Kelly Wand2001 Maniacs
November 18th 2006 00:44
“2001 Maniacs” is more a remake than a sequel of Herschell Gordon Lewis’ trash classic Two Thousand Maniacs. It cost several million dollars more than it’s predecessor. It has better effects, better actors, better scripting and better pacing. Produced by Boaz Yakin, Scott Spiegel and Eli Roth, it – unsurprisingly – comes off as a comic book version of “Hostel”. Even less surprisingly, it shares many of that films faults and couldn’t hold a second hand birthday cake candle up to the original.
Filling your film with unlikeable shit heads as potential victims will not improve your movie. The fact that you want these guys to die horribly only helps if you kill them quickly enough that we don’t have to listen to them speak. All the best murders have been stolen from better movies but have been executed in ways that leave little room for basic physics but make things nice and easy for the CGI department.
A group of teenagers heading south to Florida for Spring Break get waylaid in a little old Georgia Town where they are made special guests for the anniversary celebrations. As with “Hostel”, it is the promise of sex that keeps them there. Meanwhile, the townsfolk want to kill and eat them. I’ll say this for a bunch of two hundred year old ghouls, they do know how to throw a reasonable execution but I’m not sure about their Barbecue techniques. Not that I’ve had much experience but surely, if you were going to cook somebody’s head, you’d lose the hair first. It’s just one of those culinary tips I’m sure Jamie Oliver would throw in.
Robert Englund tries to be as camply funny as the role of Cannibal King demands but even he cannot pull off dumb jokes about Chinese food. There is plenty of prick teasing girl on girl action, razor sharp metal teeth for that special kind of blow job and, if you are going to be a male homosexual, you know where the townsfolk are going to shove that shish kebab stick. Do you have a feeling of Deja vu? Have you visited this movie (or one just like it) before. Too many to mention? I’m with you there.
The original film succeeded because of its cheapness. Despite the gallons of stage blood employed, you never took the murders seriously. The whole film was just so cheesy that you had to laugh at the absurdity of it.
Look, despite all this, the remake is still a big dumb bundle of black fun and, if you can handle the idea of “Dude, someone stole my Car and took it to Hell” then this could be the film for you. I enjoyed it far more than – say – “The Bourne Supremacy” but that isn’t saying much, is it? “2001 Maniacs” could have done without the racism and homophobia but, the screenwriters would argue that this vileness spewed from the murderous villains of the film. I’m sure they would tell you that it would be morally reprehensible to portray Hitler as being politically correct. As I said before, that argument falls flat when you make your heroes/sacrificial lambs so damn unpleasant. If you are going to make a film that encourages the audience to cheer on the killers, you have to make them morally superior to their prey.
I wonder if an American teenage audience finds these victim characters in any way aspirational or even likeable. Answers on a post card please. If they do, God help us.
Filling your film with unlikeable shit heads as potential victims will not improve your movie. The fact that you want these guys to die horribly only helps if you kill them quickly enough that we don’t have to listen to them speak. All the best murders have been stolen from better movies but have been executed in ways that leave little room for basic physics but make things nice and easy for the CGI department.
A group of teenagers heading south to Florida for Spring Break get waylaid in a little old Georgia Town where they are made special guests for the anniversary celebrations. As with “Hostel”, it is the promise of sex that keeps them there. Meanwhile, the townsfolk want to kill and eat them. I’ll say this for a bunch of two hundred year old ghouls, they do know how to throw a reasonable execution but I’m not sure about their Barbecue techniques. Not that I’ve had much experience but surely, if you were going to cook somebody’s head, you’d lose the hair first. It’s just one of those culinary tips I’m sure Jamie Oliver would throw in.
Robert Englund tries to be as camply funny as the role of Cannibal King demands but even he cannot pull off dumb jokes about Chinese food. There is plenty of prick teasing girl on girl action, razor sharp metal teeth for that special kind of blow job and, if you are going to be a male homosexual, you know where the townsfolk are going to shove that shish kebab stick. Do you have a feeling of Deja vu? Have you visited this movie (or one just like it) before. Too many to mention? I’m with you there.
The original film succeeded because of its cheapness. Despite the gallons of stage blood employed, you never took the murders seriously. The whole film was just so cheesy that you had to laugh at the absurdity of it.
Look, despite all this, the remake is still a big dumb bundle of black fun and, if you can handle the idea of “Dude, someone stole my Car and took it to Hell” then this could be the film for you. I enjoyed it far more than – say – “The Bourne Supremacy” but that isn’t saying much, is it? “2001 Maniacs” could have done without the racism and homophobia but, the screenwriters would argue that this vileness spewed from the murderous villains of the film. I’m sure they would tell you that it would be morally reprehensible to portray Hitler as being politically correct. As I said before, that argument falls flat when you make your heroes/sacrificial lambs so damn unpleasant. If you are going to make a film that encourages the audience to cheer on the killers, you have to make them morally superior to their prey.
I wonder if an American teenage audience finds these victim characters in any way aspirational or even likeable. Answers on a post card please. If they do, God help us.
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