This film is an incredibly ridiculous supernatural thriller, that falls apart the minute it’s over, as you start to fill in the badly done pieces. It works okay for a while, good enough to keep you watching and wanting to know how it ends. But once some of the film’s mysteries start to unravel, you feel dumber for continuing to watch it. The film only works because of some blatant plot-holes and leaps in logic, that don’t make sense even in a world where Sandra Bullock’s life jumps back and forth between days of the week.

At the beginning of the film Sandra’s told that her husband has died, obviously it’s a horrendous day for her family and she goes to bed much worse for the wear. However the following day, she wakes up to her husband being alive again, and thinks her memories are nothing but a bad dream. But again she wakes up to a dead husband, and suddenly she’s going off the deep end, winding up the day by being committed to a mental hospital. Again she wakes up to her husband being alive. She starts to unravel the mystery of what’s going on, hoping that she can save her husband from dying.

She learns that she has a couple more days to figure out how to stop it all from happening. There’s one unintentionally funny scene where she ponders if he’s worth keeping alive, after she learns about his affair. Which pales in unintentional hilarity, to when she first confronts the fact of her husband being dead, sending his beheaded noggin rolling into the street; my favorite scene in the film. I’ll admit I was a bit interested in how it would come to an end, if it was in fact a self-fulfilling prophecy, something that’s always intrigued me. But once the groaner of an ending played out, and the credits started to roll, the film destroyed any sense of logic.

Premonition is a thriller for those who’ve never unraveled a mystery, and don’t want to spend a second past the end of a film, thinking about what they’ve just seen. Sandra Bullock dramatically over-acts her way through the whole film, ranging from hysterical tears to hysterical terror; her husband played by Julian McMahon, never sells himself as a real guy, I kept thinking he was going to jump into maniacal villain role. The filmmaking is typical Hollywood slickness, but with no real artistic or intelligent touches. But it’s the script that truly fails, with ridiculous scenes full of unrealistic dialog and actions, ending with a huge cheat. (Which I’ll discuss below) – Grade: D (Seen on 6/19/08)

(Full spoiler mode.) So the film ends with Sandra crazily driving after her husband, trying to get him to stop his car before the spot where he’s hit by a truck. She ends up stopping him at the exact place where he was killed and as he tries to pull a u-turn, his brand new car breaks down in the middle of the road, leading to a truck driving straight through him and then nonsensically exploding. Those ridiculous events aren’t even the problems I had with it, because at the beginning of the film, she’s told by a cop that her husband has died. Yet she’s on scene when it happens. Why doesn’t the cop know that or even recognize her? Time is only mixed up for her. They also blatantly cheat another thing in the time-line. There’s a “shocking” shot where her daughter’s face is suddenly mangled. They show later that she accidentally ran through a sliding-glass-door, but in the time-line which they set for the movie, it happens before they learn that daddy is dead, in fact daddy shows up at the hospital. But at the very beginning of the film, when they find out he’s dead, her face is perfectly normal. They should have found another way around this, by shooting her only from the back or something, instead they simply cheat. Not that it would have made this crappy movie any better.

By all rights, I should have enjoyed 2001 Maniacs. It's full of graphic violence, naked girls and over-the-top performances; all the stuff I love about horror films. If you're a horror fan, I suggest you give it a try for those elements alone. It may work for you, where it didn't for me. For some reason it never connected. I'll try to figure out why in the next few paragraphs.

It may have been the horror movie cliche' of the characters getting lost on a road trip; it was especially stupid here, where there is a detour sign in the middle of a wide-open highway, and without much thought they characters follow a backwater dirt road. Where they find a small town and they're welcomed by the most extreme rednecks you've ever met, who offer them to stay for a party. As they were supposed to be on their way to Dayton Beach for a week in a beach house, I really don't think they'd bother. But they're characters in horror films, they're supposed to do stupid things, so it wasn't that.

Soon after this, one of the girls follows a "charming" southern-gentlemen out to a barn for some easy sex, but he decides to draw-and-quarter her instead. She thinks he's tying her up for something kinky, instead he rips her apart limb by limb. It's a pretty original scene, and it's pulled off neatly, with some good camera-work and grotesque special effects. It's the best death in the film, which is full of good bloody work. Overall, I was pretty pleased with the film's kills, they wimp out in a couple of scenes, but for the most part it was pretty graphic.

Robert Englund hams it up as Mayor Buckman, he relishes in the chance to be a lead character in a horror film again. Lin Shaye, who's better known for her comedy work, is a lot of fun here too; she really gets into torturing these kids. Giuseppe Andrews, who was fun in Cabin Fever, puts on a cheesy southern accent, and a cheesier southern suit, and is fun as the psychotic, ladies-man. Horror director Eli Roth has a brief cameo as a nasty hitchhiker, that could have been more fun. The rest of the cast is unknowns, and they're all uniformly terrible and forgettable. That may have been the reason, I need at least one character to connect with, and they were all way too lame to care about.

The story is pretty typical, after following the detour, a group of guys, followed by a group of girls and a biker and his babe show up in this small, hidden town. They're offered to be the guests of honor at the town's annual party. But of course their hosts have nefarious plans for them, i.e., barbecuing them for dinner. They're all dispatched in nasty ways, without putting up much of a fight. That might have been it too, there was no twist or hook, the film takes the path of least resistance, offering up nothing new.

But I've seen plenty of horror films that follow the same-old-storyline and enjoyed them more than 2001 Maniacs. It was decently directed, there are some fun camera angles; but it could have used some more pep, the newbie actors needed a kick in the butt. And I guess that's what it was, all the right horror film elements are here in the right order, but it's presented like business-as-usual, with no spirit and nothing truly compelling.

Maybe it was me, maybe I wasn't in the right mood... but I don't think so. I may give it another try in a few years, I've changed my opinions about movies before, but it's extremely rare. Like I said, if you're a horror fan, give it a chance, it may work for. For now, I'll check out the original, Two Thousand Maniacs!, directed by the legendary Herschell Gordon Lewis, I have a feeling I'll enjoy it a lot more.