Cast: Robert Englund, Lin Shaye, Giuseppe Andrews, Jay Gillespie, Marla Malcolm, Matthew Carey, Dylan Edrington, Mushond Lee, Bianca Smith, Brian Gross, Gina Marie Heekin, Adam Robitel, Brendan McCarthy, Christa Campbell, Wendy Kremer, Kane Hodder .
My thoughts: predictable
Review: “2001 Maniacs” is supposed to be a remake of “Two Thousand Maniacs” by Herschell Gordon Lewis. While I’ve never seen that movie, the problem with “2001 Maniacs” is that it’s too predictable. .
The story follows 2 separate groups of young people heading to Daytona Beach Fl. for spring break. Unfortunately, they come across a detour sign along the way, and as any good horror fan knows, “Detour” signs always mean “danger” in a horror movie. Before they know it, both groups of teenagers have stumbled upon a little town called “Pleasant Valley” where the people, while weird as hell, seem friendly enough. Soon another bunch of youngsters arrive in town, a black guy named Malcolm and his Asian girlfriend Kat.
The citizens of Pleasant Valley make all the young men of the North their guests of honor and waste no time in showing a little southern hospitality. But soon, some of the young northern travelers begin to disappear, and it becomes clear that all may not be as it seems with the so-called good people of Pleasant Valley who, behind the backs of unsuspecting northerners, are planning a grand “feast.” … literally. “2001 Maniacs” offers a good subplot explaining the city’s sudden appearance out of nowhere. It seems that during the civil war, a group of renegade northern soldiers laid waste to the entire city of Pleasant Valley, in fact, all of 2001 of its citizens.
Now they have returned to take revenge on the North, on the very day their city was desecrated all those years ago, no less, and it was clear from the start that these northern travelers are in for a bad time. However… it takes travelers a while to figure it out and the question is, will they be able to put 2 and 2 together before it’s too late? While “2001 Maniacs” certainly delivers in the general blood, gore, and splatter department… the movie lacks an hour of mystery and telegraphs too soon. Everything happens as expected until the very end, where a bit of creativity is shown as the last two survivors find themselves embroiled in a fight for their lives. The deaths are pretty creative, but you can figure out who is going to die and in what order, which further enhances the predictable nature of this movie. The people of Pleasant Valley themselves are an annoying bunch, even the very attractive girls in town are painful to watch when they start talking.
Southern stereotypes of bestiality jokes, incest jokes, and generally Southerners being disturbingly weird jokes are all over the place in this movie. And that’s what kills most of the fun. It would have been a nice change of pace to have the people of Pleasant Valley different in personality instead of each acting the same as the other. The teenagers in the film are portrayed a little better. While we get the usual group of guys out to get laid, we also get a guy with two girlfriends who has a great twist applied to his character later in the movie. You’ll have to see for yourself, but take my word for it, it’s pretty funny, and we have the interracial couple where the black guy is a biker and likes Led Zepplin… which is pretty much the ultimate in creating an exterior. the character in the box.
Robert Englund gives a fine performance as Mayor Buckman of Pleasant Valley, rivaled only by Lin Shaye as Granny Boone. But even the two of them can’t fully make up for the rest of the actors who played the citizens of Pleasant Valley in a very inferior way. “2001 Maniacs” has its good points too, and director Tim Sullivan, who also co-wrote the film with writer Chris Kobin, really knew how to make this a “horror movie.” No annoying cuts or shortening of scenes to avoid showing too much blood on the screen. No, we’ve got the full deal here, including body crushing, mutilations, popping eyeballs, death by acid, and two other deaths that are even more twisted than the ones I just mentioned. I wish they had surrounded all this great blood, gore, and mayhem with better villains.
While I thought Englund was a great villain as Mayor Buckman, the other bad guys were either played by bad actors or were too annoying to be great villains. Now you could say that since I’m a northern guy, I don’t connect with the whole southern personality thing, so I didn’t care for most of the villainous characters. But on the other hand, I thought the Firefly clan in “House of 1000 Corpses,” which was another psycho redneck movie, were incredible villains. But they were much tougher than the people of Pleasant Valley, which I thought was a bit too goofy and not serious enough to make them good villains.
Pros: Creative kills, blood and gore abound, northern travelers were sympathetic for the most part. The final act of the film, which includes a confrontation between the two survivors and Mayor Buckman and the citizens of Pleasant Valley, was incredible. Lin Shaye gives a strong performance as Granny Boone despite limited screen time.
Cons: With the exception of Robert Englund as Mayor Buckman, the villains weren’t badass enough, and as I said in the review, everything is explained too quickly to the viewer about what will happen to these kids and how. I didn’t like the ending either and the chain of events leading up to the end of the movie left me shaking my head.
Overall: Average horror movie that has a few elements that keep it from being a complete waste of time. It’s well worth renting when it hits DVD on March 28.
