6. Maniac
1934
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Also released under the title of Sex Maniac, Dwain Esper’s Maniac is one of the most well-known exploitation films of the Pre-Code era. Using the language of popular science, Esper’s film attempts to examine the psychosis of a criminal mind, or in this case, the mind of a sex-obsessed criminal.Maniac even quotes the “Director of the Chicago Institute of Research and Diagnosis,” Dr. William S. Sadler, MD, in order to give the film’s depiction of insanity an air of legitimacy.
When not trying to pass itself off as pseudo-documentary, Maniac fills up its reels with images of women lounging around in their underwear or, in some instances, wearing nothing at all. While at times, these moments come across as unintentionally hilarious, Maniac is actually a very disturbing film that frequently mixes sex and violence. Drawing inspiration from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, the film is a story about a mentally deranged vaudeville actor who murders his boss (who was also a mad scientist obsessed with reviving the dead) after seeing the corpse of a beautiful young woman who committed suicide. From here, Maniac goes further and further into all-out exploitation, featuring a truly disturbing rape scene that shows bare breasts and a cringeworthy moment in which the crazed actor ingests an eyeball that had recently been taken from a living house cat.
After completing Maniac, Esper would later go on to direct the anti-marijuana exploitation film Marihuana, which was released not long before the more famous Reefer Madness, which Esper helped to produce.
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