Maniac Driver — Maniac Driver (Blu Ray, DVD, CD)

Maniac Driver is a deranged, at times dizzy blend of brutal-at-points perverse gore, fetish-focused flesh-ness, and how really-mad-is he psycho-thriller. The 2020 Japanese production brings together visual elements of giallo, grimy unhinged loner drama, with a liberal dose of leering soft-core porn, be it cheeky strip ‘n’ fondle, stylized roughness, or bondage hip jiggling.  Here from Germanys, 8-Films is a classy media book release of the film, taking in a Blu-Ray, DVD, and CD soundtrack disc- all finished off with a glossy and colourful sixty-page booklet, featuring loads of fleshy and gore-bound photos & German texts.
 

Maniac Driver was written and directed by Tokyo-born Kurando Mitsutake. In total, he’s helmed six films, with one Lion Girl in Post-production. His other titles take in the likes of grindhouse-focused blend of western & samurai sword slashing Samurai Avenger: The Blind Wolf (2009), gore-bound female revenge film Gun Woman (2014), and horror-edged action film Karate Kill (2016). With Maniac Driver it’s clear from the off that Mitsutake is a huge genre/ cult film fan, as the liberally mixes and blends different exploitation tropes in a wonderful unhinged manner.
 
The film kicks off straight into the leering sleaze- as we see a woman stepping into a large well-lit shower in a one-piece swimming costume. She starts caressing herself, with close-up shots from above and below- she pulls down her costume- getting even more heated. Then steps in a black leather-jacketed and blacked-out motorcycle helmeted figure- with green and red-light filters at the edge of the shot. The all-in-black figure chuckles, and it’s clear he has a digital modifying mic in the helmet- fairly soon he pulls a knife, which runs up and down the naked and panicked woman- hovering over one breast, then we see a close-up knife through breast kill, with her sliding down the wall.
 
As we get into the film, we meet the film's lead an unnamed middle age cabbie (Tomoki Kimura), who via a voice-over pulls us into his troubled life. He spends his days & nights picking up fares, hoping to find a woman to kill, as a twisted way of paying tribute to his wife, who we find out was drowned by a monocycle helmet man, as he laying shot half dead in his apartment. As the film unfolds it seems fantasy, nightmares, and reality blend at times blur- the film is edged with giallo visual tropes, like colour filters, black glove tensing, and erotic-tinged murders. Though we also get touches of roughie late 80’s slasher nastiness, and fetish-focused porn.
 
The film comes in at just over the one hour and fifteen-minute mark, and Kimura makes as the effective centre to the film- and you are constantly wondering how much of what we are seeing, is real or in his twisted mind. Both the gore and sleaze are fairly constant throughout the film, going from spurting slashings onto jiggling breasts n’ sweaty poundings. The film has a decent enough twist in its tail, and towards the end touches of jet-black humour come into play- which works rather well.

 
Moving onto this three-disc media book release of the film on 8 Films, and it really is a lovely presentation.The book is highly glossy on the outside- with on the front cover a sleazy colour illustration, featuring a brunette woman nude in a shower, with the motorcycled helmet-wearing killer outside with his knife drawn. Inside clear DVD cases are stuck on either inside cover of the film- with a full colour still underneath. The sixty-page inlay booklet is super glossy and brightly colourful- featuring both fleshy stills, behind-the-scenes pics, and poster artwork. And German texts that look like they are a mix of write-ups about the film, and interviews- sadly I can’t fully outline what they cover, as I understand just a smattering of written German. There are four different variant covers for this release- with this one created by respected Uk illustrator Rick Melton- who has done a host of horror/ genre film work, as well as been the main illustrator for British horror film mag The Dark Side.
 
Moving onto the discs themselves- and we get a region B Blu-Ray, a region 2 DVD, and a twenty-one-track CD soundtrack. On both the Blu-ray and DVD we get the same content- so we have first a great print of the film, director's commentary, a making of (29.53), slideshow, and trailer. The commentary track is really worth a play. He starts by discussing the opening panning shot, which was influenced by Argento’s Tenebrae, and talk about the shower used in the first scene- which was on the top of a building in Tokyo with no ceiling on top. He lets us know that he’s a Japanese filmmaker living in LA, and that Maniac Driver was his first film purely filmed in Japan. He talks about Tokyo’s unpredictable weather, and how the wonderful crew were ready for any situation. We get talk about the car/ taxi used in the film which is a 1980s Nisan President. He discusses how the film was initially going to be funded by a pink film production company- but they dropped out at point, leaving the film's producer to fund it herself. He talks about how/when the idea of the film came from. We get chat about the film's actors- some of whom were from the Japanese porn industry, but there were everyday actors too. Later on, he discusses Taxi cabs in Tokyo and their etiquette- and how they are still popular in the city. We get talk about the film's other influences, how it was amazing shot in just four & a half days, and much more. 

So finally, we have the twenty-one-track CD- and its split self between the score by Yasuhiro Kawaguchi, and the galloping power metal of Aiming High. The score tracks very much nod towards the 1980s soundtrack work of Goblin with maybe a touch of John Carpenter thrown in. These cues are all tight-yet brooding synth bass stabs ‘n’ darts, tense and moody lead lines, and sleek electro beats. At points we get synth guitar elements added to the mix, giving a denser more rocking vibe to proceedings. The melodies and structures of the tracks are all good, sure a few of the melody lines/ chord progressions sound familiar- but you can’t really avoid that.  
Aiming High are Japanese melodic power metal, their tracks make up about 30 to 40 % of the disc.  Soundwise it's very galloping 1980s metal- with as their name may suggest a big influence from a certain Iron Maiden.  All in all, it makes for a rather enjoyable twenty-one-track CD.
 

 

Maniac Driver is most certainly a great sleazed ‘n’ gore ride of a film. It wonderfully pays tribute to the giallo genre but adds in leering Japanese perversion. This media book edition really is very classy- and is most certainly the way to see/ enjoy all the film has to offer. Head to here to buy this direct, and check out 8-Films other releases.