Yes, gore lovers, Trash Film Debauchery’s all of ten years old, and to show how much we appreciate their celebration of all that is, well, trash in the cinema, this weekend the Trylon presents a double feature of head-exploding fun. David Cronenberg’s Scanners on 35mm, paired with William Lustig’s Maniac on old-school VHS! One ticket gets you into both shows.
Trylon volunteer Caty Rent writes of the low-budget splatter classic Maniac:
In Maniac, Joe Spinell plays Frank Zito, an overweight, very sweaty, confused, and paranoid, off-kilter murderer with Mommy issues. This film follows Zito around New York City in the early ’80s with a mixture of sounds including: heavy breathing, grunts, moans, sighs, footsteps, and (of course) heavy synth.
He lives in a creepy apartment that has too many lit candles, along with mannequins that he steals from clothing stores. Zito has a compulsion to scalp the women he has murdered and place their scalps on the mannequins. In a conversation with a photographer that he befriends, he makes it clear that he believes that it is a reality to be able to keep a person forever within a photograph or painting… or through their mannequin-bodies-with-real-woman-scalps?
Most of Maniac regards the painful pursuit for Zito. He is able to jauntily follow his mostly chosen-at-random victims as seamlessly as Pepe Le Pew seeks lovers. Some of the victims are couples, but most are women. Each slaying is different with each victim; some of the shots are beautiful in their terror. Particularly enjoyable would be the couple in the car that Zito shoots point blank with a shotgun–there is something visually appealing in the gore.
Trash Film Debauchery’s Theresa Kay is interviewed by Trylon volunteer John Moret at his All Star Video blog: http://traffic.libsyn.com/
Scanners screens Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 7:00; Maniac splatters at 9:00 Friday and Saturday, and 5:00 on Sunday. Tickets ($8.00 for both shows, or one punch on your Trylon punch card, which you can buy for $25 at the box office, and good for five movies) are available here.