Two Thousand Maniacs!

Two carloads of travellers are diverted to the quirky town of Pleasant Valley where they become guests of honour at the centennial Civil War celebrations. But these are far from ordinary commemorations, and as the title suggests, the town's population aren't fond of Yankees as their sinister brand of southern hospitality is gradually revealed.

Early hicksploitation horror no doubt inspired 'The Cars that Ate Paris' and does a good job at depicting the isolation and increasing discomfort experienced by the reluctant guests as they begin to suspect something more unsavoury than bootleg might be brewing.

Notwithstanding the outrageous plot, there's one or two moments of genuine terror, and despite being occasionally absurd HGL's sadistic shocker has a bigger budget than his previous attempts and shows more technical polish (save for some looping issues and stilted dialogue delivery) as a result potentially making it more accessible.

Coherent, imaginative, chilling and ultimately worthy of celebrated cult status.

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!

"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.

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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It never fails to amaze me what some people have filmed as entertainment. This film, for example, tells the story of a town that magically reappears 100 years after being destroyed by Union soldiers to wreak its vengeance on Yankee tourists. Herschell Gordon Lewis uses his same lack of directorial style, bad actors, and hideous dialogue to incorporate into this cheesy, sleazy, yet highly enjoyable gore film, his second in his gore trilogy. The Southern characterizations alone are so stereotyped and, if I were a Southerner, so offensive that they make the viewer wince more than the bright red that dapples the screen over the various killings such as a woman being made into a barbecue, a man being nailed as a barrel rolls down a hill, another man is quartered, and finally a woman is squashed by a gigantic boulder. The southern "maniacs" have missing teeth, no idea of standard English, always wear overalls and red scarfs about their necks, and lastly have no humanity at all in them....nor does the Yankee cast as not one of them can act either. This film, with its major problems not withstanding, is entertaining solely for its shock element of yesteryear which is now its comedy factor of today. One last note, some people consider this Lewis's masterpiece, but it is decidedly a notch below Blood Feast.....both of which are a notch below most Ed Wood films.