‘Neon Maniacs’ (1986) Review

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Over at Kung Pew Video, I’ve been revisiting the direct-to-video relics that raised us. This week: Neon Maniacs

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Stop Me if You’ve Heard This One Before…

A samurai, a conquistador, and a Vietnam vet walk out of the Golden Gate Bridge…

Now if that sounds like the start of a bad joke, you’re close. It’s the start of a bad movie.

But here’s the thing, some dumb jokes can still be funny. And some movies, even when they’re not very good, can still be a hell of a lot of fun. So come along with me and let’s talk about Neon Maniacs. 

So, what’s Neon Maniacs about? 

A ragtag collection of monsters live inside the Golden Gate Bridge and come out at night to kill people. When Natalie and her friends head to the park for some hanky panky, the monsters attack, killing everyone but Natalie. 

Natalie reports the attack to the police, but of course no one believes her. Except for Steven, the local grocery delivery boy and wanna be pop star, who also has a crush on Natalie. 

Meanwhile, a kid named Paula, who is really into genre movies, starts snooping around, trying to figure out what’s what. 

Eventually, the three characters come together for a showdown at the high school’s Halloween Battle of the Bands. 

The Maniacs

Now you can’t talk about Neon Maniacs without talking about the Maniacs themselves. 

They’re a strange menagerie of historical characters and pseudo-classic movie monsters. 

One looks like a samurai. Another is possibly a conquistador? There’s a machine gun-wielding Vietnam vet, a doctor, a couple of cavemen, and a creature that might be from outer space. 

The makeup and effects work is genuinely good, but there are so many creatures, and none of them get enough screentime to make much of an impression. Never mind that the lighting is often so bad that you can’t really tell one monster from another. 

Which is a really weird problem to have because the director, Joseph Mangine, is known more for his work as a DP on movies like The Lords of Flatbush and The Sword and the Sorcerer. Now those might not have been mega hits, but you’d think that a DP would know how to light a scene. 

On their own, the designs are great, but the way the movie utilizes them is a big letdown, and you just kind of spend the whole movie wondering: What the heck are these things?

What do they want? Why do they live together under the bridge? Why are they killing people? Why are they working as a team? And why are they the Neon Maniacs? 

I don’t like having everything explained in movies, so I’m not asking for a scene where some scientist character details an elaborate mythology explaining the Maniacs’ backstories or something like that. 

But as it is, we have no idea what the point of any of this is. And the movie just comes across like the product of a bunch of fans or FX people who came up with some great monster designs and decided to make a movie around those creature concepts. The story might as well have been a secondary consideration here.

This is frustrating because Neon Maniacs has a lot going for it. The attack in the park has the bones of a solid opening set piece. There’s a pretty cool, inventive sequence involving blood rain that, if I’m being honest, seems like it belongs in a better movie. And Natalie and Steven have solid chemistry together even if their dialogue is a bit cringey at times. 

But Paula is probably my favorite character, because she’s basically the genre fan insert in this. She’s got legit prop-quality monster masks and a Blade Runner poster adorning her bedroom walls. She also wears a Nostromo cap several times throughout the movie. 

Anyway, Paula clearly loves sci-fi and horror movies–so much so that she makes her own amateur films with friends. And because she’s the curious, imaginative type, she figures out the Maniacs’ weakness and manages to kill one with a squirt gun. 

Which is a genre trope that shows up over and over again in movies from The Wizard of Oz to The Lost Boys and M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs. 

And I don’t think her being the hero who figures things out is incidental.

Writer Mark Patrick Carducci–who went on to write one of my favorite horror movies, Pumpkinhead–was apparently a massive fan of genre movies. In fact, the Nostromo ball cap, Alien production stills, and the masks we see on Paula’s bedroom walls were all a part of Carducci’s personal collection. 

Given the writer’s love of these movies and the specificity of the easter eggs, I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume Paula’s character is Carducci’s homage to Ripley from the Alien films. 

Halloween, ’80s Style

The movie also just has a great vibe to it that makes me want to revisit it from time to time. Especially during October. 

Neon Maniacs takes place right around Halloween. And for me, that carries a lot of weight when I am putting together my October watchlist. Give me the fall vibes, Halloween decorations, the rain and the chill and the mist. I’ll pick that every time over some random horror movie with no specific connections to the season. 

