Nobody can imitate the fiendish charm that comes with everything cult director Herschell Gordon Lewis touches, but this movie seems more than willing to give it a try anyway. It's all there: the cartoonish gore, the delightfully sinister story, the gratuitous nudity, the ridiculously hammy acting, it's pretty much the best exploitation movie 2005 can hand you. It may lack that ugly, grainy 60s film stock, but trust me it still looks low-budget enough. The pace is pretty good and the build-up is nicely written, though it is kinda weird that the first kill to me is the best/funniest. All of them are good, but the coolest one they came up with is already used fifteen minutes in. Speaking of weird, the supposed Southern belles that still live in the 1800s all look like Playboy models, which is distracting in more ways than one. One even had fake nails for God's sake, doesn't make too much sense. And what's with that Chinese character? Most horror movies at least get Asian actors so they're close enough, here they just use a Caucasian actress and say she's Chinese about five times a minute. Heck, they'll believe it eventually. None of this bothers me too much though. "2001 Maniacs" is a lot of gory fun, but obviously it's still no "Two Thousand Maniacs".
Review of 2001 Maniacs
