Mania (1974)

User Rating:

5.0/10   

Director:

Renato Polselli

Writer:

Renato Polselli (writer)

Release Date:

25 August 1974 (Italy)

Genre:

Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

Family psychosis and behavioral deviance apparently induce a group of people rich and sober middle-class to the most abominable iniquities.

Plot:

Professor Brecht finds out his wife Lisa is having an affair with his twin brother Giordano. His brother disappears in mysterious circumstances and he takes his place, pretending to be him, driving his wife crazy.

Plot Keywords:

Torture | Mad Scientist | Laboratory | Loud Sex | Female Nudity

Cast

Brad Euston	...	Professor Brecht / Giordano
Ivana Giordan	...	Lisa
Isarco Ravaioli	...	Lailo
Mirella Rossi	...	Katia
Eva Spadaro	...	Erina
Max Dorian
Carla Mancini	...	(credit only)

Runtime:

85 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian | Italian

Color:

Color (Telecolor) | Color

Certification:

Italy:VM18 (theatrical release)

Filming Locations:

Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

G.R.P. Cinematografica

Movie Connections:

References La verità secondo Satana (1972)

As a Snake, Mania Will Slide in Your Mind

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Family psychosis and behavioral deviance apparently induce a group of people rich and sober middle-class to the most abominable iniquities. This is a leaden and morbid story where an insane scientist studies the various states of the death in his underground laboratory, in the outskirts in Rome. He involves in his sick intrigues the twin brother and his wife, also them mentally disturbed.

Tortures, burns, bizarre sex and eccentric embraces season an unhealthy and fascinating history. It's essentially a variation on the old dark house theme, with a mad scientist - who pretends to be dead - inviting several people to his villa and punishing them in assorted macabre ways. The central character, Prof. Brecht (Brad Euston) is a professor and electronics specialist who is working on "apparent death", while the other characters also include his wife Lisa (Ivana Giordan), the maid Katia (Mirella Rossi), his twin brother Germano (always Brad Euston), his two assistants Lailo (Isarco Ravaioli) and Erina (Eva Spadaro).

The scientist, having discovered that Germano is having an affair with Lisa, kills him and begins impersonating him, using his new identity and assorted 'apparitions' to drive his wife mad. After tortures and nighttime oppressions, his wife is psychically unstable and devoted to eccentric games with the maid, but she becomes totally insane sooner and she dies brutalized and pierced to the trunks of a tree. Needless to say, just about everybody ends up dead, deranged or damaged.

The movie includes several extreme sexual sequences and several haunting horror scenes, most particularly the ghost of the professor, who walks around the house wearing a black mantle. Mania was released theatrically but, thanks to severe censorship problems, has subsequently struggled to find distribution and is now very hard to see. This review has only been possible having read the rare photo-novel (Cineromanzo).

A real authoritative institution in cinematic censorship in Italy since the thirties is the 'Centro Cattolico Cinematografico'. They judged unacceptable and insane many of Polselli's films, but they did more than this judging Mania. Their periodic magazine 'Segnalazioni Cinematografiche' defined the movie as a disgraceful mess from all viewpoints, accusing the director to be professional and determined only when he strips his actresses and he sadistically lingers with the camera over the macabre skull full of worms.

In the middle of the seventies and in the "cattolicissima" Italy, it is very hard to believe that the moral and technical judgment of a sweaty priest can be reliable from some viewpoints.