2001 MANIACS

Some university students, on the occasion of the summer holidays, decide to go to Daytona Beach, but an unexpected event forces them to stop in a small town barely marked on the map. The inhabitants, busy with the preparations for their annual festival, welcome them very well, inviting them to stay with them, but the boys do not know that in reality the festival is only an excuse to carry out a macabre ritual... The likable Robert Englund, after having played the famous Freddy Krueger, returns with a new horror film titled "2001 Maniacs" (a direct and incisive title) by the debutant Tim Sullivan, currently engaged in the production of the sequel, "2001 Maniacs Beverly Hellbillys". This film produced in 2005 is a remake of "Two Thousand Maniacs", a film directed in 1964 by the inventor of gore Herschell Gordon Lewis. The film tells the story of a village lost in the extreme south of the United States, Plesant Valley, led by the amusing and "diabolical" mayor Buckman (Robert Englund) and its 2000 inhabitants, who celebrate an occasion related to the Civil War between Northerners and Southerners (obviously the Maniacs are for the Southerners and you will understand why!). The villagers will welcome in their village, in 1800 style for the occasion, eight young people brought there by a detour (studied for the occasion), as in the best celebrations, offering them food and lodging and waiting for them to become the "main dish" of the 2001 maniaco. Produced in teen format with a lot of blood and abundant splatter scenes and eroticism that characterizes almost the entire first part of the film, shot in a not very brilliant way but which is sufficient to set the pace for almost the entire duration. The cast, apart from Englund, says little, although two familiar faces can be noted in the roles of simple extras: Peter Stormare ("Constantine"; "Armageddon") in the role of a university professor and Eli Roth (director of "Hostel") in the role of a hitchhiker. A film with little effort and probably shot in spare time, this "2001 Maniacs" will not leave a mark for originality and beauty but is certainly an entertaining product and for this reason deserves at least one viewing.