2001 Maniacs

2001 maniacs is essentially a grind house movie if you look at it. The story is the third most important part of the film, after gore and sex. That being said, i do not really mind that since i am a fan of gore myself.

The plot in the movie is not anything new, a bunch of teenagers gets into trouble with the supernatural. You have seen that several times if your a fan of horror. What makes this movie better than average is the fact that it's self avare of it. It doesn't try to be the shining or something like that, instead we get pure grind house fun. The camera is even outdated for the time, a pretty classic grind house team (since they were made on a shoestring budget).

Robert Englund is great as the main villain (As always), the main cast of teens are bad and the acting overall from them is stale and uninspiring. What makes this movie fun to watch is the interaction of the teens (Bad acting) with the townspeople (mostly good acting). The plot moves along with a decent speed so you are never bored with it, and the climax is pretty good.

Another thing that really make it feel like a grind house aside from the gore and the sex are the fact that it is not scared of taking the low road. It's rare to have such strong language in horror movies that are mainstream produced as this one has. "Boy, Negro, Chinaman (Sorry, Chinawoman) and such. Its a movie that doesn't care at all and is just out to entertain you.

Is it better than 2000 maniacs? No, it is. not Is it a bad movie? Yes it is, but it's also a pretty decent one. Once again, that is if you see this movie as a grind house movie, which it really isn't, but there are strong influence by the grind house cinema in it. The best part of this movie is the kills, that isn't anything strange since that's true 90% of the time when there is a body count. But there is also a pretty fun dark humor in this film that doesn't go unnoticed.

I saw "2001 Manacs" last night at a midnight screening at the Fantasia Festival and I really enjoyed it ... so did the 300-400 other people in the theater with me. Tim Sullivan and Christa Campbell introduced the movie and held a Q&A session after (I had to leave, it was 2am) but I'm sure they were pleased with the audience response. It was great to see Robert Englund again, he always does a great psycho. The movie was funny and gory ... sure the plot wasn't Oscar caliber, but anyone looking for that is going to the wrong movie. If you want to see a good horror movie, the real 'guts & glory' kind, this is the movie for you. I feel confident in recommending this movie and plan on picking up the DVD (especially since the version that was screened hasn't gone to the ratings board yet, so the DVD will probably be the only place to see this exact version).

Three college students decide to travel to Florida for some fun at Spring Break. After seeing a detour sign, they take the dirt road in hoping to get to their destination a little quicker. Soon they discover a little town called Pleasant Valley. Five more people show up right after them and decide to stay the night for some celebration.

2001 Maniacs sounds promising for the old school B-horror movie fans. A bunch of young college kids, go to this town and the residents decide to kill them and eat them. Crazy isn't it? Well, what should have been and what could have been is missing in 2001 maniacs. Call it a sequel or a remake of the 1964 film Two Thousand Maniacs, 2001 maniacs suffers from trying to be over the top but failing to do so. The deaths are good to watch and with a little bit more blood, then the fun time that is suppose to be had by this film could have been achieved. You're suppose to laugh with this movie and in some cases you do, but in others you are wondering why am I watching this?

What could have, what should have, is exactly what 2001 maniacs is. With a premise such as this film has, you would expect over the top gory funny and unique deaths. You do get these qualities in the deaths, but they are not anything that one would expect. When you are about to see a women lose all their limbs from horses running in opposite directions, you get excited a little bit, if you're into that sort of thing, but in Maniacs it losses it touch.

The goal of this film is to be a throw back to the old cheesy bad horror movies, and it achieves this goal. The dialogue is cheesy, the deaths are gory (although you'd expect more), there's nudity from young hot chicks, and of course the villains are crazy as hell, so crazy that you may even root for them in their evil goals. Some things you may question in the film, such as why would such a young and hot woman, known as Kat, be attracted to a southern hillbilly with awkward teeth, or even why the one character arms wrestles another to see who will give or receive in some homosexual sex. This film definitely pokes fun at the south, having some characters chase after animals with that twinkle of love in their eye.

Maniacs has a good build up but the delivery is kind of weak. The ending horrible and tries to take the film in a whole other direction. If there were a different ending then this film would have been graded a bit higher. I can see a future for Tim Sullivan in the horror genre, if he had some better material.

So how can I give this flick a recommendation, well it lies in the over the top performance from Robert Englund, who is the highlight of Maniacs. His role is so juicy and fun to watch that every time he isn't on screen you feel bored by the flick. I recommend this flick for fans of Englund and fans of the genre. If you're into some cheesy dialogue and violence just for the sake of violence, then 2001 Maniacs is right up your alley.

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.

The almighty Hershell Gordon-Lewis already promised us through a very catchy song that the South was going to rise again... and it did! Slightly more than forty years after the Godfather of Gore's terrific splatter-classic, energetic director Tim Sullivan gathered quite an impressive cast and updated Lewis' screenplay with new gory sickness and nowadays sleaze 'n swearing! I'm usually not this enthusiastic when it comes to remakes of classic horror films, but "2001 Maniacs" simply is a fun & unpretentious little movie that clearly intended to please horror fans first, rather than to hit big at the box office. The original story is preserved, as a whole bunch of young party animals on their way to the Southern beaches are detoured the peculiar little town of Pleasant Valley where they're given a warm reception as honoree guests to a local jubilee. The townsfolk, with one-eyed mayor Buckman in charge, all soon turn out to be deranged killers that are still very rancorous about the Southern Civil War casualties and, one by one, the Yankee tourists are butchered in very imaginative ways. Some of the killings are strangely similar to the ones in Lewis' original, some of them are completely new...but they ALL are utterly grotesque and exhilaratingly gross! Whenever there isn't any gore on display, we're treated to absurd dialogues, morbid jokes and – oh yeah – loads of naked flesh supplied by the most ravishing babes of nowadays horror flicks. Of course, purely talking cinema, this isn't much of good film because it totally lacks tension and it's tasteless, offensive and completely ridiculous. Personally I couldn't care less about this because A) you pretty much know what to expect here and B) it's a splendid throwback to the rancid 60's and 70's; the times when horror cinema didn't necessarily had to justify its exploitative tendencies. Robert Englund clearly hasn't had this much fun portraying a mad character than since the original "Nightmare on Elm Street" and Lin Shaye once again proves she's a sadly underrated but great actress that delivers no matter how silly her lines are. The younger cast members perform adequately and Sullivan's directing is fairly surefooted as well. Although the additional maniac in the title never really gets introduced, I suppose it relates to the little silent girl who dissects rats for fun. "2001 Maniacs" is one of the most entertaining horror films of the past couple of years and I recommend it highly!