Two Thousand Maniacs
Starring:William Kerwin, Connie Mason, Jeffrey Allen, Ben Moore, Gary Bakeman, Jerome Eden, Shelby Livingston, Michael Korb, Yvonne Gilbert, Mark Douglas, Linda Cochran, Vincent Santo, Andy Wilson, Candi Conder, The Pleasant Valley Boys, Paul Champion, Charles Glore
Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis
Studio: Image Entertainment
Product Type: DVD
Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
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
Description
An entire town bathed in pulsing human blood from madmen crazed for carnage! The 2000 Maniacs of a small Southern town celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Civil War by forcing a handful of Northerners to serve as "guests" for a variety of macabre, blood-crazed fun and games. The festivities include a screaming man placed in a rolling barrel lined with nails, a hit-the-bull's-eye carnival game with a pretty gal and a boulder, and a blonde sexpot whose arm is hacked off and barbecued! But before they can slaughter the only smart Yank (Thomas Wood), he and the lovely Terry Adams (Connie Mason, "Playboy's Favorite Playmate") try to escape.
Average customer rating:
- Southern Hospitality
- The movie that started it all...
- "In 100 years, we'll be chasing them Yankees in rocketships!"
- Worth seeing... Once.
- Southern Discomfort...
|
Two Thousand Maniacs
Starring: William Kerwin , Connie Mason , Jeffrey Allen , Ben Moore , and Gary Bakeman
Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
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- Blood Feast
- 2001 Maniacs
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- The Herschell Gordon Lewis Collection (The Gore Gore Girls / A Taste of Blood / She-Devils on Wheels / The Gruesome Twosome / The Wizard of Gore / Something Weird)
- Wizard Of Gore (Special Edition)
ASIN: B00004KDES
Release Date: 2000-02-22 |
Amazon.com
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
Description
An entire town bathed in pulsing human blood from madmen crazed for carnage! The 2000 Maniacs of a small Southern town celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Civil War by forcing a handful of Northerners to serve as "guests" for a variety of macabre, blood-crazed fun and games. The festivities include a screaming man placed in a rolling barrel lined with nails, a hit-the-bull's-eye carnival game with a pretty gal and a boulder, and a blonde sexpot whose arm is hacked off and barbecued! But before they can slaughter the only smart Yank (Thomas Wood), he and the lovely Terry Adams (Connie Mason, "Playboy's Favorite Playmate") try to escape.
Customer Reviews:
Southern Hospitality.......2007-04-30
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.
The movie that started it all..........2007-03-05
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. **
"In 100 years, we'll be chasing them Yankees in rocketships!".......2006-12-19
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.
Worth seeing... Once........2005-08-16
'Two Thousand Maniacs' is apparently the second gore flim ever made. Technically speaking, it's superior to Lewis's 'Blood Feast' in pretty much every way, but I think I like that film more than this one. Suffice to say, you can be a lot better than 'Blood Feast' and still really not be very good, which this film proves amply. The direction is less flat, the acting is somewhat more natural, or intentionally over the top, rather than by accident, as it appeared to be in 'Blood Feast'. Still, this movie is quite a bit longer than 'Blood Feast', which is liable to hurt you, and the intentional humor and wackiness of this film can't match the unintentional humor and wackiness of that movie. Also, it's quite a bit less gory, though it's still severely out there by the standards of the time. Occasionally, the film does manage to generate a somewhat disturbing atmosphere, via the juxtaposition of the violence and the jovial behavior of the southern town. Of course, some people think the light-hearted behavior of the townsfolk actually lessens the impact, so you never know.
Most people seem to think that 'Two Thousand Maniacs!' stands out from Lewis's other films because it actually has something going for it other than the violence, i.e. the nutty southern townfolk. I'll admit it, there over the top antics are kinda amusing for a while, but it starts to were thin well before the film is over. (Much like how the terrible acting/dialogue in 'Blood Feast' starts to lose interest pretty quickly, though I found that stuff more amusing to begin with) Southerner's may not be too fond of how they're portrayed here, but it's so over the top that it really shouldn't be taken personally. The film also earns some points for it's somewhat novel premise. (For those who don't know, it's about a group of northerner's who are tormented and assailed by the ghosts of a southern town that was massacred in the Civil War.) Also, the countrified soundtrack is kinda fun, particularly the theme song.
Overall, this film certainly isn't great, or even good, but it's sufficiently amusing, and is definitely worth a look for serious horror fans.
Grade: C
Southern Discomfort..........2005-04-28
2K MANIACS is a blessedly twisted ghost story with enough goofy gore and bad acting to satisfy any / all fans of cinematic idiocy. Herschel Gordon Lewis' opus of hicktown vengeance is a marvel considering it's 1964 release date! Without the bloodletting, TWO THOUSAND MANIACS would be fairly dull. With the scenes of communal sadism however, it's like watching a bizarre cross between THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW, HEE HAW, and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE! Never before (or since) have so many hillbillies gathered together in order to mutilate and kill unwary visitors from north of the Mason / Dixon line! Lewis has created a ghoulish feast of horror, a cautionary tale for any who would dare travel to the southern hinterlands! Beware! Rufe and Lester just might be waiting, putting up their fake detour sign, and hoping a car full of damn yankees will happen by! Stay away from Pleasant Valley! Drive right on past and avoid it's hellish centennial celebration! Don't end up like the poor saps who were cut, chopped, hacked, drawn and quartered, crushed, poked, and otherwise eviscerated! You have been warned...
