A murdered prostitute. A rash of neighborhood break-ins. A ransom call from a child’s kidnapper. A thwarted robbery and assault in the subway. That’s a lot of crime for one movie — unless that movie is an anthology. 

Meet Mania, a gem of a suspense omnibus from the Great White North. Its opening-credits sequence suggests something special and very, very ‘80s. You get both from all four of its unhosted, unconnected stories. 

With the majority directed by Prom Night’s Paul Lynch, each segment concludes with a twist. If the near four decades since have rendered those conclusions guessable, you still must acknowledge and admire the cleverness in their construction. They’re not gimmicky in the M. Night Shyamalan way where you’re so focused on parsing them out rather than enjoying the journey to get there. 

Mania might be accurately called Canada’s version of Alfred Hitchcock Presents; it’s certainly more narratively successful than NBC’s short-lived revival of that time. Most of all, the Maniaical pieces remind me of the ingenious shorts HBO used to play in its infancy as between-movies filler seemingly beamed in from nowhere.  —Rod Lott