2000 Maniacs (1964)

Flush from the breakthrough success of Blood Feast in 1963, producer David F. Friedman and pioneering goremeister Herschell Gordon Lewis followed up a year later with Two Thousand Maniacs!. The drive-in movie would never be the same. Filmed in 14 days in St. Cloud, Florida, on a luxurious budget of $62,000, this instant cult classic revels in the grisly fate of three unwitting Yankee couples who've been falsely detoured to the Southern hick town of Pleasant Valley (population 2000--get it?). These unlucky lovers are the guests of honor at a Confederate centennial celebration. What they don't know is that the twisted citizens of Pleasant Valley are vengeful ghosts of the Civil War, determined to dispatch their "guests" in deviously unpleasant ways. Simply put, Two Thousand Maniacs! (with Blood Feast) is the original "splatter" film.

On the murder menu: death by amputation, dismemberment by horses (one per limb), crushing by boulder, and, the most unsettling (or creative?), death by barrel rolling... with flesh-ripping nails in the sides. Tame by later standards yet still absurdly shocking, Two Thousand Maniacs! is the pure, funny-freaky essence of exploitation cinema, complete with the obligatory Playboy Playmate (Connie Mason) in the cast. Lewis (a former literature professor, no less) frequently cited this as his proudest achievement, and who's going to argue? With its crude direction, atrocious acting, and delirious redneck flavor, the movie genuinely deserves its place in cinema history, its dubious entertainment value proving surprisingly durable through the decades. A milestone of movie bloodletting, it was followed, appropriately enough, by Color Me Blood Red in 1965. --Jeff Shannon Amazon.com

Not as gruesome as you'd expect

This was the first movie I had seen by HG Lewis. There is pretty much no gore at all compared to his other movies. This one isn't very good, but it's entertaining. The remake is pretty funny too October 23, 2008

A plate of Creepy with all the right sides

Where to start, well, the southern accents are bad, plain and simple, in fact, the best portrayed southern accent was by Tom White (William Kerwin), whom was, in the film, simulating the twang in attempt to phone out of Plesantville. Additionally, Lester MacDonald (Ben Moore) and Rufus Tate (Gary Bakeman) gave horrible portrayals. Rufus being in a pressed clean shirt, an obviously new hat and perfectly white teeth, not to mention a ghastly attempt at a southern drawl. Coupled with Lester, whose character made a more valiant attempt at being the country bumpkin, wearing overalls and covered in dirt. However, Moore's overacting was enough to make your teeth itch. In addition, the audio is bad, the dialogue sounds as if the players are shouting in a small quonset hut (although, the sound track is awesome and fitting).
That being said, believe it or not, I enjoyed the movie. The hokiness seemed to fit and some of the scenes of gore were great. Guy cuts woman's thumb while showing her his knife's sharpness. To resolve the matter, he cuts off her thumb. Things obviously out of hand (no pun intended), brings the bleeding, crying woman to the town mayor where they cut off her arm, in spite of her thumb (pun intended), priceless and silly, in a backwoods, Deliverance kind of way.
In one scene, the troupe of maniacs separate husband and wife David Wells (Michael Korb) and Beverly Wells (Yvonne Gilbert). After some pressuring, you see David being lead up a hill where there is a yellow barrel with the confederate flag affixed to the surface. The barrel is on its side and without top or bottom. They tell David that is it a tradition to have a Yankee crawl through the barrel before it is rolled (you can see where this is going). Naturally he resists, however, they coerce/bully him to travel through, and as you can guess, once inside the barrel, they hold him there. Although, before the barrel is pushed down the gently sloping mound, the mayor produces a hammer and some wicked looking long nails which he then pounds into the barrel. Needless to say, David didn't make it through the ordeal. This was sinister indeed, I found myself proclaiming the proverbial "No Way". Another gruesome demise was when John Miller (Jerome Eden) was Quartered (pulled apart by four horses). Speaking of this, which I found a little misplaced. After the quartering, the group that was once elated, became sullen, after an uncomfortable silence, Lester said something along the lines of "You know what happens to those that don't follow through" this didn't fit, no harm though, the scene was quickly recovered.
The movie continues in an expected way with the Hero and Heroine narrowly escaping after the usual cat and mouse. Beverly Wells, is smashed by a boulder that is propped up and rigged to drop in the fashion you may see with a carnival dunk tank. There is an epic twist though, that I enjoyed very much and it is here that I will stop, I feel that in this case, to give it away, would make it a little less enjoyable. I will state that the remake with Robert Englund is very good, adhering to the original interpretation and incorporates more humor (without ruining the feel). The remake also had a superior set, where the original utilized a more modern town that didn't fit. In addition, 2001 Maniacs expounded on the ending's twist, in a way that I thought improved the film. We can't discount though, the plain creepiness of some of the characters in the original, I got the feeling that these people, really were homicidal inbred yolkels. Happy Horrors
August 19, 2008

Southern Hospitality

Blood Feast may be Lewis' most famous film and the one that he'll always be remembered by, but 2000 Maniacs is seen as probably his best film by many fans. The budget's higher(just a bit), the acting is better(but just a bit), and the story is more imaginative(quite a bit). Though it's a gore film, I'd have to say that Blood feast was actually gorier than this one. But 2000 Maniacs(due to the budget it looks more like 20 maniacs) manages to be entertaining coz it actually is interesting and funny. Blood Feast only had the gore going for it(as well as a few laughs), coz you really can't say it was terribly interesting as far as story goes. But any way you slice it, both 2000 Maniacs and Blood feast are required viewing for the cult/exploitation/horror film fan, as well as any film historian for that matter. April 30, 2007

The movie that started it all...

Two Thousand Maniacs! (Herschell Gordon Lewis, 1964)

I think I may be the last fan of gore movies on earth to see Herschell Gordon Lewis' infamous Two Thousand Maniacs!, an exploitation-flick take on Brigadoon whose influence on the horror film genre cannot be overstated. In other words, everything there is to say about this hugely amusing little flick has already been said, and probably better than I would say it. This flick, right here, is the genesis of the "inventive ways to kill people" movie; in other words; it's pretty hard to think of more than one or two American horror flicks a year since The Abominable Dr. Phibes that aren't influenced by this movie, as outright bad as it is.

And yes, it is bad. The special effects have the cheesiness for which Lewis is known. The acting plumbs depths of "hideous" that even exploitation films rarely explore. The script is threadbare in its best moments, and unintentionally hilarious throughout. Is Two Thousand Maniacs! bad? You'll have more suspense waiting for an answer if you ask the kid behind the counter at Taco Bell what a beef and bean burrito is made of. And yet, it's driven by such earnestness and played so straight that it transcends bad; it's got the kind of cornball appeal that lends rewatchability, though I grant you that you'll get much more of a kick out of it the second (and third and fourth and...) time around if you're at a party and doing some serious drinking. ** March 5, 2007

"In 100 years, we'll be chasing them Yankees in rocketships!"

What can one say about this film?

It is easily one of, if not the BEST Herschell Gordon Lewis films.

The plot is intriguing, the acting decent (exception for Connie Mason), the gore pretty good (Especially the barrel roll sequence. Its very chilling)

This movie is a hoot, and as others have said, the commentary track is very VERY interesting as well. December 19, 2006

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