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!
Review of 2001 Maniacs
