Coning off as a cross between "Demons" and "Return of the living dead", this is the movie that "return of the living dead: rave to the grave" should have been. And of it had been, that series might have been able to continue on, instead of screeching to a sudden half. Not to say that this movie is Oscar winning sh*t. The acting is pretty bad, and the makeup and effects are pretty hokey, but it is a winner compared to the before mentioned film

Directed by Richard Griffin who has a prolific career in the low budget indie circuit that spans fifteen years. Raving Maniacs is about four Goth teens, who attend the biggest party of the year, the "Rave from the Grave" Hence part of the title (Raving), get it? They nearly knock over a man who has a supply of a new drug, that is fluorescent green, and they have no qualms in taking the drug ASAP. Little do they know that the drug will have deadly side effects. As my summary (above) states, this did remind me a lot of Demons (1985) and Rabid (1977). Firstly, the film is set in a night club, that looks very much like a theatre and some of the lighting of the demons walking around reminded me of that (lit from behind in silhouette). Then there is the concept of people being possessed and becoming sexual deviants, hence the Rabid reference. I enjoyed this feature and thought it to be a commendable effort on a low budget. Character development was good and we got to know the teens before they were placed in peril. Sound was good and all dialogue was audible. Effects were good and some quite gory. All in all gets a thumbs up from me.

Raving Maniacs starts as Tuesday (Emily Morettini) & her boyfriend JT (Andrew Vallenoweth) arrive at brother & sister Jacob (Ryan Patrck Kenny) & Katie's (Christine Peltier) house to pick them up in preparation for a night out clubbing at The Strand which is holding a special Halloween event called Rave to the Grave. Once they get there they waste no time in enjoying themselves, unfortunately their enjoyment doesn't last long because there's a bright green drug doing the rounds that turns the user into a flesh-eating maniac & that's about all that happens.Co-written & directed by Richard Griffin I hated Raving Maniacs & it is yet another piece of crap low budget horror film-making the likes of which gives the genre that I love a bad name. According to the IMDb Raving Maniacs has four credited screenwriters & another two credited with 'additional material' & quite frankly I find that astonishing, I find it unbelievable that it took six people to write this turd of a film. For a start the basic story is all over the place & doesn't make any sense, where does this green drug come from? Is it a living organism that takes control of people's minds? Does it just want to multiply in our bodies? Why does it make some people flesh-eating maniacs while it just kills other's? The story never sets itself any parameter's & it just goes off all over the place without any regard for little things like continuity & there's no defined set of rules by which this piece of crap wants to stick too. Then there's the fact that absolutely nothing happens for an hour, seriously there's some really bad dialogue between the character's which at the end of the day means nothing like a pathetic discussion about plastic cups & there's an absolute ton of pointless & extremely tedious padding like following some geek around who likes computer games for no apparent reason. There's one funny bit though when JT turns on his girlfriend & says she deserves to die because she went out with some other guy he doesn't like, I sat there & considered the evidence & then I shouted 'hey, he has a bloody good point!' at the telly! Anyway, the first hour consist's of the four main character's turning up to the rave & dancing a bit, honestly that's it as nothing else significant or particularly relevant happens. Once the flesh-eating eventually starts it's of the lamest quality, it's not scary, it's more or less a rip-off of Demons (1985) only replacing the cinema from that film with a night club, it's not even particularly gory & certainly not worth waiting for.Director Griffin does nothing to make this boring tedious mess of a film watchable & it's another one of those ugly, cheap looking shot on a digital camcorder type affairs which I hate, I so much prefer the look of proper film rather than video or am I just being a film snob? There could have been a strong anti drugs message hidden in Raving Maniacs & the dangers of they're use but guess what? The filmmakers weren't intelligent enough to try & make a moral point & instead it says nothing about the dangers of todays escalating drug culture. The gore is cheap & ineffective, you know just covering your actors in cranberry juice was not enough 20 years ago & it certainly isn't enough these days. There's the usual ultra cheap effect of having your actor lay on the floor holding their breath & place some fake guts on top of their bare stomach to simulate their intestines having been ripped out but it's been used to death recently & it looks pretty fake here, there's a poked out eyeball, a bit of fake intestine eating & basically nothing else.One of the reasons why Raving Maniacs looks so rubbish, has poor special effects & is generally a crap film might be the fact that it had a paltry budget of about $10,000 which proves the point you get what you pay for. The acting was terrible & I sat there after the first 10 minutes wishing they (the character's, not the real life actors!) would all die, horribly.Raving Maniacs was crap, I know what people are going to say 'what do you expect?' & 'well it was low budget' which is fine & if you want to waste your hard earned money along with 90 minutes of your life watching crap like this then go right on ahead, for anyone else who has any reasonable taste in films do yourself a favour & avoid it. Another disappointing independent low budget horror film that sucks.