Maniac

Maniac is a 2012 psychological slasher film directed by Franck Khalfoun, written by Alexandre Aja and Grégory Levasseur, and starring Elijah Wood and Nora Arnezeder. It is a remake of the 1980 film of the same name, and follows the violent exploits of a brutal serial killer. The film is an international co-production produced by the French film companies La Petite Reine and Studio 37. Unlike the original 1980 film, which is set in New York City, writers Aja and Levasseur chose to set the film in Los Angeles. Plot Frank Zito is a schizophrenic young man who has taken over his family's mannequin restoration business after the recent death of his mother. Frank was traumatized as a child by his mother, a prostitute who made him watch her have sex with her johns. As an adult, he murders and scalps women and attaches their hair onto his mannequins to recreate his one happy childhood memory: brushing his mother's hair before she "went out" at night. Frank joins a dating site, where he gets a date with a woman named Lucie. The two go out to dinner and return to Lucie's apartment, where she attempts to seduce the virginal Frank, mistaking his increasing panic for nervousness. Frank strangles Lucie, scalps her and takes her hair back to his apartment, where he attaches it to another mannequin.