31 Days of Halloween, Day 15- Maniac (1934)

AKA: Sex Maniac

Directed By: Dwain Espers

MVP’s: Bill Woods, Ted Edwards, Horace B. Carpenter, Goof (Actor Unknown), Phyllis Diller, John P. Wade, Thea Ramsey, Cecilia McCann

Plot: Maxwell is a former Vaudeville impersonator with something to hide who get’s mixed up with a mad scientist seeking to reanimate the dead. Things don’t go well for them.

Response: See! Showgirls in their natural green room environment. Discover! What happens when a schizophrenic who believes he’s a murderous orangutang is given adrenaline. Watch! Live cat eyeballs eaten! The dead will rise! You will learn! This is all for education only. It is important that you know these things.

Review: This is a precursor to Re-animator and not just in it’s initial plot set-up. There’s a direct line here of mad scientist ickies that starts with this one, weaves through The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, Eyes Without a Face, The Thing with Two Heads, the Steve Martin Man with Two Brains, to Re-animator and beyond.

Pretty interesting vintage sleaze with a short run time and a lot of fun performances. There’s a ton of symbolic documentary shots of cat’s chasing mice and getting into alley fights.

Makes me want to scour the LA historical society’s to try and find out who seem of these uncredited actors are. They need their moment to shine!

Background: Film fans know that the Hays Code was implemented from 1934-1968 to preserve the mores of society and make sure that cinema audiences didn’t have to see morally corrupting things on screen like nudity, live child birth or miscegenation. Well, to get around that illicit and exploitative films with juicy sex and nasty violence would tour under the auspices of education. Kinda like how driver’s ed students of a certain age would be scared straight by Red Asphalt (the Faces of Death of highway safety videos.

Dwain Esper was the king of this kind of stuff. Throwing titties and eyeball gougings on the big screen and taking them on a roadshow circuit with live doctors giving speeches beforehand and plenty of title cards detailing the science behind mental disorders. I’m not getting pruient kicks, ma, I’m learning.

Legend has it he was a building contractor who only got into the movies when he came into a bunch of abandoned film equipment in a foreclosed building.

Remarkably he made these movies with his wife, the unsung matriarch of exploitation, Hiladagarde Stadie, who wrote this and other films for Dwain.

Some of Esper’s other titles include, Sex Madness, Marihuanna, Modern Motherhood and How to Undress in Front of Your Husband.

Can Kid’s Watch It: There’s a lot worse out there a click away for them but sensitive kiddos will pick up on the seediness and might get disturbed. There’s also a pretty realistic kitty eyeball gouge effect and some sexual assault scenes. So I guess it’s up to you parents.

Halloween Score:

Autumn Vibes: 2/5

Scares & Chills: 1/5

Cultural & Cinematic Importance: 4/5

Monster Action: 1/5

Second Opinions:

“Jaw-dropping weirdness, a real piece of showmanship history, and a must for genre aficionados.”– VideoHound’s Complete Guide to Cult Flicks and Trash Pics

“Typically delirious Esper Schlockfest— filmed mostly in somebody's basement” - Leonard Maltin, Maltin’s Movie Guide

“And of course there’s the incredible “transformation” performance…which might actually be good acting: although it looks like Shemp Howard struggling to complete a monologue from Tennessee Williams while undergoing an epileptic fit, for all anyone knows, this is exactly how a man who believes he is an orangutan acts when accidentally shot up with an overdose of superadrenaline.” - Greggory G. Smalley, 366weirdmovies.com

How Do I Peep It: It’s on Youtube and a ton of other spots.

Hint for Tomorrow’s Movie:

We’re not in Kansas anymore. Oh, wait, we are in Kansas.