by an abusive mother and a childhood that never let go. He stalks, murders and scalps young women, then nails the scalps to the mannequins crowding his squalid apartment and talks to them. Joe Spinell plays Frank and co-wrote the script, pouring something genuinely unsettling into the role. The gore came from a young Tom Savini, whose graphic kills got the film banned in several countries.

This is raw, low-budget grindhouse horror, shot almost like a documentary of a sick mind. It does not entertain so much as make your skin crawl, sticking close to the killer instead of his victims. For fans of trash cinema and genre history, Maniac (1980) is essential viewing. Stream it on iFILM.