Texas Frightmare Weekend Film Festival - Night Two -
Thursday April 29, 2010. Dallas, TX - Evan ODell

2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (2010) Directed by Tim Sullivan. Written by Tim Sullivan, and Christopher Tuffin. Starring Bill Moseley, Lin Shaye, Christa Campbell, Andrea Leon, Nivek Ogre, and Ahmed Best.

No matter how it seems I felt about Survival of the Dead, I liked it better than this sequel to the remake of Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Two Thousand Maniacs. This film was really more of the same as the remake, but less effective in my eyes. They tried to ramp up the exploitation factors with mixed results. The offensive, off-color humor is still prevalent as are the elaborately staged kills. Though I found the sense of humor slim on laughs.

I haven’t checked to see who’s held over from the first one, but one glaring omission is Robert Englund. He’s now played by genre stalwart, Bill Mosely. Christa Campell is back as the Milk Maid. So are Hucklebilly and Lin Shaye as Granny Boone. The stand in actor for Jar Jar Binks, Ahmed Best, has a fairly substantial tertiary role as a musician/slave in the movie. The sheep, Jezebel, is also back, though this time, she’s been taxidermied. She’s not even the only taxidermied pet in the movie. The Paris Hilton Wannabe has a stuffed purse dog.

There were quite the number of people present from the film for it’s North American debut. Director Tim Sullivan was on hand to introduce the film and the cast and try to lead the crowd in a rendition of The South Will Rise Again. The events page at Texas Frightmare Weekend had said a bluegrass band would be on hand to play the song. Perhaps they played the red carpet event, which fell between the two films. I missed it because I was watching Survival of the Dead and between it starting over 20 minutes late and the red carpet starting 30 minutes early, there was nothing to see by the time Survival of the Dead did let out.

The sadistic, serial-killin’, cannibalistic residents of Pleasant Valley, tired of trying to lure in road weary wanderers, take to the road in a traveling show to find Yankees to feast upon in an effort to even the odds of their massacre at the hands of Northern aggressors. That’s when a road reality show about two spoiled heiresses (parodies of Paris and Nicole) wanders into their traveling fair, just in time for dinner.

The cast of 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams