The stale breath of the remake beast knows no boundaries. But when the resurrection of Herschel Gordon Lewis 2000 Maniacs finally came to fruition, it was a friendly reminder to how a remake can act as a successful reminder of a well written story.
The Set Up
Taking place during spring break, 2001 Maniacs focuses on 3 college students heading towards Florida for rest, relaxation, and partying. However (after a brief appearance from producer Eli Roth, playing his same character from Cabin Fever), the trio take a detour and wind up in a desolate, yet hospitable southern town.
The ethics and manners of southern hospitality run supreme, but after meeting up with other young, weary travelers, the group decides that things may not be as quaint as they appear.
Death quickly follows, and the viewer is treated to a smorgasbord of ironic, yet fulfilling death scenes.
2001 Allusions
The film, 2001 Maniacs acts as a spring board for horror movies to take themselves more seriously. Obviously, the overall tone of the film is comedy; but it makes strides to include basic literary elements in the plot. For example, using Robert Englund as the mayor while including Kane Hodder (famous for his role in the later Friday the 13th movies) and Eli Roth (who reprised his role as the wayward traveler, Grim), 2001 Maniacs shows itself to have depth beyond death, giving purpose to both the characters and the actors.
How Ironic
Using the basic platform for the inclusion of allusion, the film also includes a great amount of irony revolving around character development and demise. This of course acts as a bridge uniting the characters with their basic minimalist actions (which believe it or not, is an archetype of most horror movies) and their death.
Letting this characterization emerge, Tim Sullivan uses creative deaths to fully illustrate his point (ie. the homosexual character being sodomized by a spike, the African American smashed by a cotton gin, and the Chinese girl transformed into the ‘bell of the ball’ and subsequently smashed by a replica of the liberty bell).
Because of this explicit disregard towards sentiment and political correctness, 2001 Maniacs can quickly be categorized as a satire against the confederate way of life. This allows the lewd acts and over the top gore to act as a device protesting against typical horror cinema and the South. In a way, you can read deeper into the basic doings of the characters and surmise such deviations like: the spike coming out of Ricky’s mouth being reminiscent to the South being outspoken, or Marshall being smashed as a warning to how over dependency on slavery destroyed southern economy at the wake of the Civil War).
While both of those statements are entirely facetious, it illustrates the point that satire is larger than the sum of its own parts. Cinema is only the medium for delivering the message and therefore can contribute to a higher level of thought or interpretation.
