User Reviews

Five years ago, Robert Englund starred in one of the most entertaining of the modern remakes, '2001 Maniacs.' That film did what I believe most remakes should do: It took a somewhat forgotten film, Herschell Gordon Lewis's 'Two Thousand Maniacs!,' and did something a bit different with it. It was a change from other remakes like that take already great & well known films and ruin them.

Now in 2010, the Maniacs of Pleasant Valley, Georgia, return for '2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams.' In this installment, the undead Southerners head out on the road and meet up with a spoof version of the brainless duo Paris Hilton & Nicole Ritchie's show 'The Simple Life.' The crew of the show is lured into the town's centennial celebration where they, like many other Yanks before them, become the revenge sacrifices of the town's evil leaders.

Before the release of 'Field of Screams,' many wondered why Robert Englund decided to drop out for this sequel. However, after viewing the film, the only wonder I had was why horror legend Bill Moseley decided to replace him in the film. The first film, while it was far from perfect, had a certain charm about it that made some of the flaws of the film easy to look past. However, 'Field of Screams' loses that charm, making the absolutely unbearable writing and acting just about impossible to watch. There is plenty of great gore, crazy kills, and over-the-top humour to make the film watchable, and that will please plenty of horror fans. However, the script and actors, even for a film like this, are just too awful to look past.

Final Verdict: 4/10, boosted a bit due to Bill Moseley & Lin Shaye.

-AP3-

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.

I watched this film because I am know one of the actors and wanted to see their work. I saw the first 2001 Maniacs and at least that was somewhat entertaining. However, this one was NOT. AT ALL. This is why people pirate movies, so they don't have to waste their hard earned money on garbage like this. This movie isn't even a download. Save your bandwidth. Seriously.

"terrencepatrix" has is explained specifically on why this movie is HORRIBLE. Without rehashing what he said, I will give you the reasons why I am writing a bad review WHILE I'm watching this movie... it's so bad, I would rather surf the internet and do something productive with the time I am losing off my LIFE seeing this. In fact, I won't even call my review a review. I'll call it a point by point NEED TO KNOW about this movie. I'm at a point of not giving a damn if I am using bad grammar or syntax writing this. This is a rant about how this movie made me feel while seeing it. It's worse than sitting in an emergency room waiting your turn. At least then, there is a point.

• The plot is the worst thing ever. They just try to mash a bunch of "jokes" (many of them racist), a bunch of boobs and naked guys (Tim Sullivan is apparently homosexual, thus to satisfy his requirements of making this film homo-friendly). It's like watching a really bad episode of some late night show having skits trying to be funny.

• The girls aren't even that hot. Looks like the it's back to the pole for them.

• If you're Jewish, you would find this highly offensive. One of the characters is supposedly Jewish. They say "Jews run Hollywood"--- well, not this time. The fact this movie was even made boggles the mind. STRAIGHT TO DVD (or in this case online)...

• The acting .. O M F G... the "acting"... Don't quit your day jobs guys. Seriously. Don't.

• Tim Sullivan should be ashamed of himself for writing such a horrible storyline. I know you gotta pay the bills dude, but really? - Last time I checked we don't give a damn about Paris Hilton and "The Simple Life"... you're only in the wrong DECADE trying to exploit this. Unless you live in a distant far away country away from North America where the show is new.

• The racial stereotypes. Blacks, Asians, Jewish people, and any ethnicity I have seen in this film should AVOID and BOYCOTT this movie. We get it, the characters are rednecks, but you're only doing a disservice towards America, the South (the Civil War was over ages ago, let it go) and the fact they got an Asian girl and a black girl to do this movie is an ABSOLUTE SHAME. If your parents saw this movie, they would give you the beats for selling out your culture.

• Imagine going to a carnival in a small town. Now imagine no rides, no cotton candy, no stuffed animals. Now add some blood, some really bad accents, a lot of half naked (or completely naked) women and men from Hollywood's D list. Now combine that with a bad plot, overacting, and an overwhelming sense of bitterness. I hope you don't live in Cleveland and watched this movie... July will give you a really really bitter taste in your mouth, especially after watching this movie.

