The Grabber was evil, but Max was eccentric (spoilers)

They were brothers, it turns out, and it took me a while to realise that Max crashed with a brother who had children as prisoners in their basement, even though that transition shot spelled it out.

What gets me is that Max knew that the killer was in the local vicinity on his carefully-researched map IN THE KILLER'S HOUSE, so what finally made him realise that it was the house he lived in?

In any case, Max found Finney and was surprised, but his murder by his brother was extremely savage, that's the most brutal "axe into skull" killing I've ever seen in a movie, and Max didn't deserve it. And imagine the trauma for the poor boy on seeing that, and the Grabber's attempts to pull out the axe with crunching and squishing noises!