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 Herschell Gordon Lewis’s “Two Thousand Maniacs”. Although I have never seen that movie, the problem with “2001 Maniacs” is that it is 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 on the road, and as any good horror fan knows, “detour” signs always mean “danger” in a horror movie. Before they know it, both groups of teens have stumbled upon a small town called “Pleasant Valley” where the people, while strange as hell, seem friendly enough. Soon, another handful of young men arrive in town, a black boy named Malcolm and his Asian girlfriend Kat.

The citizens of Pleasant Valley make all the young people of the north their guests of honor and waste no time showing a little southern hospitality. But soon some of the young travelers from the north start to disappear, and it becomes clear that all may not be as it seems with the so-called good folks of Pleasant Valley who, behind the back of unsuspecting Northerners, are planning a big “Party.” … literally. “2001 Maniacs” offers a good subplot that explains the sudden appearance of the city out of nowhere. It appears that, during the civil war, a group of renegade soldiers from the north wiped out the entire town of Pleasant Valley, indeed all of its citizens in 2001.

Now they have returned to exact revenge on the north, the same day their city was desecrated all those years ago, no less, and from the beginning it became clear that these travelers from the north are going through a bad time. However … it takes a while for travelers to realize this 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 gore, gore and spatter department in general … the movie lacks an hour of mystery and is telegraphed way too early. Everything happens as one would expect until the end, where a bit of creativity is shown when the last two survivors launch themselves to fight for their lives. The deaths are pretty creative, but you can figure out who’s going to die and in what order, further enhancing 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 in general are eerily weird jokes are everywhere in this movie. And that’s what kills most of the fun. It would have been a nice change of pace for the people of Pleasant Valley to differ in personality rather than each acting the same as the other. The teenagers in the movie are portrayed a little better. While we did take out the usual group of guys for a fuck, we also have a guy with two friends who has a great twist applied to his character later in the movie. You’ll have to see for yourself, but trust me, it’s pretty fun, and we have the interracial couple where the black guy is a biker and adores Led Zepplin … which is pretty much the latest in creating an exterior. the character of the box.

Robert Englund puts in a good 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 unsatisfying way. “2001 Maniacs” has its good points too, and director Tim Sullivan, who also co-wrote the movie 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 get the full deal here, including body crushing, mutilations, eyeballs popping out of their sockets, death from acid, and two other deaths that are even more twisted than the ones I just mentioned. I just wish they had surrounded all this great blood, gore, and mayhem with some better villains.

While I thought Englund was a great villain as Mayor Buckman, the other baddies were either played by bad actors or were just too annoying to be great villains. Now you could say that because I’m a Northern boy I don’t connect with the whole Southern personality thing, so I didn’t care about most of the villainous characters. But on the other hand, I thought that the Firefly clan in “House of 1000 Corpses”, which was another southern psycho movie, were incredible villains. But they were much tougher than the folks in Pleasant Valley, who struck me as a little too dumb and not serious enough to make good villains.

Pros: creative assassinations, abundance of blood and gore, travelers from the north were pleasant for the most part. The final act of the film, which includes a showdown between the two survivors and Mayor Buckman and the citizens of Pleasant Valley, was incredible. Lin Shaye gives a good performance as Granny Boone despite the 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 to the viewer too quickly about what will happen to these kids and how. I also didn’t like the ending 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 total waste of time. It’s worth renting when it hits DVD on March 28.