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2001 MANIACS (2004) Director: Tim Sullivan. Hacktors: Robert Englund, Lin Shaye, Jay Gillespie. Rating/5: The lowdown: Herschell Gordon Lewis' 1964 movie Two Thousand Maniacs! was a riot of crudely staged gore and giggles. The plot saw a town of Southern caricatures greeting a car-load of young visitors, only to isolate and kill them one by one. Writer and director Tim Sullivan has kept this simple storyline, while turning everything up to eleven. Good points: This is one of those occasions when a horror remake actually makes sense. Two Thousand Maniacs! may still be fun, but looks very dated now, moving at a slow pace by contemporary standards. Sullivan's re-tooling zips along like a sheep being chased by one of his own hillbilly characters. All thoughts of political correctness are hurled to one side, as the script goes all-out to involve each and every Southern cliche you ever saw, in a knowingly over-the-top way. The script even tackles homophobia and racism, as the old-fashioned, homicidal folk of the town struggle to comprehend such concepts as man-love and non-subservient black guys.     2001 Maniacs is most definitely a comedy - and a hilarious one at that - but here's the truly great part: the gore is just as OTT as the humour. Our good-looking cast are reduced to splattered body parts by various Southern-themed means and without any of the dreaded camera-looks-away-at-the-last-second nonsense. Potential censorship notwithstanding, 2001 Maniacs is a ballsy gorefest. Just witness the scene in which one character's arms and legs are ripped off by horses charging away: we see each and every limb pop out of their sockets. There are only two instances of CGI: the rest is all good old messy prosthetics. Sullivan's valentine to exploitation movies is completed by as much nubile eye-candy as he can squeeze onto the screen.     There's not a single weak performance on show here: the up-and-coming cast acquit themselves splendidly, while dependable veterans Robert 'Freddy' Englund and Lin Shaye from the excellent Dead End are superbly twisted as the town's mother and father figures. Oh, and the ending's great, too: definitely my kinda closing scene... Bad points: You know what? Judging this as a horror-comedy, I can't really think of any. Wow... Overall: This movie rocks and immediately ranks alongside the best gross-out horror-comedies of all time. As Sullivan himself told me, if the Farrelly Brothers made a gore movie, it would turn out much like 2001 Maniacs. I loved it and I do believe that you will too, yessir... Release Date: 2001 Maniacs is scheduled for release around March 2006. [Reviews Menu] [Home] © Copyright Slasherama 2002-present