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MANIAC (Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Picture Vol. 17) (Blu-ray)

Directed by : Dwain Esper
Available Date : 11/12/2024
Release Year : 1934
Running Time : 51
UPC : 738329267698
Country : U.S.
Language: English
Genre : Horror
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$23.96 (Blu-ray)
MSRP: $29.95
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So perverse that it continues to shock and offend viewers 90 years after its release, Dwain Esper’s Maniac is a deranged retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat” in the guise of an educational film on mental illness. This no-budget thriller by self-taught filmmakers has a wildly fragmented style. Its intrusive use of title scrolls, stock footage, and gratuitous nudity make it one of the first true underground films (with a gruesome wink at the eyeball-slicing scene of Un chien andalou). Maniac is presented here in a new 4K restoration, from the original camera negative and other 35mm elements preserved by the UCLA Film & Television Archive, and is presented in cooperation with Something Weird and the Sonney Amusement Enterprises Film Collection.

Product Extras :
  • Four true crime short films by Dwain Esper and Louis Sonney: You Can't Beat the Rap, The Last Hour of Killer Mears, The March of Crime, and The March of Crime (2nd Ed.)
  • Audio interview with Dwain Esper and Hildagarde Stadie (1982) courtesy of Mark Woods, Jr.
  • Audio commentary by Bret Wood (1999), author of Marihuana, Motherhood & Madness
  • Original theatrical trailer
  • 2024 Re-release trailer
  • Trailers for Dwain Esper's Narcotic (1933) and Marihuana: Weed With Roots in Hell (1936)
Publish Date : 2024-09-09
  • Dwain Esper - Director
  • Bill Woods - Actor
  • Horace Carpenter - Actor
  • Ted Edwards - Actor
  • Phyllis Diller - Actor
  • Thea Ramsey - Actor
  • Jenny Dark - Actor

For press and publicity inquiries, please email [email protected]. A selection of press materials for this title may be available for download here.