2001 Maniacs

I bet Herschell Gordon Lewis, having just completed work on his second gore epic Two Thousand Maniacs, never once imagined that in roughly forty years his brainchild would be re-filmed and remade again. Instead of "the South will rise again, " it should be Herschell Gordon Lewis will rise again. Anyway, this film, like the original, has the happy town of Pleasant Valley as its setting: a town that magically reappears every 100 years on the anniversary of its destruction by Union soldiers during the Civil War only to have its hillbilly celebration of maiming, garroting, shivving, castrating, squeezing, quartering, barbecuing, decapitating, and so on of Yankee motorists in the nearby vicinity. Just like in the original, though much more bloodier and believable, nothing here is really frightening. Every gory scene is more like a punchline to a distasteful joke. Also, just like in the original, the South comes off looking like some barbaric civilization that is ages behind the more industrial North. The Southern stereotypes fly in this one though seem not to have the edge in the original film. What this film does have that the original does not are way better actors, lots and lots and lots of sexy women in lots and lots and lots of sexual situations, generous doses of humour(almost all of which were INTENDED), and a tongue firmly planted in cheek mood. Robert Englund plays Mayor Buckman to the hilt, even wearing an eye patch with the Confederate flag on it no less. Englund shows me here, as he has in other non-Freddy roles, that he is a versatile actor with a wide range. His Buckman has charm, grace, and dementia. Lin Shaye does an equally credible job playing Granny Boone(not to my knowledge in original). Everyone else is more than adequate working with this stuff. Johnny Legend and Scott Spiegel had me rolling as two wandering minstrels singing atrocious blue grass tunes with the most inane lyrics. And let's not forget the girls. The film has a bevy of beauties with a free and easy approach to being in front of the camera. Standouts(knockouts might be more appropriate) include Gina Marie Heeken, Bianca Smith, Wendy Kremer, and sultry Christa Campbell as the milk maid. Director Tim Sullivan knows exactly what he wants and goes right for it in this film. No high art here, just an appreciative group of filmmakers remaking a film I too would never have dreamt of being remade. The odd thing is that this film is far more watchable then the original. It has so much more going for it than the original - which does have some charms - don't get me wrong. Sullivan knows his audience and goes with the proverbial flow. He doesn't stray away from the shocking nor the easy, distasteful laugh(like when the black Yankee is presented as "dark" meat as just one example).

People who do not know the first movie ("Two thousand maniacs" Hershell Gordon Lewis 1964) may have a look.The others should not bother.The first movie was not only Old Dixie's revenge:it was also a spoof on Vincente MInnelli's "Brigadoon",a bloody one.It filled its quota of horror -for the time it was daring ,since we have seen worse- and ,more interesting,black humor.

What does the remake offer? A boring lecture -so boring the students are snoring- on the Civil War in case the audience would not be aware of how horrible that war was (was/is there a war which isn't ?I'd like to know);a party where the students are on the menu,nothing new under the sun;and lots and lots of sex,much more sex than in the Lewis version;one should note that the "heroes" are younger: in 1964,the victims ,if my memory serves me well,were already working,one of them was a schoolteacher.

Let this be a warning to you right off the bat, dear reader and horror fan: if you have the kind of 'political correctness' meter that sounds the alarm at fart jokes, you will want to stay VERY FAR AWAY from the likes of 2001 MANIACS. If you're a hardier horror buff who likes your flicks to follow the "Triple-B" Rule, (Babes, Boobs and Blood), then YEEEE-HAAAW, Bubba! Y'all jest struck GOLD! There's more swingin' jugs and spurtin' jugulars here than you'd find everywhere else, plus the 'bestest 'finger-lickin' good' barbecue this side of a Texas Chainsaw Family Reunion!

If you know your horror history, you know that 2001 MANIACS is the lovingly-rendered redo of the gore-tastic Herschell Gordon Lewis' signature grue-fest 2000 MANIACS, here given the full-tilt millennium 'makeover.'

The good-humored ghouls of Pleasant Valley, GA. (population: well - look at the title, genius!) are 'DIED-in-the-wool' Southerners who don't take too kindly to stray Yankees who trespass on their turf. It probably doesn't help that over 200 years ago, every inhabitant was slaughtered by Sherman's army as he and his men raped, razed and rip- snorted their way through to HOTLanta. So their vengeful, zombiefied ghosts return each year for a little payback. A fake detour sign misdirects unwitting travelers to Pleasant Valley, where every day is the celebration of the "Guts And Glory Jubilee", and the lost tourists are always the 'guests of honor' at the Jubilee barbecue...where they also do double-duty as THE MAIN COURSE!!! But in-between those two plot points, seduction and slaughter of every imaginable kind abounds.

This time, eight friends who are classmates from the same college are on their way to Daytona Beach for Spring Break...and all the babes, booze and beer they can handle! Thanks to a wayward short cut that gets them lost, and that rigged "detour" sign that points them right into the heart of Pleasant Valley, there's one element they can add to that list - BLOOD - as in their own!!!

Once the kids hit town, it would take a moron not to figure out that there is something unpleasantly weird about these grinning, welcoming, backwoods "hell-billys" (led by a gleefully demented Robert "Freddy Krueger" Englund.) But then for college students, none of these guys (or girls) are particularly the brightest light-bulbs in the pack.

What they are, are the soon-to-be 'entrées'...er, I mean 'guests of honor' welcomed to the Valley by the overly friendly Mayor Buckman (Englund), who are at first as charmed as they are freaked at this little backwater burg, where they seem to take dedication to the whole "Civil-War era reenactment" thing a little too seriously. Of course, they learn all too late...it's NOT an act.

