Maníacos

"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.

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...

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!' 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.

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.