2001 Maniacs : Field of Screams
In 2006, some people got together and decided to update H.G. Lewis's gorehound cult classic 2000 Maniacs for the modern era.
The result was 2001 Maniacs, an often genuinely funny, gleefully gruesome exercise in horror comedy that featured a terrific leading performance from Robert Englund as George W. Buckman, undead mayor of Pleasant Valley. The basic premise behind this is that -back during the civil war- some errant union soldiers who were part of Sherman's march wandered into the unsuspecting town and murdered every living thing within its borders. So now the restless dead arise every year to exact their cannibalistic revenge on anyone hailing from the north until the number of their victims matches the number killed in Pleasant Valley- 2001.
Now fast forward to 2010 and Sullivan and Kobin (assisted by producer Christopher Tuffin) have brought us a sequel , bearing the nifty little title 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams . Eli Roth, however, did not choose to return for producing duties on this one. I have to wonder how much of the magic the first time around was due to his behind the scenes influence, because - despite having the same writers and director- this sequel sucks.
What's really heartbreaking is that the premise is a good one. The ghouls of Pleasant Valley, having once again made preparations for another year of slaughter, realize that this time they have no takers. After a promising opening sequence where they deal with the local sheriff, Mayor Buckman (a scene stealing Bill Moseley, who proves he's a horror superstar by making the role entirely his own) decides that they will gather en masse' on the town bus and take their festival on the road.
At this point the film introduces us to to a group of travellers cruising in an RV as part of a reality TV show along the lines of MTV's Real World.
The RV comes across a detour sign and is re-routed right into the newly christened Pleasant Valley Travelling Jamboree. From there the film slips into essentially the same territory as the first, as the northerners are picked off in a variety of extremely gory ways .
The acting sucks. I've seen Troma flicks with performances that put the ones in this movie to shame. Moseley is terrific, as are Lynn Shaye and Ryan Fleming (both of whom return from the original as , respectively, Granny and Hucklebilly) - but in all other regards this is strictly amateur hour.
Since there are some good gore set pieces, I might have tended to overlook the acting- after all, this isn't great art. But Field of Screams also manages to commit the unforgivable sin of cult gore cinema- it's boring.
We spend scene after scene watching the idiots from the RV wander around and behave in a manner suggesting that they actually died at birth and -though their brains are inoperative- their nerves have been firing for twenty odd years since, giving the appearance of life. Nothing they do is particularly funny (which is really annoying in the instance of a pair of Paris and Nicole clones, since Hilton and Ritchie are so out of the spotlight at this point culturally that the inclusion of their personality types is lame to begin with) and so many moments unfold with only these people on screen (minus any sign of the Pleasant Valley folk) that they begin to feel like torture.
Then there's the pacing. I kid you not..at times it's as if the people in this film are sleepwalking through a river of molasses.
Case in point: there's a moment inside of one of the festival tents where Buckman informs several of the surviving northerners (who have all been bound together) that they have a chance to live if they search for and find various weapons hidden around the jamboree site while the ghouls hunt them. If they arm themselves and can fight their way out before being killed, they're free to go. So what happens? We get a shot of these people walking -not running, mind you, but walking -away from the tent after being sent out to locate the weapons while two banjo players idly stroll behind them . Now, personally, if a town full of cannibalistic shades had just untied me and told me that all I had to do to avoid ending up on the menu was find the gun hidden somewhere close by, walking wouldn't enter into it. I'd be rocketing into the night looking for something to whack a hillbilly with.
Throw in some second rate, racially charged attempts at comedy, a horrendous and ill considered Flashdance parody and a character who can apparently shrug off being impaled on a pitchfork as if it were a paper cut and you end up with a film that misses the mark disastrously. Excellent splatter effects and a top notch turn by genre great Moseley are not enough to cover the multitude of pacing and performance issues prevalent in this sequel. A definite disappointment.
In 2006, some people got together and decided to update H.G. Lewis's gorehound cult classic 2000 Maniacs for the modern era.
The result was 2001 Maniacs, an often genuinely funny, gleefully gruesome exercise in horror comedy that featured a terrific leading performance from Robert Englund as George W. Buckman, undead mayor of Pleasant Valley. The basic premise behind this is that -back during the civil war- some errant union soldiers who were part of Sherman's march wandered into the unsuspecting town and murdered every living thing within its borders. So now the restless dead arise every year to exact their cannibalistic revenge on anyone hailing from the north until the number of their victims matches the number killed in Pleasant Valley- 2001.
Now fast forward to 2010 and Sullivan and Kobin (assisted by producer Christopher Tuffin) have brought us a sequel , bearing the nifty little title 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams . Eli Roth, however, did not choose to return for producing duties on this one. I have to wonder how much of the magic the first time around was due to his behind the scenes influence, because - despite having the same writers and director- this sequel sucks.
What's really heartbreaking is that the premise is a good one. The ghouls of Pleasant Valley, having once again made preparations for another year of slaughter, realize that this time they have no takers. After a promising opening sequence where they deal with the local sheriff, Mayor Buckman (a scene stealing Bill Moseley, who proves he's a horror superstar by making the role entirely his own) decides that they will gather en masse' on the town bus and take their festival on the road.
At this point the film introduces us to to a group of travellers cruising in an RV as part of a reality TV show along the lines of MTV's Real World.
The RV comes across a detour sign and is re-routed right into the newly christened Pleasant Valley Travelling Jamboree. From there the film slips into essentially the same territory as the first, as the northerners are picked off in a variety of extremely gory ways .
The acting sucks. I've seen Troma flicks with performances that put the ones in this movie to shame. Moseley is terrific, as are Lynn Shaye and Ryan Fleming (both of whom return from the original as , respectively, Granny and Hucklebilly) - but in all other regards this is strictly amateur hour.
Since there are some good gore set pieces, I might have tended to overlook the acting- after all, this isn't great art. But Field of Screams also manages to commit the unforgivable sin of cult gore cinema- it's boring.
We spend scene after scene watching the idiots from the RV wander around and behave in a manner suggesting that they actually died at birth and -though their brains are inoperative- their nerves have been firing for twenty odd years since, giving the appearance of life. Nothing they do is particularly funny (which is really annoying in the instance of a pair of Paris and Nicole clones, since Hilton and Ritchie are so out of the spotlight at this point culturally that the inclusion of their personality types is lame to begin with) and so many moments unfold with only these people on screen (minus any sign of the Pleasant Valley folk) that they begin to feel like torture.
Then there's the pacing. I kid you not..at times it's as if the people in this film are sleepwalking through a river of molasses.
Case in point: there's a moment inside of one of the festival tents where Buckman informs several of the surviving northerners (who have all been bound together) that they have a chance to live if they search for and find various weapons hidden around the jamboree site while the ghouls hunt them. If they arm themselves and can fight their way out before being killed, they're free to go. So what happens? We get a shot of these people walking -not running, mind you, but walking -away from the tent after being sent out to locate the weapons while two banjo players idly stroll behind them . Now, personally, if a town full of cannibalistic shades had just untied me and told me that all I had to do to avoid ending up on the menu was find the gun hidden somewhere close by, walking wouldn't enter into it. I'd be rocketing into the night looking for something to whack a hillbilly with.
Throw in some second rate, racially charged attempts at comedy, a horrendous and ill considered Flashdance parody and a character who can apparently shrug off being impaled on a pitchfork as if it were a paper cut and you end up with a film that misses the mark disastrously. Excellent splatter effects and a top notch turn by genre great Moseley are not enough to cover the multitude of pacing and performance issues prevalent in this sequel. A definite disappointment.