More of a thriller than straight horror, the Maniac may be the most Hitchcockian film Hammer ever made.
In the French countryside, "violence is never far away" intones the opening text. Fifteen year old Annette Beynat (Liliane Brousse) is making her way home from school one day when the much older Janiello (Arnold Diamond) offers her a ride. He manages to coax her into his truck, but thankfully a schoolmate of hers rushes home and tells her father (who we don't see).
Mr. Beynat tracks the pair down and finds Janiello with his daughter. One beating with a wrench later, the auto-mechanic takes the pair home. His daughter's rescue is understandable, but why Janiello? It seems Mr. Beynat isn't finished with the older man. He also has a blowtorch he wants to test out on the rapist's face.
Four years later, American artist Jeff Farrell (Kerwin Matthews) is touring around France. Splitting with his current gal, Jeff finds himself stranded in the same small area we saw at the start. Thankfully there's an inn nearby. The owner, Eve Beynat (Nadia Gray), is also lovely and lonely. She's barely been with a man ever since her husband Georges was locked up four years ago. Annette is also looking to scratch some itches, although Jeff finally settles for the mother.
Of course there's still the matter of her husband. Eve's been seeing him every two weeks and naturally insists on telling what (and who) she's been doing. Georges takes this better than you would think. You see he's been thinking about leaving the state's custody, and if his wife could help him get out he'd consider the whole cheating thing forgiven.
Jeff goes along with the plan, but things start to go wrong. When Georges fails to show up at the prearranged place, Jeff convinces Eve to ditch the plan and head back to town. The first problem is Georges (Donald Huston) is waiting for them at the car. He calmly explains that an orderly helped him escape.
Jeff thinks this odd, but the second problem comes later when he finds said orderly, namely inside the trunk of Eve's car. The third is the massive amount of oxyacetylene Georges has been ordering.
Actually shot in France gives this film a nice desolate look. There's double crosses and red herrings aplenty, so much that you might want to keep some notes.
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