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.
