FIRST RAVE FOR 2001 MANIACS
During a phone interview last summer, legendary BLOOD FEAST producer David F. Friedman expressed his excitement at the prospect of finally seeing a cut of Tim Sullivan’s 2001 MANIACS, the first-time helmer’s reimagining of Friedman and director Herschell Gordon Lewis’ cult splatter classic TWO THOUSAND MANIACS!. ‘I really liked the script Tim and Chris [Kobin] came up with, as it really honored the original,’ he said in August. ‘And I’ve been hearing great things from Chris Tuffin, one of the film’s producers, so I can’t wait to see it.’
On Friday, December 3, the filmmakers privately screened the film for Friedman, who was in LA for a showing of his SHE FREAK at the fourth annual Shock-A-Go-Go cult movie marathon. Friedman was so impressed that he later called Fango with the good news. ‘I can understand why there’s so much buzz in the industry over the movie, because it exceeded my expectations,’ he tells us. ‘Tim has managed to remake a classic exploitation movie and create a modern movie with the joke intact. I think audiences will be thrilled when they see it.’
Following the film’s British sale during the recent American Film Market, American distributors have been champing at the bit to see the film, according to Friedman. The demand has been so great that a special Los Angeles cast and crew screening is currently being scheduled for early January, he tells Fango. ‘I’m hearing that Robert Englund will be there and most of the other cast members and maybe some lucky Fango fans,’ he says.
‘If this film turns out to be my final hurrah,’ adds Friedman, who will celebrate his 81st birthday December 24 and has actively retired from film producing, ‘then I’ll go out on a blaze of glory.’
Courtesy of Fangoria
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