Tim Sullivan's sequel to the surprisingly entertaining 2001 Maniacs is finally here after being in development for a few years. Tim had problems finding the right funding for the film, which after seeing the movie, I can see why. While the first was a fun gore-filled ride, with lots of quirky characters and humor, its sequel is nothing more than a low-budget softcore wannabe splatter flick.

What the hell happened? I read the script before the project moved forward and it sounded like it would have much of what made the first so entertaining, but I guess with its incredibly limited budget and lack of a talented cast and crew,  it was doomed from the start.

The story moves from Pleasant Valley to some undetermined location, after the local sheriff decides that enough is enough, and tells the maniacs that he refuses to cover for them any longer. After quickly disposing of the sheriff, the maniacs decide that if the north won't come to them that the south will just have to go to the north.

So.. they hit the road in a bus that they mysteriously get a hold of and set up camp off a road where they encounter the cast and crew of a crappy reality show that follows a couple spoiled bitches -- Tim's poor attempt at spoofing the dated Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie when they were still in the spotlight with their show The Simple Life. I guess nobody told Tim that the show ended a few years ago..

Right from the start, actually, right when I put the DVD into the player, I knew immediately that this would not be a good film. Not that the trailers made it out to be anything more, but I didn't expect the film to be of this poor caliber. The DVD menu alone is enough to give the viewer fair warning of the cinematic atrocities ahead, but I pressed on, hoping that it would at least be a somewhat fun watch.

To some extent I did have some fun watching the pic, but only because it's so bad it's "good". While the intentional comedy falls flat, the rest of the film, from the acting, script, effects, and even audio, was hilarious! If it weren't for some familiar faces in the cast, you'd think it was filmed by high school students for film class. For one, the audio is horrendous -- a lot of scenes had the voices dubbed over in post, so the dialogue from the actors could be heard better, but it sounded as though they were talking from inside a box, it was so bad.

Then there's the gore, which was a definite highlight in the first -- aside from one kill where a girl gets split in half with a saw, the deaths and gore were very amateurish. Not only that, but the deaths were spread way too far apart, leaving a lot of room for nonsense like a pointless Flashdance spoof with Granny Boone, WTF? Really Tim? Flashdance? *sigh*

Like I said before, I'm not surprised it couldn't get the right funding and why Eli Roth's Raw Nerve production company opted not to produce. Tim admitted in the behind the scenes featurette that to make up for the low-budget that he'd throw in a bunch of nudity and gore, but since the gore fails, all that's left is the nudity and unintentionally funny filmmaking. Tim originally intended to do a third film and complete it as a trilogy, but after seeing this mess, hopefully another sequel never sees the light of day.

A bad movie and even more horrible sequel -- from the script, acting, audio, and directing, this is just an all around bad film. The comedy falls flat, but the movie itself still manages to be funny due to the unintentionally poor filmmaking. If you're like me, and really enjoyed the first then you'll likely hate the sequel. Everything that made the previous effort entertaining is lost here. Avoid!!