Director Tim Sullivan, scripting here with co-writer Chris Kobin, knows that 'Ghouls Just Wanna Have Fun' - and that includes the audience. Those movie watchers who would be profoundly outraged and insulted by 2001 MANIACS probably wouldn't (and shouldn't) be renting or going out to see this anyway. For the rest of us...well, we know what we want and what we like to see in our horror films, and thankfully, Tim provides it in abundance! Not content to merely rehash the Lewis original, he surprises with hysterical references to other movies, while keeping the action going and the blood flowing! (Think of a couple of scenes here as DELIVERANCE by way of AIRPLANE!, and you get the tone of it!)

The death scenes, if not completely original in some ways, are still delivered with gruesome effectiveness, and there is a nice "Tales From The Crypt"-style ending to wrap it neatly with a pretty, dripping-red bow.

Oh, and BTW, did I mention that this is unofficially a 'musical'? That's right, gore-hounds! A couple of ZZ Top-types, (just with banjos and 'sharp-dressed men' for the 1700's) deliver some spicy song commentary on the action! But thankfully, the ditties are inserted in a way that is terrific and not tiresome.

All in all, for an evening of blood and boobs, you might think you can do better than 2001 MANIACS, but that's debatable. I know you can do worse! And I have - trust me.

Those already familiar with the original will know what they've gotten themselves into as our main characters follow a bogus Detour sign—just after narrowly avoiding Justin and Professor Mambo, character favorites from CABIN FEVER who are trying to hitch a ride—and arrive in the town of Pleasant Valley, whose residents are hard at work preparing for their weekend "Guts and Glory Jubilee." Soon the Confederate knife fodder arrive with Yankee good looks and are declared "guests of honor" by the one-eyed Mayor Buckman, played pitch-perfect by everybody's favorite sadist, Robert (Freddy Krueger) Englund. But what else can you expect when there's a population of, you guessed it, 2001…maniacs, that is! What follows, surprisingly given our times and political climate, is refreshingly vulgar, completely un-PC and, much like the original, an expected excuse for extremely sadistic humor and gore. Where the first film now seems boring and slow, the new version is upbeat and well-paced. Happily and sadly, the first and only fully clothed female victim to get tied up and quartered by horses is the film's only waste of T in a movie overflowing with T&A. Many viewers may be offended by the black humor and straight-up racist jokes that pepper the film's dialogue, but those of you can rest assured that everyone gets their due by the end. It'll be interesting to see how the red states will react to such a searing and scabrous document of the South. Englund seems to imbue Mayor Buckman with a well-judged imitation of President Bush, and even the lives of his two sons in the film appear to closely ape those of the Bush daughters.

Longtime Lewis fans will be ecstatic that much, if not all, of his score from the original has been transferred to the new film by way of musical narrators Johnny Legend and his strumming sidekick Scott Spiegel. Somewhat in the vein of THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY, these musical country bumpkins pop up from time to time, like Sullivan's version of a Greek Chorus, hinting at the dangers to soon befall our ethnically and morally diverse blue state victims. "The South will rise again!" The supporting cast is stocked with many fine new actors and veterans of the genre. Fans will enjoy the cool seething evil of Giuseppe Andrews (Fever's Deputy Winston) as he kills Yankee belles with kindness, and Lin Shaye (fast on her way to becoming a middle-aged scream queen after her role in the haunting DEAD END), who stars as Granny Boone, the murderous matriarch of Pleasant Valley. One day, this fine actress will hopefully be cast in a role that capitalizes on her real-life beauty and sassy charm; in the meantime, she here has a ball pushing the envelope, as when she sucks the red gore off a spear protruding from the gullet of a hapless victim! Newcomer Jay Gillespie evokes a REAL GENIUS or TOP GUN-era Val Kilmer with stern good looks and a thrill for the action around him. The rest of the MANIACS cast seem to be having fun with the bloody lowbrow horror and are in on the joke, all ready to "take one for the team" and die in a less-than-flattering manner. As each member is dispatched, you can tell they were having a great time taking it to the next level. This is a movie where "over the top" is just scratching the surface. Just ask Peaches, the Southern belle who wears a "retainer" that would make the shark in JAWS envious when she "services" a good ol' boy! (He doesn't last long.) By the third reel, characters are walking around town all alone for no good reason, so we know they aren't going to end up much better than their missing brethren. Then Sullivan and crew punch up the action a bit with a scene that doesn't necessarily match the vibe of everything we've seen thus far, but has a maggot-worthy moment that makes up for the switch in tone. If you're looking to get scared, this is not exactly the right film, but if you're familiar with Lewis and his brand of goremongering, you'll squirm, screech and then writhe with laughter. 2001 MANIACS has all the elements of a good time yet still raises a dialogue among viewers that not many have had the balls to address in horror, or film-making in general, since the '70s.

In the 2000s, it seemed a fad to take old cult horror movies and remake them. Sometimes it worked, most of the time it didn't. This one at least went out of its way to expand on the mythos of its predecessor

Should anyone be given the role of Mayor Buford, one should devour the scenery. Robert Englund, bless his heart, does just that, and in the most delightfully cheesy manner. The victims, downgraded from rational adults to a bunch of obnoxious college students, deserve no sympathy to the point that in the first five minutes, you just want all of them to die.

The violence is admirable, only one of the death scenes is a callback to the original. Blood effects are standard 2005 slasher movie level but they're gruesome all the same. The writers got creative and they get props.

In this modernized version, minority victims are introduced, an African-American man and an Asian woman, both of whom are subject to racism. But this is expected as the antagonists, after all, are Civil War era Southerners. That said, this movie is in no short supply of Southern popular culture references, mostly to Gone with the Wind.

All in all, when comparing to the 1964 Herschell Gordon Lewis cult classic, 2001 Maniacs is simply a contemporary upgrade but watch it as a standalone, it's okay.