| Director Herschell Gordon Lewis and producer David Friedman forged one of the most influential alliances in the history of exploitation cinema. Not only did they make their mark with nudie cuties, sex comedies, and roughies, they were also the innovators of gore in the movie business. Their 1963 effort Blood Feast gave audiences something they had never seen before in a horror genre that had previously only implied bloodshed. Shocked moviegoers saw copious amounts of blood, severed limbs, and miscellaneous organs in living colour. And the entire venture was topped off with a wicked sense of humour. Freidman and Lewis repeated their successful and unique brand of humourous cartoon violence in a number of interesting films that actually benefited from poor performances and gore effects that were so overzealously executed that they became almost surreal. Two Thousand Maniacs! is undoubtedly one of the duo�s best horror efforts. The film opens to a catchy bluegrass number that sets the scene for the mayhem to follow as we see two slack jawed southerners tampering with road signs. The lyrics to the bluegrass ditty are enthusiastically sung by Lewis himself(!). �There�s a story you should know, from a hundred years ago; and a hundred years we�ve waited now to tell� the director hollers to the strains of a frenetic banjo. �Now the Yankees come along, and they�ll listen to this song, and they�ll quake in fear to hear this rebel yell�. Which leads to a chorus of �Yeeeeee haaaaa! Oh the South�s gonna rise again!�. With the help of several deceptive detour signs, stereotypical hayseeds Rufus and Lester lure several carloads of Yankees (they can tell that they�re the enemy from their northern number plates) off the main highway, and into the sleepy town of Pleasant Valley. The population of Pleasant Valley is two thousand strong, hence the title of the movie. The occupants of the first car to arrive in main street are David and Beverly Wells, and their friends John and Bea Miller. A crowd of locals warmly welcome them as John brings their convertible to a halt. It isn�t exactly a normal town. Before the couples arrived, a young boy lynched a cat in front of the delighted locals purely for entertainment. Mayor Earl Buckman negotiates his way through the throng of southerners to welcome their guests. He�s the least trustworthy looking town official since Boss Hogg. �Are we under arrest or something? What the hell�s going on here?� an irritated John asks the Mayor. �Keep your pants on boy, you�re slap bang in the middle of Pleasant Valley� Buckman informs the agitated city boy. Earl Buckman informs him that the residents of Pleasant Valley are celebrating a centenary, and that he and his companions are guests of honour. �We�re celebrating something that happened a hundred years ago. It�s a big deal around here. And part of the ceremony is we get strangers from up north� everything�s for free. It�s an honour dammit!� the Mayor explains. The crowd seems swept up in a kind of hysteria, and in turn they sweep the four out of there car. Anyone would think that the Beatles had come to town. A local Southern belle named Betsy flutters her eyelids at John, and Pleasant Valley�s answer to Lenny from Steinbeck�s Of Mice and Men flirts with Bea. The couple were voted �most likely to succumb to infidelity� at high school, and we can tell that they�ve already fallen for the town�s southern charms. Several more Yankees arrive in another convertible. Either rag tops are the vehicle of choice for northern knife fodder, or David Friedman did an endorsement deal with a local car yard eager to advertise its range of convertible vehicles. The occupants of the second vehicle are more conservative than the wild kids of the first. Tom White (played by William Blood Feast Kerwin) is a teacher who is on his way to a Miami teachers convention. His car broke down a few miles back on the freeway, so he was forced to hitch a lift with Terri. Terri is played by fellow Blood Feast veteran, and easy on the eye Playboy playmate Connie Mason. Despite having an otherwise sultry screen prescence, Mason walks around like Donald Duck throughout this film. Perhaps she has two left feet. Reluctantly, Tom and Terri agree to stay for the festivities. �We got us some good �uns! Dogged if we don�t!� Rufus shouts within earshot of the puzzled tourists. Being the lothario that he is, John takes Terri aside and offers to rescue her from the clutches of the hitch-hiker Tom if he gets out of hand. I suppose if you�re stuck in a one horse town with a Playboy bunny, any pick-up line is worth a try. But Terri just isn�t that kind of girl. Fortunately, Betsy is. She lures John away from Pleasant Valley�s 1/4 star hotel later that afternoon to �show him the town�. �If we�re gonna look over the town, why don�t we start with lovers lane?� the cheating husband asks her coyly. As you may have guessed, the entire centenary is simply a ruse to wreak vengeance on some Yankees. A hundred years earlier, a division of renegade Union soldiers killed and mutilated most of the men, women, and children of Pleasant Valley. The survivors swore an oath to avenge the atrocity, and a hundred years later it�s time to make good on that promise. While John is being distracted by the town bike, the Lenny-like Harper turns on the charms for Bea and they wander into the nearby woods. �Wow� give me those country boys every time� she coos as they make out beneath a shady tree. �Bea, I reckon you�re one of the prettiest gals I ever seen� Harper mumbles. The giant local doesn�t exactly have a way with women. He pulls out his pocket knife, and asks her to feel how sharp the blade is. Bea touches it just to humour him, and Harper deliberately slices her thumb. �Owww! You backwoods hayseed! I�m bleeding� do something!� she screams. �I�ll fix it� I�ll fix it� he assures her. Harper doesn�t do the gentlemanly thing and stop the bleeding with his handcerchief. He yanks on her thumb and finishes the job by slicing the pulsing digit right off with the knife. Bea will never give two thumbs up to anything ever again. Then he drags his kicking, bleeding, and screaming date off to the Mayor�s office. �I�m afraid that looks serious� Buckman notes as he lays the bleeding guest of honour out on his mahogany desk. �Calls for some serious surgery�. On cue, Lester races into the office with an axe and hacks off Bea�s arm. As the celebrations continue, Yankees are drawn and quartered by horses, rolled down a steep hill in a barrel embedded with long nails, and crushed by a boulder in a contraption that looks like it�s straight out of a Roadrunner cartoon. Being a teacher, Tom looks into the local history of the town and realises why they�ve been lured there. He and Terri make a desperate bid to escape the vengeance of a town full of madmen. Like most of the Lewis and Friedman gore outings, Two Thousand Maniacs is a humourous dose of feature length cartoon violence that has a rich trash culture style all of its own. This film was ideally suited to the drive-in circuit, particularly the Southern drive-in circuit. Although it revels in confederate caricatures that the average southerner would find offensive, the northern victims aren�t exactly a sympathetic group. David and Beverly are largely forgettable, John and Dee are adulterous, Terri is a bimbo, and Tom is a school teacher, and hence an authority figure. Young Southern drive-in patrons must have gotten quite a kick out of seeing the home side get the better of the Northern states, at least in a fictitious exploitation context. Most of the lead villains in Two Thousand Maniacs are likeable, and get all the best lines. It�s a route that the slasher cycle would adopt several decades later. Serving despicable knife fodder up to wise cracking killers. Entertainment : 3 out of 4 Watchability : 4 out of 4 Overall : 3.5 out of 4 Reviewed by Blake |
| Two Thousand Maniacs! Directed by H.G. Lewis (U.S.A -1964) |