‘Sex Maniac’: The earliest contender for the world’s worst film
The film industry is oversaturated with awful movies, from the downright terrible to the ‘so bad it’s good’. While art is subjective, every now and then, it’s hard to watch a movie and find anything worthy of actual merit, whether that be due to clumsy writing, bad acting or offensive material.
Thus, while the Oscars exist to honour the film world’s most outstanding achievements, the Golden Raspberry Awards, otherwise known as the Razzies, do the exact opposite. Since its inception in 1981, the ceremony has given accolades to ‘terrible’ films, from Mommie Dearest and Howard the Duck to The Emoji Movie and Blonde.
When Golden Raspberry co-founder John J. B. Wilson published The Official Razzie Movie Guide: Enjoying the Best of Hollywood’s Worst, he highlighted even more terrible films that were released before they could be subjected to the wrath of the Razzie Awards.
One of these is the 1934 project Sex Maniac, which is widely regarded as one of the worst movies ever made. It remains one of the oldest movies to be considered downright terrible, lacking technical and acting prowess. Yet, due to these reasons, Sex Maniac, directed by Dwain Esper, is somewhat of a cult classic.
The movie falls into the exploitation horror realm, making it one of the earliest entries into the low-budget B-movie sub-genre. Esper was a prominent exploitation director, also helming titles such as Modern Motherhood, Marihuana and Sex Madness. However, Sex Maniac is easily the worst. It was written by Esper’s wife, Hildegard Stadie, and follows Don Maxwell, a former vaudeville impersonator who pretends to be the mad scientist Dr. Meirschultz after killing him.
However, Maxwell, played by Bill Woods, soon goes insane as he transforms into the mad scientist, leading to a string of crimes. In one bizarre scene, he accidentally treats a man named Buckley with a strong dose of adrenaline, which leaves him convulsing and screaming, with the actor, Ted Edwards, giving a terribly awkward and stilted performance. Before long, Buckley grabs the nearest woman, tears off her clothes and rapes her in the woods.
Despite being just 50 minutes long, the movie is full of strange scenes that often make no sense. There’s an incessant display of women in their underwear, with one actor Celia McCann, giving a terrifically unnatural performance aided by her insanely high-pitched voice – interestingly, she would later go on to voice Minnie Mouse in Spanish. The editing is choppy, and title cards pop up randomly throughout, attempting to educate the audience on medical conditions like paranoia and insanity.
While Sex Maniac is nowhere near good, it certainly has its appeal if you want to laugh at an early horror movie that is utterly terrible.
