- Directed by Franck Khalfoun
- Written by Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur, Joe Spinell
- Stars Elijah Wood, Nora Arnezeder, America Olivo
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 29 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiULAdLufJs
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
We often scoff at remakes. They are so often unnecessary and not as good as the original. This one is an exception, with great performances and the same grittiness that the original from 1980 had. This version gives a little more point of view from Frank, giving us even more of an idea of the madness that he struggles with and commands his life.
Synopsis
Judy leaves a party and has to pass a bunch of men catcalling her. Someone who breathes heavily is following her in his car; he knows her name and where she lives.
Judy gets home and finds that the lights are out on her floor – we saw that’s not a coincidence. She gets to her apartment, and he kills her before she even has a chance to scream. Then he scalps her. Credits Roll.
Frank emails a woman on an Internet dating site. He sends her a picture of himself; he looks like a mix of Frodo Baggins and Harry Potter, and she agrees to meet him at a restaurant. Frank imagines everyone in the place is staring at him, has an anxiety attack, and he runs into the restroom and takes some pills.
She invites him up to her apartment for a drink, and they undress each other. He then strangles her. He talks to himself, saying he hates himself, but then he scalps her. Afterward, he goes into the bathroom and pukes his dinner up.
He goes home and talks to the mannequins in his room. He has a surprise. He puts the scalp on the mannequin, then he staples it onto “her.” He gets angry, and we see why he has bloody knuckles and bruised hands.
The next morning, he meets a woman photographer who wants to take pictures of his mannequins. He invites her in to see “his work,” which turns out to be a showroom and other rooms full of mannequins with more in various stages of completion. He’s restored most of them, selling and renting them as a business. She wants to rent some of them for her photo shoot; her name is Anna.
The day after that, Frank goes out in the car, cruising for more victims. He ends up in a dance school and hides in the closet as Jessica, one of the dancers, gets dressed after performing. He follows her into the subway and onto a train. When they get off the train, he chases her through the empty subway station. She runs into a gated parking lot, but he finds her and traps her in there. Then he does his thing.
Anna takes pictures as Frank works on restoring a mannequin. She still wants to use them in her show. He likes her because she respects the mannequins. Frank has a migraine or something and runs off to take a nasal spray to help.
Frank sees that the police are looking for links between all the murders. We see that Frank has serious mommy and woman issues. The next night, Frank and Anna go to see “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” but all Frank can see are his hallucinations. Afterward, Anna mentions that she has a boyfriend. Frank is in the friendzone.
It’s the night of Anna’s big show, and Frank attends. He sees Anna making out with her boyfriend, and Frank follows the boyfriend into the restroom. He had been assuming Frank was gay. One woman says the mannequins are creepy junk; Frank follows her home when she leaves. This, of course, is not her best night.
Anna calls Frank on the phone; her agent was murdered last night. We see the agent’s scalp and robe on the mannequin in the corner of the bedroom. Frank talks to all his mannequins, even the little boy version of himself. He goes over to Anna’s place to console her and meets Martin, her neighbor. Anne mentions that she and her boyfriend broke up. Frank accidentally lets it slip that he knows where the agent lived, which tips her off that he may be more involved in the murder than she thought.
Yeah, she knows. She grabs a knife, but she fights back. Martin comes to the door, but Frank is the one who opens it. With Martin dead, he breaks down the door to face Anna. He knocks her out and takes her home with him.
When he opens the door of his van, she stabs him with the pointy end of a mannequin’s hand. He chases her for half a mile down the street; it’s lucky for him that no one seems to live in L.A. He’s bleeding badly by the time he catches up to Anna, who is nearly killed in a car accident. He then scalps her like the others.
Later, he puts a wedding ring on the mannequin that has Anna’s hair. How romantic! The other mannequins in his shop get jealous and gang up to kill him. They tear him apart.
Eventually the police come in and find that Frank has stabbed himself.
Commentary
We watched the original “Manic (1980)” a few months back, and we liked it a lot. It was so gritty, dirty, and atmospheric that you almost needed a shower after watching it. As with that film, this one has a lot of shots from Frank’s point of view. Actually, we mostly only see Frank in reflections and mirrors. We hear a lot of breathing and grunting from inside Frank’s head. It’s the same character and basically the same situations as in the 1980 version, just everything is updated for the modern age; it’s a great remake.
I don’t normally notice soundtracks too much, but this one had a lot of memorable bits and stands out. Kevin mentioned about halfway through that he was liking it as well.
Overall, this was surprisingly good.