Before I’m drawn and quartered, it’s still better than anything else being made today. But it is considered the quintessential Lewis movie, and I nominate Blood Feast, Gruesome Twosome, Wizard of Gore and Gore Gore Girls as all being considerably better than Two Thousand Maniacs. I just wanted to express that opinion. Thank you for allowing me to speak my mind, now on with the review.

Obviously, it would be stupid to think 2,001 Maniacs, Tim Sullivan’s 21st century update of the gory southern classic, could ever top the original. And we’ve all seen what happens when movies nobody in their right mind should touch — *cough, cough* Wicker Man *dry heave, explosive diarrhea*.

Lewis movies are impossible to replicate, no matter how much movie gore technology has improved since those wonderful days when Kaopectate-based fake blood flowed like wine. Lewis’ career was an once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon, a gift hand-delivered from Dio himself. Thankfully, Sullivan, co-producer Eli Roth and others involved with the project were interested in more than just scoring a summer blockbuster off a recognizable name — unlike Roth’s treatment of The Hills Have Eyes a while back. Despite a few flaws inherent with being a modern horror movie, 2,001 Maniacs is a worthy tribute to the awesome original and is as much fun as anything being cranked out today. But it’s not better than the original, so those who say so can probably stop it now.

Let’s start with the bad. The cast, while it does feature some fine-looking women-folk, is a far cry from the delightfully daft and wooden cast that normally graces Lewis’ classics. These frat boys with perpetual boners, while not as annoying as the ones you find in most of today’s movies, leave me dreaming of the days when Abraham Gentry gave us perhaps the greatest on-screen hero — we could adore and worship. And yes, the movie does offer some ridiculously hot women to distract us from the annoying male cast —including incestuous lesbian cousins for those so inclined— but it all feels too far removed from the innocent mayhem of the 60s. It feels like something made today, and it’s kind of depressing to see the motifs of an H.G. Lewis movie seen through a 21st century filter. There’s too much sex going on, which is just another reminder that it’s a product of the remake era. On the bright side, the male lead, Anderson Lee (Jay Gillespie), is a vast improvement over most of the douches we’re asked to accept as heroes today, in that I don’t want to punch him in the throat every second he’s on-screen. In that way, this remake is the anti-Texas Chainsaw Massacre

In this case, the good outweighs the bad. As I’ve noted, this feels more like a loving tribute to Lewis than a cheap exploitation of his name, and it shines through most of the time. Many of the hallmarks of Two Thousand Maniacs— the classic drawn-and-quartered scene is brought back for an encore. The other kills (one guy is melted by acid moonshine, one pays for sodomizing the mayor’s son with a BBQ skewer up the ass, another is squeezed until his eyes pop out, and a girl is crushed with a victory bell) are in the same vein. The producers had the good sense to bring back Lewis’ classic “The South Is Gonna Rise Again” theme song, though the industrial remix version could have easily been nixed for a bigger dose of the original. Overall, the gleeful feeling that flows through the original is prevalent here, and the ending — an homage and update of Lewis’ original — is one of the best I’ve seen in a while. Do I detect a little nod to She Devils on Wheels here? Robert Englund does a pretty good job of updating the Mayor Buckman character, and there are some pretty awesome running jokes — the guy continually trying to have sex with farm animals and the roving banjo duo were my favorites — to keep things loose along the way, though not every one is a classic. Country music star … um, guy … Travis Tritt turns in a murderous cameo, and Kane Hodder even has a one-second cameo as a guy who looks at something.

So, indeed, the south did rise again for a damn fine, though flawed, independent movie. Unlike Blood Feast 2, Lewis apparently didn’t have anything to do with this one, though producer David Friedman was involved. But Sullivan deserves a hug for taking the best parts of a Lewis movie and updating them as best as anyone in the remake era ever has. You’ve got to admire a guy who takes an impossible task and comes as close to succeeding as anyone ever has. Vote Fred Thompson/Bob Allen in 2008!