Dwain Esper

Esper who was born in Snohomish, Washington was a veteran of World War I and worked as a building contractor before switching to the film business in the mid-1920s.

He produced and directed inexpensive pictures including Sex Maniac, Marihuana, and How to Undress in Front of Your Husband.

To enhance the appeal of these low-budget features, he included scenes containing gratuitous nudity and violence that led some to label him the "father of modern exploitation.

[2] They employed extravagant promotional techniques that included exhibiting the mummified body of notorious Oklahoma outlaw Elmer McCurdy before it was acquired by Dan Sonney.

Danny Peary believes that Maniac is the worst film made, Charlie Jane Anders of Gawker Media's io9 described it as "possibly the worst movie in history" and Chicago Tribune critic Michael Wilmington wrote that it may be the worst film he had seen, writing: "There are some voyages into ineptitude, like Dwain Esper's anti-classic Maniac, that defy all reason.