DVD review (region 2)
Directed by Tim Sullivan
Starring Bill Moseley, Lin Shaye, Christa Campbell, Nivek Ogre, Andrea Leon, Ahmed Best, Asa Hope
Release date Out now

A TV crew filming the reality show Road Rascals come across the Maniacs in the middle of the country. The cast and crew think it’s a perfect chance to film a slice of hillbilly life. The Maniacs think it’s a perfect chance to slaughter their visitors in a variety of gory ways…

For his sequel to 2005’s remake of Two Thousand Maniacs!, Tim Sullivan takes the splatstick pic to ever more insane heights.

The ramshackle and rather repetitive plot barely holds together at times, but surely few viewers are expecting a brain-bending Inception-style narrative here. Yet if you're after a ready supply of old-school splatter effects, rapid fire gags and copious nudity – and if you’re watching a movie called ‘2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams’, you probably are – then Sullivan’s sequel delivers in spades.

With Robert Englund gone, it’s up to Bill Moseley and his Repo!: The Genetic Opera co-star Nivek Ogre to deliver the comic craziness, and Lin Shaye is back as the charming/nutty-as-a-fruitcake Granny Boone. Gorehounds will lap up the array of blood-spattered practical effects, as the Confederate villagers proceed to squash, break, impale and slice up their guests in various imaginative but none-too-realistic ways.

You also get some merciless mocking of Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie in the form of two no-talent wannabe stars, a hillbilly who likes shagging a stuffed sheep and a musical number entitled Cannibal Rock. It ain’t subtle and some of the gags fall flat, but if you enjoyed the scarlet-coloured likes of Hatchet or Wrong Turn 2, you’ll love it.

The DVD comes with a lively ‘making of’ which (unlike way too many EPK featurettes) sheds genuine light on the production, including showing us how the gory set-pieces were created. Matt McAllister

VERDICT: 7/10
Deliriously OTT but well-made gore-com that’s made with passion, pace and a sense of fun.

Click here to read an interview with director Tim Sullivan.