10 Horror Movies Shot From The Killer’s Perspective

8. Maniac (2012)

Maniac Elijah Wood
IFC Midnight

It was a basically thankless task to remake Maniac - a 1980s slasher film so grubby you'll surely want to take a shower immediately after watching it. 

But for 2012's Elijah Wood-starring new take, director Franck Khalfoun had an inspired stylistic trick up his sleeve: shoot basically the entire movie from the killer's POV.

Not content to merely follow Wood's deranged serial killer Frank Zito as he preys upon various women, the film straight-up places us in Frank's shoes, showing us exactly what he sees for almost the film's entire runtime.

The result is that the audience isn't afforded the luxury of well-timed cutaways from the brutality - we're locked in there with Frank and forced to watch him stabbing, scalping, strangling and so on.

As such it's not terribly surprising that Khalfoun's provocative approach proved divisive with critics, though the Maniac remake has endured as something of an unsung cult classic among genre fans - a technically impressive attempt to make the viewer feel complicit in the very blood-letting they paid good money to see.

 
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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.