Python Hyena Maniac (1980): Dir: William Lustig / Cast: Joe Spinell, Caroline Munro, Abigail Clayton, Kelly Piper, Rita Montone: Graphic and disturbing horror film with a title that examines the psychology and mindset of the mentally insane. Joe Spinell is an ominous presence with eyes full of intensity and a trail of scalped females. He plays Frank Zito and his apartment is decorated with an assortment of mannequins topped with scalped hair nailed to their heads. A shrine exists with candles and a picture of his mother where he wails in anguish with memories of abuse. To answer this pain he stalks women by night hoping to find the best hair piece. Caroline Munro beautifies the film as a photographer whom Zito makes contact with. His ability to approach and communicate with her becomes a curios element in the film. After a gruesome yet effect start, structure is repetitious with a pointless sequence involving Kelly Piper as a brainless nurse who manages to corner herself in a subway washroom before having a knife lunged into her back. Among other victims are Abigail Clayton as a model who was being photographed by Munro and eyed by Zito. Rita Montone plays a hooker strangled by Zito. With graphic effects by Tom Savini and William Lustig giving eerie paranoia in Zito's apartment where reality is overcome with mannequins taking the form of the victims and issuing a grisly consequence. Score: 7 ½ / 10

Uriah43 Abused as a child, a psychopath named "Frank Zito" (Joe Spinell) relieves his sexual frustration and anger by killing women and then taking their scalps which he displays on mannequins in his apartment. Although he disdains his actions immediately after killing them he continues to do so under the belief that he will eventually meet the "right" woman and only then will he be able to stop. Then one day he sees a young photographer named "Anna D'Antoni" (Caroline Munroe) and the idea suddenly dawns on him that she may hold the key to his problems. Anyway, rather than reveal any more of this movie I will just say that I was mildly disappointed by the fact that so much of it centered on the mental turmoil surrounding Frank Zito when there were several other characters which could have used more character development. For example, in one particular scene there was a "nurse" (played by Kelly Piper) who appears and then after a moderately suspenseful chase scene is killed. Now, while it was a decent scene, it could have been better if some effort was made to allow the audience to identify a bit more with the victim. Same thing with all of the other characters. Likewise, although the aforementioned scene contained some suspense the absence of it from the rest of the movie was quite noticeable. In short, while this movie wasn't terribly bad it could have used some improvement and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

chaos-rampant Horror is most purely about the violent impulse that surges from behind the eyes, the mist it creates; a story can be anything. Here it's the simplest story, man goes crazy in the big city, unable to contain the impulse, the whole seen through his mist. There's a trauma that haunts him we find out, his cramped apartment is the mind then that fixates on memory and dwells among the fragments. The walls are lined with old photos of women, mannequins are scattered around; objects of a dead representation that he hoards unable to let go. Quite a bit more of that story is explained to us later on, not much interesting; Freudian stuff about a mother, a vengeful child who never grew. But there's nothing we can't know by just seeing him pace up and down in his apartment, muttering to himself.There's later a human connection to a photographer girl who snaps a picture of him one day in the park. The scenario is completely forced, a stranger and complete weirdo knocks on her door one day and they're best friends within minutes. It's something a weirdo much like the character would imagine (or write about). But it's an opportunity to get closer to the real source, put our finger on the pulse; she a photographer who also freezes life into image but she's able to let go of it and share it in the open, while it just drives him to madness. We see her fuss with her models during a shoot much like he does with his gruesome mannequins; but her fiction has life, playfulness. There's of course the violence, though it doesn't cut like perhaps it did then. It's still bloody and vivid. But what makes it powerful in its niche is the air of desperation around it, the whole film an internal monologue carving its garbled madness on the body of the night. New York looks suitably barren, from the time before the makeover when people would walk down streets as bleak as in this film to see movies like it in dingy fleapit cinemas down 42nd street. The film is from that time when horror could still unsettle with the thought that somewhere in the same city, deranged souls very much like the character skulked around with a camera having horrible thoughts like this.

Adam Peters (83%) This is likely to get my vote for the greatest slasher movie ever made. It has a very poor image, mainly due to critics over the years claiming it to be more or less worse than Hitler. It is violent, but then it is about a murderer, so what did you expect? Joe Spinell is really damn good playing this very sick, yet very believable killer. The part of this movie that sets it aside from the rest of the pack for me is when Spinell's character forms a relationship with a female photographer that's handled in a completely real and genuine way, mainly thanks to the decent script and good performances, as it then soon becomes clear that this guy is much more than just a brainless, on the loose madman, but something much more dangerous. The stalking scenes in the subway are some of the most intense parts of any movie I've ever seen that along with everything else help make this a highlight amongst all 70's and 80's slasher horrors. A grimy classic.