Two Thousand Maniacs!

'Two Thousand Maniacs!' may not get name-dropped as much as the infamous 'Blood Feast', but it is arguably the better and more entertaining movie, and quite possibly Herschell Gordon Lewis' best effort. HGL's budget seems to be a tad bigger this time around, though the acting is just as poor. In fact the two leads (Thomas Wood and Connie Mason) are both from 'Blood Feast', so that explains a lot. The plot in this one concerns a small town in the South that is celebrating its centenary by luring unsuspecting "yankees", and basically torturing them to death. HGL doesn't spare us the gore, but the murders are done with such good humour that the movie ends up with an odd feel somewhere between 'The Beverly Hillbillies' and 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. This is a very silly movie obviously, but also very entertaining fun for those with a strong sense of the absurd.

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.

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.

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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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...