MANIAC (1963)

The Camargue region of Southern France is known, we are told, for bulls, wild horses, and violence. We see a scruffy looking guy abduct a schoolgirl named Annette and take her off to rape her. Afterward, Georges, her unhinged father, drags the guy back to his garage and kills him with a blowtorch, which leads to imprisonment in an asylum. Years later, Georges is still locked away, and 19-year-old Annette works at a country inn with her stepmother Eve. A handsome American artist named Jeff arrives at the inn, fleeing the clutches of a rich female sugar momma. Jeff and Annette hit it off, twisting the night away, but when he plans a romantic picnic with her the next day, it's the more age-appropriate Eve who shows up. The two are soon conducting an affair which takes a potential Double Indemnity turn when Eve enlists Jeff to help free her husband from the asylum, after which he has said he will grant her a divorce so she can marry Jeff. Jeff's role is easy: an asylum orderly is helping Georges escape, and all Jeff and Eve have to do is pick the two up outside the asylum. When he does, however, the orderly is already gone. After dropping Georges off at the docks to leave the country, Jeff finds a dead body in the trunk of the car, apparently the orderly. Is Georges still unbalanced? Does he really plan to leave or might he return to his garage, where his trusty blowtorch awaits, and get rid of Jeff, or Eve, or both? 

Despite the wild and wooly blowtorch killing at the beginning (not explicit but still brutally effective), this Hammer movie is not so much horror as suspense, with the requisite twisty plot points that will keep you guessing as to who's who and what's what. The plotting is effective, the low-key mood consistent, and the acting is maybe a notch above the typical Hammer thriller, with Kerwin Mathews and Nadia Gray [pictured] particularly good as Jeff and Eve. The movie begins with a jolt, then settles down a bit too much as the characters are all introduced and put through various paces until things kick into high gear in the last 20 minutes. Some critics don't think much of Mathews' performance, seemingly because the character is boorish and unlikable, but I found his hero to be somewhat refreshing for that very reason. One must also take into account that, for most of the movie, Jeff is being used by others for their own ends. The French countryside does not make for an especially attractive backdrop here, but even that adds to the somewhat gritty feel of the proceedings. [TCM]