Maniac

While nowhere near as sleazy or depressing as the 1980 original, director Franck Khalfoun's update treads the same lurid exploitation path to emerge as an equally sick but far slicker hardcore slasher. Clearly meant to resemble Ted Bundy, a scarcely believable Elijah Wood plays the deranged psycho who was subject to years of motherly abuse and now vents his rage on the female population of downtown Los Angeles, killing them and placing their scalps on dummies in his mannequin store. Not that you see the wild-eyed Wood much, because the gimmick here is that the stalking is done from his point of view, so you only glimpse him in shop windows, mirrors and CCTV footage. It's a remarkable technical challenge that Khalfoun cleverly pulls off, and this aesthetic choice, which also references everything from Peeping Tom to Taxi Driver, goes a long way to refreshing all the gory stabbings and seedy heavy-breathing.