Sadly Over-hyped

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

From the dusty recesses of Dwain Esper's brain pan, comes MANIAC! Mad science enthusiast, Dr. Mearschultz and his eraser-headed assistant / henchman swipe a cadaver from the morgue, in order to re-animate it w/ a secret serum. Said corpse is a young female, allowing for much unnecessary nudity. Back at his lab, Mearschultz resurrects the woman, and decides that he must have another dead person, so he can try out his new synthetic heart. For failing in this endeavor, Mearschultz has his assistant shoot himself. This goes awry and Mearschultz is killed instead. Assuming his identity, the assistant tinkers about the lab. Complicating matters, a woman arrives w/ a man who believes he's the go-rilla from Poe's MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE! "Mearschultz" injects him w/ Adrenalin, causing the man to go berserk, grabbing the recently revived dead girl, and taking her out for an evening of savagery and topless debauchery! Meanwhile, apparently in some other film, a man shows a cop his backyard cat farm, waxing eloquent about his cat-skinning enterprise (!!). Simultaneously, across town, four women are having a late-night discussion in their underwear, when one of them discovers big news about her husband, the fake Mearschultz. Throwing on some clothes, she rushes to tell him, not knowing that he's gone quite insane. A battle breaks out between the wife and the woman who brought in go-rilla man. This all leads -somehow- to the "shock" finale, centering on the whereabouts of the late Dr. Mearschultz, containing a cat named Satan, and another Poe reference. This fine film is so far ahead of its time! Glorious sub-sludge such as this is unparalleled in 1930's-era cinema!... P.S.- Beware of the "feline-eyeball-eating-scene"!...

I have to agree with another reviewer and say that, while not a great film, it is definitely not the worst. In fact, I found it a rather creepy journey into mental illness. Yes, the acting is over-the-top and you are left scratching your head at some things, but it also leaves an impression that I know I won't soon forget.

"Maniac" is aka "Sex Maniac" and why "Sex Maniac" is beyond me because neither one of the main characters (Don Maxwell & Dr. Meirschultz) are sex crazy that I could tell. The film is extremely loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat". In all honesty I do not believe this film is supposed to be pure horror. I think it is an early comedy-horror film. Why? The deliberately comical looks on the actors faces, the deliberately bad over-acting, the deliberately bad script with lines such as: "I think too much of Satan to use cats for experiments" etc... it all adds up to a comedy-horror in my beliefs and NOT a real or pure horror film.The film is simply awful and weird but, believe it or not, there are worse "horror" films out there to watch. You don't believe me? The take a look at the movie called "Monster (1980)" it is aka "Monstroid". "Monstroid" makes "(Sex) Maniac" look like a very artful and well done film.Overacting? Yes this movie has it - but some of the other older films are full of overacting as well. It's not unusual for a films during this time era. Would I recommend the movie "Maniac (1934)" to others? Only to the people looking for a terrible horror film to watch or to those that are extremely curious to see just how bad this film really is.Why did I give this film 2 out of 10 stars instead of just one star? Because I did get a couple of giggles out of this awful flick.2/10

Don Maxwell is an ex-vaudeville ham, wanted by police, who has now found himself as the unlikely assistant to Dr. Meirschultz, a mad scientist in the business of reanimating corpses. Maxwell's gift of impersonation gets him and Meirschultz past the guards and into a morgue where they use a special serum to revive the corpse of a pretty young woman. But that's nothing. Dr. Meirschultz has a heart beating in a jar of solution and is eager to put it into a corpse that really needs it. Meirschultz gives his assistant a gun and advises him to commit suicide, so that he can put the heart in him, but Maxwell shoots and kills the scientist instead and hides the body. People will miss Meirschultz, Maxwell quickly realizes, but no one will miss his lowly assistant; and so Maxwell dons eyeglasses and a fake beard to become his onetime benefactor. The trouble is, he impersonates the mad doctor too well and goes crazy himself. Bleached out sometimes out of focus print, but sound was good.Lots of overacting. Lots of talking. In fact, too much talking. Makes the 50 minute length seem like 3 hours. I didn't see any nudity,, but then my mind was drifting in and out because this is not a good film.