"Chicken so fresh it's painful" The sign should have said "a movie so bad, it's painful" People who gave this movie anything higher than a 4 has REALLY poor taste in movies. Any SANE adult knows this movie isn't even that funny (if at all), the gore scenes are so poor budget, and this is 1 hour and 23 minutes I want back.

2001 Maniacs was not bad at all. It was cheaply done but well done, and a lot of fun. I hadn't expected this sequel, and was excited when I saw that it would star Bill Moseley, because the world does not get nearly enough of him.

Well, we still don't. Neither he nor Lynn Shaye can save this movie. They are not given any good lines or good scenes, or any opportunity to show their considerable talents.

Well, there would be a lot to have to save. Most of the actors in this movie are just painful to watch. Most notably bad is Miles Dougal as "Jerry Schmidt". It's like these people aren't even trying. So many scenes are just so irritating I found myself wishing the movie were over just 10 minutes in.

There's some eye candy. Christa Campbell and Andrea Leon are very nice to look at, but like everyone else in this movie, they aren't given ANYTHING interesting to do.

Ther problem is that the makers didn't get their own concept. The first movie was good, but could have been better. A sequel should have just been an attempt to do it better. Same concept, the ghostly southern town and its tormented inhabitants, some hapless travellers, cue the fun and then the carnage. That's all that was needed here.

Instead, they try to take on current reality TV tropes, they move the venue, they get tired of exploring southern stereotypes and try to do stuff like have Lynn Shaye do a mock performance on Michael Sembello's "Maniac" song from Flashdance (Oddly enough, it's not called "Maniacs", it's called "Cannibals"). Unlike the rousing "The South Will Rise Again" number from the first movie, neither "Cannibals" nor any of the other musical attempts are listenable.

No one wants to watch reality TV, so why would we want to watch a parody of reality TV? The idiots are like the Jersey Shore idiots. It seems like it might at least be fun to see them all get massacred, but it takes forever and the kills are all pretty spare.

The filming is very rushed. Each scene has so many quick cuts that no actor really gets to stand out. Each scene and each cut in each scene feels hasty, yet at the same time the movie drags its sorry arse endlessly until all the protagonists are finally, FINALLY killed. Not that I'm some homicidal maniac who wants everybody to die, but it is only after all the deaths that this sorry excuse for a film can be over.

If you've seen the 1st movie then you'll be very disappointed by the 2nd! the 1st movie had, as plus, hot women(there are some in this movie too but they seem like cheap escorts compared to most of the girls in the original) and it had charismatic actors(even if some actors were not so good, I'm talking about the three "northern guys" who were friends) and it had some cool death scenes, and I really enjoyed the first one with Miss Pussycat.

So what does "2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams" have to offer? most of the original actors(talking about those in the ghost town) are not present in the movie(a very big minus), in fact it's very lame, since the new actors can't act at all! You'll also hear lame swearing and other lame stuff, the death scenes are also lame in this movie, in fact the whole movie is boring! If they wanted to kill up a good horror setup and a promising 1st movie then CONGRATULATIONS! this movie ruined it.

PS I also enjoy that in this 2nd movie they can't make up their minds if the mayor's eyepatch goes on his left eye or on his right eye.

I simply cannot imagine all of these fanciful reviews for this hurtful, insulting, and negative film. The depiction of the Glorious, Unreconstructed, South is, put simply, a disgrace.

We in the real South, the pure South, have striven to rise above the momentary lapse of sanity which you Northerners still call the "Civil War." Yet there was nothing even remotely "civil" about burning our women and children, and worse yet, effecting our property and moral rights against our will and good judgement. The result has been easy to see, in cities such as Detroit, and Memphis, and even Philadelphia.

This Maniac film treats us as fools (though at least that director got the glory of our costumes right.) The film reviles in gory violence. My three year old daughter (the older of the twins) actually toddled out of the room, screaming and crying, after seeing some poor fella dispatched in the most un-gamely, and if I dare say, most un-scientific manner. I'm a butcher (and part time medical doctor) by trade, and I can tell you that a bi-laterial cut like that would be a waste of time and resources.

Mark my words. This film is bad news for race relations, genderic relations and sexuality relations. It should be banned and I'll be right outside the theater with the twins, exercising my rights as an AmeriKan to force people to not see it. Or something.