Blood Red States

Movies: Two Thousand Maniacs!


Two Thousand Maniacs! is a gore/'hicksploitation' film directed by one of the masters of gore, Herschell Gordon Lewis. I saw it as a midnight movie feature, which is probably the best way to see such a film since the sleep deprivation definitely adds to the experience.

Two Thousand Maniacs! takes place in a southern town called Pleasant Valley (population 2,000. Get it!?) where the locals lure 6 yankees into their town and explain that they are the town's "guests of honor" for the Centennial celebration they are having. Well, the film takes place in April 1965, so one century ago it would have been...OH EM GEE! The end of the Civil War (aka "The War of Northern Aggression")! So what do these weird hicks want with a handful of unsuspecting northerners? To kill them in the most creative and unintentionally hilarious ways possible.

So I went into this movie thinking it would be wall-to-wall splatter and dismemberment, but actually the film is quite tame. You do indeed see Yanks getting killed in interesting ways, but you only see glimpses of blood and carnage. I mean, it's not like I was salivating for bloodshed, but when I go to a exploitative gore picture, I expect exploitation and gore. This movie would probably be a soft PG rating today.

A quick fact check on imdb.com reveals that director Lewis was himself a yankee--born in Pittsburgh, got his college degree at Northwestern. That adds an interesting layer to his portrayal of southerners as, well, dumb hicks (and psychopaths) in this film. Lewis seems to have no problem brutally mocking those who live below the Mason-Dixon Line. But I'm probably reading too much into a film that wasn't made to make a statement about north-south relations, but simply to shock and entertain the viewer. Sadly, the most entertaining aspect of Two Thousand Maniacs! was the group of hecklers sitting behind me in the theatre. When a bunch of yokels hold down the comely yankee woman to cut her arm off with an ax, one of them called out: "Look, a Tennessee sniper!". Har.

2.5 out of 5 stars