2001 MANIACS (Sullivan, 2005)

On one of the DVD's special features, director slash co-writer Tim Sullivan claims, "2001 MANIACS is not a subtle film." That is an understatement, and calling it an understatement is probably another understatement. In one scene, a black character is killed by a cotton press. A gay character is rammed through the rectum with a spear that ends up coming out his mouth. Sheep are fucked. Cousins kiss. There are tits and S&M and disembodied limbs and oh so many decapitated heads. And it's all so gloriously over-the-top and campy that it never offends but, instead, entertains. It also all tends to blur together into one big sight gag after a while. But if the thing is going to blur together, better it blurs into a big red blob as opposed to a big gray one, correct? After all, anything worth doing is worth over-doing.

Eli Roth produced, so you know you're going to get the goods in terms of kill scenes. But Roth being attached means that he also brings his brand of superficial social conscience. It's a throwback to 80s pictures, with too much sex and gore and decadence and stupid fucking college kids being stupid fucking college kids, but like HOSTEL, it also tries its hand at social commentary. It almost seems as if guys like Roth and Sullivan feel the need to prove they spent as much time growing up with Romero and Carpenter as they did with Jason and Freddy. Also like HOSTEL, the subtext is so under-developed that it ends up just falling flat and feeling meaningless, tacked on.

The story is pretty simple: some partying kids from the North take a detour on their way to Daytona Beach and end up in Pleasant Valley, Georgia, just in time for the annual Blood and Guts Jubilee. They hang out and fuck some locals for a while before meeting their grisly ends. There's a twist at the end but it doesn't feel jolting or shocking, but just sort of natural. Robert Englund stars, and holds together, the whole thing as the wonderfully-animated, yet never cartoonish, Mayor Buckman. It's pretty amazing to watch this back-to-back with EATEN ALIVE and see the same guy, thirty years apart, turning in two different performances. He is so much better in MANIACS than EATEN ALIVE, and it's easy to see why he's so beloved within the genre. He clearly holds a deep affection for horror and its pictures, and he's a boon to the entire community.

I could now take time to complain about the continued Puritanesque equation of teenage sex with death that lives on strong in the horroe genre. I could, if I wasn't all-too-glad to see the fratboys beheaded, castrated, and violently dissolved via acid bong. I just finished my undergrad, which means I spent the last four years with these fucking idiots. Stuff like HOSTEL and 2001 MANIACS ends up being cathartic. So what if I spent all four of my Spring Breaks toiling away at a gas station? I could've been in Georgia being brutally murdered and eaten by a town full of Confederate zombies. See? I was right all along.