Average customer rating:
|
The Blood Trilogy: Blood Feast/Two Thousand Maniacs!/Color Me Blood Red
Starring: Gordon Oas-Heim , Candi Conder , Elyn Warner , Pat Lee , and Jerome Eden
Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
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Similar Items:
- The Herschell Gordon Lewis Collection (The Gore Gore Girls / A Taste of Blood / She-Devils on Wheels / The Gruesome Twosome / The Wizard of Gore / Something Weird)
- The Mario Bava Collection, Volume 1 (Black Sunday / Black Sabbath / The Girl Who Knew Too Much / Kill Baby Kill / Knives of the Avenger)
- Cannibal Ferox
- Hollywood's Legends of Horror Collection (Doctor X / The Return of Doctor X / Mad Love / The Devil Doll / Mark of the Vampire / The Mask of Fu Manchu)
- Re-Animator
ASIN: B0002B55FC
Release Date: 2006-10-03 |
Description
Herschell Gordon Lewis' pioneering "gore" films in deluxe Special Editions! First, Mrs. Fremont hires crackpot Egyptian cultist Fuad Ramses to cater a party--and he prepares a Blood Feast made from the grisly body parts of nubile young women. The world's first gore film! Then the Two Thousand Maniacs of a small Southern town celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Civil War by forcing a handful of Northerners to serve as "guests" in their macabre, blood-crazed fun and games. And when his girlfriend, Gigi, cuts her finger on a frame, maniacal artist Adam Sorg discovers a new shade of crimson that will make his artwork so special--human blood--in the shocktacular Color Me Blood Red.
Average customer rating:
- Southern Hospitality
- The movie that started it all...
- "In 100 years, we'll be chasing them Yankees in rocketships!"
- Worth seeing... Once.
- Southern Discomfort...
|
Two Thousand Maniacs!
Starring: William Kerwin , Connie Mason , Jeffrey Allen , Ben Moore , and Gary Bakeman
Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD
General
| Horror
| Genres
| DVD
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( T )
| Titles
| Features
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| Westerns
Similar Items:
- Blood Feast
- 2001 Maniacs
- Color Me Blood Red
- The Herschell Gordon Lewis Collection (The Gore Gore Girls / A Taste of Blood / She-Devils on Wheels / The Gruesome Twosome / The Wizard of Gore / Something Weird)
- Wizard Of Gore (Special Edition)
ASIN: B00005MFI3 |
Amazon.com
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
Customer Reviews:
Southern Hospitality.......2007-04-30
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.
The movie that started it all..........2007-03-05
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. **
"In 100 years, we'll be chasing them Yankees in rocketships!".......2006-12-19
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.
Worth seeing... Once........2005-08-16
'Two Thousand Maniacs' is apparently the second gore flim ever made. Technically speaking, it's superior to Lewis's 'Blood Feast' in pretty much every way, but I think I like that film more than this one. Suffice to say, you can be a lot better than 'Blood Feast' and still really not be very good, which this film proves amply. The direction is less flat, the acting is somewhat more natural, or intentionally over the top, rather than by accident, as it appeared to be in 'Blood Feast'. Still, this movie is quite a bit longer than 'Blood Feast', which is liable to hurt you, and the intentional humor and wackiness of this film can't match the unintentional humor and wackiness of that movie. Also, it's quite a bit less gory, though it's still severely out there by the standards of the time. Occasionally, the film does manage to generate a somewhat disturbing atmosphere, via the juxtaposition of the violence and the jovial behavior of the southern town. Of course, some people think the light-hearted behavior of the townsfolk actually lessens the impact, so you never know.
Most people seem to think that 'Two Thousand Maniacs!' stands out from Lewis's other films because it actually has something going for it other than the violence, i.e. the nutty southern townfolk. I'll admit it, there over the top antics are kinda amusing for a while, but it starts to were thin well before the film is over. (Much like how the terrible acting/dialogue in 'Blood Feast' starts to lose interest pretty quickly, though I found that stuff more amusing to begin with) Southerner's may not be too fond of how they're portrayed here, but it's so over the top that it really shouldn't be taken personally. The film also earns some points for it's somewhat novel premise. (For those who don't know, it's about a group of northerner's who are tormented and assailed by the ghosts of a southern town that was massacred in the Civil War.) Also, the countrified soundtrack is kinda fun, particularly the theme song.
Overall, this film certainly isn't great, or even good, but it's sufficiently amusing, and is definitely worth a look for serious horror fans.
Grade: C
Southern Discomfort..........2005-04-28
2K MANIACS is a blessedly twisted ghost story with enough goofy gore and bad acting to satisfy any / all fans of cinematic idiocy. Herschel Gordon Lewis' opus of hicktown vengeance is a marvel considering it's 1964 release date! Without the bloodletting, TWO THOUSAND MANIACS would be fairly dull. With the scenes of communal sadism however, it's like watching a bizarre cross between THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW, HEE HAW, and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE! Never before (or since) have so many hillbillies gathered together in order to mutilate and kill unwary visitors from north of the Mason / Dixon line! Lewis has created a ghoulish feast of horror, a cautionary tale for any who would dare travel to the southern hinterlands! Beware! Rufe and Lester just might be waiting, putting up their fake detour sign, and hoping a car full of damn yankees will happen by! Stay away from Pleasant Valley! Drive right on past and avoid it's hellish centennial celebration! Don't end up like the poor saps who were cut, chopped, hacked, drawn and quartered, crushed, poked, and otherwise eviscerated! You have been warned...
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