Since achieving early success as a child actor, Elijah Wood has always been pegged as a goody two-shoes on screen. After the end of the “Lord Of The Rings” trilogy however, Wood has seemed hell bent on trying to reverse that image by appearing in true-blue genre projects — including a turn as the mute cannibal in “Sin City” — and he’s continuing that streak with the horror remake “Maniac,” which now has a particularly gruesome red band trailer online.
A redo of Bill Lustig’s 1980’s film, “Maniac” is transplanted from the grimy New York of the late seventies to the desolate wasteland of Los Angeles — you can catch a glimpse of the famed 2nd Street Tunnel, which you may recognize from “Blade Runner” and “The Terminator” — and follows Wood as a homicidal loner who lives in a mannequin factory. The bloody red band trailer makes no bones about the kind of movie you’re in for — there are at least three different scalpings in the trailer alone — and appears to be a pretty good indicator for mood and atmosphere of the film.
Our own reviewer recently gave the film a B+, and called the POV-heavy film “a kind of even-more-violent version of 'Drive.'” “Maniac” currently has no North American release date set, but hits French theaters around Christmas. Check out the red band trailer below.