10 More Hardest To Watch Horror Movie Moments

Elijah Wood has done many great and interesting things post-Lord of the Rings, not least of all forming the horror production company SpectreVision, which has overseen the output of a raft of solid genre features, including Panos Cosmatos' Mandy (2018).

One of his most memorable turns of recent years though was as Frank Zito in the remake of Maniac (1980). Swept up by the video nasty panic, the original film starred The Godfather's Joe Spinell as the titular maniac, who murders young women, scalps them and attaches their hair to mannequins, and the remake follows this template with one major difference: It's filmed exclusively in first-person, from Frank's POV.

While the original offered more grim shock than substance, with a fairly two-dimensional lead, Wood's take on the role gives Frank a sense of complexity and depth, as well as horrifying immediacy. And one of its worst, most repugnant scenes comes at the beginning of the film. Stalking a young woman to her front door, Frank tells her not to scream before ramming a knife up through her throat and into her head. He then uses the selfsame knife to cut the skin along her hairline, and holds onto her hair as it is stripped away from her skull, blood and bones and all.