Two Thousand Maniacs!

The second part of the blood trilogy that began with Blood Feast.

This one is considerably more professional than the first. But it still as its short comings. Acting is variable. And the plot is weak and does not make a lot of sense. The gore scenes (which is probably the reason why you are watching) are great. And even quite brutal, although the film is too camp to take too seriously. The music is also great and very fitting.

It does suffer from two annoying things however. The annoying little boy for one. But I do think they knew how annoying he was, because at the end even the villagers don't want him back. The other thing is how long the film takes to end. Its got more endings than Spielberg film.

Still its pretty good and worth it if you like gore films...

After his successful début, Blood Feast (1963), which introduced cinema audiences to splatter horror, Herschell Gordon Lewis made his redneck horror movie, Two Thousand Manics!. Just a few years later, horror movies set in America's Deep South were all the rage, and are still a popular location for some gruesome slicing and dicing (Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil (2010) made fun of the racial stereotyping), so perhaps we have this film to thank for the likes of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and Deliverance (1972). And Lewis goes all out, with Dixie flags aplenty and thick-accented inbred simpletons in dungarees, in what is a noticeable improvement on his ropey début.

Celebrating their centennial, the town of Pleasant Valley welcome six Yankee visitors who unwittingly drive into their celebrations. The town's mayor, Buckman (Jeffrey Allen - who went on to star in a few of Lewis's films), promises them some of that famous Southern hospitality, but with his two retarded henchman, plans to butcher them all to gain vengeance for a massacre committed a hundred years previously in the midst of the American Civil War. Terry Adams (Connie Mason), who has picked up hitch-hiker Tom (William Kerwin) on his way to a 'teacher's conference', notice their fellow Yankees disappearing under strange circumstances and attempt to flee the increasingly bizarre town.

Everything about this film looks more professional than Blood Feast, with a more patient approach taken with the moments of gore, and less atrocious editing and camera-work. Don't get me wrong though, the Lewis tropes are there - mannequin limbs, dodgy sound editing, paint-red gore, but it just seems that little bit better. It's still a dreadful film, with Feast's block-headed cheeseball William Kerwin - who actually had a pretty successful acting career - returning for more ham-fisted dialogue delivery, and elongated moments of tedium, but it's still quite fun. The gore is certainly better handled, with everything from dismemberment-by- horse and being pushed down a hill in a barrel full of nails being use to satisfy the blood lust. Which makes it all the more strange that Lewis seemed to retreat back into complete ineptitude after this, with his next film, Color Me Blood Red (1965) being the worst of his 'Blood Trilogy', and the long line of nudie cuties and Z-grade horror films that followed. Still, it's a must-see for horror fans.

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This was a frustrating, hilarious and an inventive watch. The audio was horrific, the camera work shoddy and the edits were hilarious in their ineptitude. The kills and the story were inventive and worth the watch if you can get past the horrendous dialogue (everyone is a walking, talking exposition machine). I recommend this if you are a purveyor of absolute schlock and in need of a good laugh. I had originally marked this as 3/10 but theres a certain quicksand scene that made me guffaw to the point of having tears in my eyes, so i had to mark it up!

Decided to watch this film, but I really was not very sure if I was going to enjoy this flick with unknown actors, but as I started to view this film I became very interested. A young couple gets themselves involved with a town where strange things start to happen to people. The town's folks remember the Civil War days when their town was destroyed by the Yankee's up North and it seems this town celebrates this event by having Yankee guests participate in some games of chance for both men and women. These games of chance will greatly surprise you and you just will not believe just what is going on until it actually happens. There is one scene when a man gets into a barrel and rolls down a hill which becomes very tragic. This is a rather short film, but great to view on Halloween night, or anytime you find it showing on TCM. Enjoy.

"Two Thousand Maniacs" is a wonderful Brigadoon-esque film about two groups of Yankees who become guests of honors for the southern town of Pleasant Valley's centennial. What these "guests" don't realize, though, is that they are going to be murdered in bizarre (and I mean, BIZARRE) fashions because of a war lost by the south 100 years ago.

The festivities include a woman being dismembered and barbecued, a man being quartered with four horses, and the infamous "barrel roll" sequence where a man is pushed down a hill in a barrel that has nails driven into its sides.

The movie altogether has a wacky, feel-good charm (despite its gruesome nature) that keeps you smiling, and you'll surely be singing its theme song after the movie's over! I sure as hell was.