2001 Maniaques: La Suite

After watching the original 2001 Maniacs, with Robert Englund, and really enjoying it, I was quite excited about the sequel when I heard about it.

Lots of positive reviews, saying it was better than the first, and more gorier...my hopes were quite high.

...Now I have seen the sequel, and I'm not kidding here....it's one of the worst films I have seen in years, honestly, the acting is soooo bad it's as if they are just people who were randomly picked up off the street! I know you don't watch a film like this for the acting, but when it's this bad, there really is no excuse!

As for the gore, well frankly it does'nt come close to the first one. after 45 minutes only 2 folks have bitten the bullet, and neither one was gory at all!...Then you wait for it to kick off (that's if you haven't press eject on your DVD player by now), it just don't happen. The couple of so-so gory effects towards the end are so badly done, obviously dummy's, you could'nt care less.

Anyway, I don't want to waste any more time on this pile of dog turd. I must just say, all the 10/10 reviews MUST be people involved with this film, they have to be!

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!!!

2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams is bad. Very bad. It lacks the originality of its source material, the 1960s Herschell Gordon Lewis film 2000 Maniacs, and is crippled by largely poor production values.

This sequel takes the maniacs out of the South, as a lack of victims forces them to go on the road to Iowa. There, they encounter a pair of Paris Hilton / Nicole Richie clones and their reality TV entourage. Carnage follows.

Perhaps the most glaring problem of the film is its death scenes. Although they shed plenty of blood, at least in the unrated edition, they are not particularly creative. Only one of the killings is at all original or entertaining. In a franchise that prides itself on outlandish deaths, this is a fatal flaw.

Furthermore, due to the extremely low budget, the movie lacks in some of the basic areas of film making. The sound quality is terrible, so that I had to turn my television up to top volume just to make out the dialogue, some of which is clearly dubbed. Aside from Bill Moseley and Lin Shaye, the acting is bargain basement variety. Even more damning for an unrated horror film, one of the deaths-a hanging-occurs off screen, one suspects because the filmmakers could not afford the safety equipment or stunt person to safely simulate it.

This movie is just inexplicably awful. I watched the first one. I thoroughly enjoyed the first one. I absolutely LOVE campy "B" movie horror films, with whacky over the top acting and violence. This movie had none of that. Zero. Ziltch. Nada.

I'm not some "fanboy" speaking out against a sequel that didn't match his preconceived notions of what a proper sequel should be. I'm speaking out against a terrible terrible movie, that has 20 something positive reviews which are obvious plants by people involved in the production. There's no possible way anyone, no matter how die hard a horror/camp fan could rate this a 10. It's a mockery.

Starting off, this entire movie takes place in a field with tents. That's the entire set...an empty field with tents. There's no old southern feeling town, there's no old southern people. No, it's tent's set up in a field. That's the ENTIRE MOVIE SET.

Secondly, almost all of the sound is dubbed in. They apparently didn't have the budget for an actual sound crew, so all spoken bits and sound effects are dubbed over the video. This doesn't come off as cheeky, campy, original, funny, etc. It comes off as cheap and irritating. The dialogue, volume, and emotion doesn't match the physical acting. It's pathetic.

Third, the plot. There is no plot. They took the fantastic premise of the original movie, and meshed it with some ridiculous mockumentary of "A simple life", that Paris Hilton reality show from 5 years ago. They took an RV of horrible actors pretending to be this reality show, and they crashed into a random field, and happened to meet 10 or so southern weirdos. With tents. There were maybe 3 or so returning actors, which was somewhat amusing, but overall the horrible dubbing ruined it all. Scenes just randomly lead into the next with no lead up. There is NO direction whatsoever.

Fourth. The so called "gore". The budget is so shoe-string that almost all of the gore is actually shown off-camera. That's right, a horror movie, with a terrible plot and budget, terrible acting, no set budget, absolutely nothing to offer but that "shock value" gore...DOESN'T HAVE GORE.

Fifth and last. Boobs. Yes there are some boobs. But they're not the boobs that you want. Some are very nice, yes. I love boobs. They make bad movies watchable at times. Not this time. A few of the boobs are bad boob jobs. The especially nice boobs don't get near enough time to shine.

Finally, this movie is an insult. I don't mind low budget horror. I personally try to find those "B" and "C" movie gems that are out there. This movie takes a solid dump on anyone who would ever pony up the money to purchase it. I can't believe that they got a couple of established actors to work in this crap. There is literally no redeeming point in this movie. It didn't deliver on any point. The humor, while attempting to be "shocking" is shoved down your throat, it's obvious and tedious. Avoid at all costs.

This movie is terrible. Nothing like the first. If you haven't seen either...watch the first, and avoid, NEVER NEVER WATCH THIS ONE. I want to say more terrible things about this movie, but I'll just be wasting space. Just please believe me that I love this genre of movies, and that this one does not deserve a viewing.

Well, I just watched this last night and let me preface this by saying I love the first one. The first had original deaths, was funny and the production value was wonderful as is the acting. Well, the new one doesn't hit on any of these.

The acting--Bill Moesley, as always, did a wonderful job. He made Mayor Buckman his own and you could almost forget that Robert Englund played him previously (scheduling conflicts wouldn't allow him to reprise the role). Lin Shaye was also very funny. The rest of the Maniacs did a decent job but where the acting lacked was the actors that get killed off. Not good at all.

Deaths--As I said, the previous film had some great kills, and, as weird as it is to say, they were fun. The ones in this film, not so much. I can't say much more about them as I don't want to give anything way but I think you may be disappointed. Now, I did see the rated version so that may have something to do w/it. However, in order to see the unrated I'd have to buy it and I'm not sure I want to do that.

Production value--I know they only spent 2 weeks shooting this and First Look is on board as apposed to Lions Gate who did the first so I have a feeling that they didn't have much money to work with. That being said, the audio for the entire film sounded as if it was ADR. The voices didn't seem natural and in one scene in particular it sounded as if the actor did his lines over the phone. It was very distracting.

All in all, I was pretty let down. I try not to get to excited about films because I set the bar high but I did w/this anyway and it certainly didn't meet expectations. I'd say 2.5 stars out of 5.

Train wreck of a film and before the hate mail starts - no budget is no excuse - I could have done a hell of a lot more with 400 grand (any takers :) The film looked like it was shot on video (HD is fine but needs to be graded properly) thrown together in about a week or so and featured some truly diabolical performances.

The only saving grace and giggle this crap got out of me was from the fabulous Lin Shaye (who was slumming here) and Bill Mosely please get your agents to read the scripts before doing the films - YOU deserve so much better than this - sheesh - and I enjoyed the first one. It's independent efforts like this one that are going to sink the indie horror scene not re-invigorate it. Unfortunately due to the offensive nature of most scenes it'll probably make a good return on investment and there'll probably be a third but for God's sake at least work with a script that doesn't seem like it was written on the back of a piece of toilet paper, and hire an editor who can grade your picture properly.

A wasted opportunity.