William Lustig

Director, producer and publisher William Lustig is one of those filmmakers who were on the frontline of independent genre film in the '80s and '90s. He delivered a timeless masterpiece with Maniac, made another cult classic with gritty crime thriller Vigilante, and struck gold with the popular Maniac Cop franchise. For many years he has also been running boutique label Blue Underground, specialized in publishing restored editions of cult genre titles from all around the world on Blu-ray and DVD. At this year's Grossmann, we will honour him with our Honorary Vicious Cat award for special achievements in fantastic cinema.

He started gaining filmmaking experience already in his teens in New York as a production assistant on films such as Across 110th Street (1972), The Seven Ups (1973) and Death Wish (1974). In 1980, he rose to prominence with shocking horror Maniac starring Joe Spinell, with make-up effects by Tom Savini also playing important part in making it an all-time genre classic . Another masterpiece followed in 1982 with revenge thriller Vigilante starring Robert Forster, Fred Williamson and Woody Strode. In 1988, he directed the extremely successful action horror Maniac Cop, written by Larry Cohen and starring Tom Atkins, Bruce Campbell and Robert Z’Dar in the iconic title role. Next year he made two films, action thriller Hit List starring Jan-Michael Vincent and Lance Henriksen, and serial killer thriller Relentless starring Judd Nelson and Robert Loggia. This was followed by three collaborations with Larry Cohen: Maniac Cop 2 (1990), Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence (1992) and horror comedy Uncle Sam (1996) starring William Smith and Bo Hopkins.