It’s also just such a product of the 80s that it’s hard for me not to love it. It’s shot through with neon and dripping in 80s vibes. Paula rides what looks like a Mongoose Supergoose throughout the movie. And the climax pits Steven’s soft rock band against a hair metal band in what might be one of the most 80s movie scenes in the history of movies. Seriously, until you’ve heard Steven croon about how his “Baby Lied” for what seems like hours, you truly have not lived. 

Genre Connections

There are also some fun cast connections to other movies worth talking about here. 

Leilani Sarelle, who plays Natalie, later played Roxy, Sharon Stone’s creepy lover in Basic Instinct. Paula is played by Donna Locke. Maniacs seems to be her only credited acting gig, but the funny thing about Locke is that she was about 24 years old at the time–playing a 12 or 13-year-old. She’s obviously older, but I think the costume department did a great job of downplaying her age and making her look like an adolescent. 

Clyde Hayes, billed here as Alan Hayes, plays our crooner Steven and he also showed up in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. Maniacs stars another Friday the 13th alum as well: Marta Kober, who plays one of Natalie’s friends, was Sandra in Friday the 13th Part 2. But I know her from one of my favorite movies of all time–Rad. She plays one of Cru’s closest friends, Becky in that. And, yes, I will be reviewing Rad eventually.  

The Battle of the Bands

Speaking of the Battle of the Bands scene, director Joseph Mangini and his crew pull out all the stops for that scene. The crowd is full of teens dressed in Halloween costumes, every shot is practically drenched in neon, and the Maniacs are in full mayhem mode.

Teens are drinking cups of what looks like beer, there are no teachers or chaperones in sight, and why is there always some schlubby old guy in the boiler rooms of schools watching TV or looking at dirty magazines at night in these kinds of movies? Was that a real job in the 80s?

And watching that sequence, I realized it reminded me of Starcadian’s short film and music video for Freak Night. I have no way of knowing if Neon Maniacs actually inspired Freak Night or not, but if I were a betting man, I’d wager it was. It’s a great song and a cool homage to these kinds of movies, and I recommend you check ‘em both out if you never have. I’ll link to ‘em in the description. 

Anyway, that whole scene is just absurd, chaotic fun set against the most ridiculous mix of 80s soft rock and hair metal. It’s the kind of thing you really need to see for yourself.

Money for Nothin’

But Neon Maniacs’ ambition seems to have exceeded its reach. Apparently the production ran out of money at one point, and the whole thing had to be put on hold for months before resuming shooting. Initially, there were supposed to be 27 totally unique creatures designed for the movie, but that was eventually whittled down to 12 because of budget issues. 

I also think the financial problems the movie faced help explain the lack of resolution at the end of the movie. 

After the climactic battle of the bands scene, the movie just kind of ends. We get no real resolution to the story and a sort of half-assed suggestion that a sequel was in the works. Which was, of course, not true, and the lame ending was really just a smoke screen to cover over the fact that the production simply ran out of cash and called good enough good enough. 

Now I’m not big on sequels, but in all honesty, I think Neon Maniacs is a great candidate for one. Maybe the Maniacs only come out of the Golden Gate Bridge every 40 years or so. Set it in 2026, use practical effects, shoot it on a shoestring budget, layer in just a bit of mythology, and make it as ridiculous as possible. Neon Maniacs 2. Make it happen, Hollywood. 

It’s Definitely a Yes from Me, Dawg

So should you watch Neon Maniacs? 

It’s not a good movie by any acceptable definition or metric. But it’s a fun creature feature with great monster designs, a wonderfully goofy Halloween climax, and it’s built around a trio of solid actors playing likeable characters. And, kind of like Night of the Comet, it feels like a thing that was made specifically for genre movie fans. Which makes it even stranger to me that this doesn’t have a bigger following. 

I wish the filmmakers had given us some idea of what it was all supposed to be about, and I wish it had an actual ending. But there are moments where you can feel Neon Maniacs reaching for something bigger than what made it to the screen, and even though it falls short, I respect the attempt. 

Sometimes a beautiful failure is more interesting than an uninspired success.