Two Thousand Maniacs | 
| Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis
Actors: William Kerwin, Connie Mason, Jeffrey Allen, Ben Moore, Gary Bakeman
Studio: Image Entertainment
Category: DVD
List Price: $9.99
Buy New: $4.90
You Save: $5.09 (51%)
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Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 27755
Format: Color, Dvd, Full Screen, Special Edition, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language)
Rating: Unrated
Region: 0
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
DVD Layers: 1
DVD Sides: 1
Picture Format: Pan & Scan
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 83 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.2 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: D5998D
UPC: 014381599824
EAN: 0014381599824
ASIN: B00004KDES
Theatrical Release Date: March 20, 1964
Release Date: February 22, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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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
Product Description
Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 07/17/2007 Run time: 87 minutes Rating: Ur
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| Customer Reviews: Read 23 more reviews...
 Not as great as expected June 22, 2009
vonMoltke (St. Petersburg, Russia)
The long date fame that follows this movie and made me buy a copy aroused probably too many expectations that failed to be met. In my opinion, even put aside the poor fx (due to the time the movie was made), the poor acting and the few (and scarcely explicit) slaughter scenes don't allow a 5 (or even 4) star rating. The idea was interesting and maybe the sequel (I haven't seen yet) has developed it better, but I came from this vision quite disappointed. It still deserves a place in my collection, due at least to its historic significance (I did not suppose such kind of movie possible at such early date). Some unlikely and illogic points and only one suspense scene contribute to put the rating down.
Yeeeeeeeeeeehhhhaaaawwwwwwwww! The south is gonna RISE again! June 11, 2009
S. M. Robare (Duluth, GA USA)
While doing some more research (I was reading Joe Bob Briggs amazing book Profoundly Disturbing) I came across a movie called Blood Feast. The film is sort of considered the grandfather of gore flicks (though the Hammer stuff like Curse of Frankenstein was pumping out some of the red stuff a few years earlier.) So I Netfixed it and fell in love with the film. It was directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, and was the first part of a loose "Blood" trilogy. I promptly rented the second installment, Two Thousand Maniacs, and was double smitten.
Two Thousand Maniacs is an amazingly crazy film that stars one of my favorite B-Movie actors, Bill Kerwin (who I was introduced to in Blood Feast and it's awesomely weird "How to Carve Meat" special feature.) Kerwin is like the William H. Macy of his day, though not nearly as prolific. He had a slightly odd look to him, but was just as cool as any other cat and could take down a town full of redneck killers like nobody's business.
The movie is basically a super low budget exploitation flick about a handful of northern motorists going south for various reasons that are tricked into driving through a small town in Georgia and persuaded to believe that they are the official guests of honor at the towns Centennial celebration. They are in fact nothing of the sort as the town's people have much more nefarious things in mind. The movie does a really good job of being disturbing and showing a lot of gore, which for 1964 is way ahead of it's time. The actors, particularly the ones playing the locals do a wonderful job of being over the top and creepy, some downright evil. It's truly one of those films that lives up to its name. Coincidentally, the film was shot on what was to be the future local of Disney World, which makes visiting the theme park that much more fun as an adult.
I'm Bea Miller March 4, 2009
Shelby J. Livingston (Burbank, CA USA)
I'm quite familiar with this movie. I played Bea Miller and that's my death scene on the cover. I'm looking for the book.
Regards,
Shelby Livingston
 Amazing Hicksploitation from the Godfather of Gore February 26, 2009
Matthew D. Reel (Vail, AZ)
"An Entire Town Bathed In Pulsing Human Blood! Madmen Crazed For Carnage!"
Pleasant Valley is having their Centennial, and they need to collect their Guests of Honor. So, a scheme plays out in the opening frames where yankees are lured into the town for the festivities, all of this played out to one of the most addictive theme songs in the world...
"YEE-HAW! The south's gonna rise again!"
Well, look at the damn title of the movie, there's not going to be any subtlety here... Well, of course we knew that before we even started, this being the second "gore" film by Herschell Gordon Lewis. Of course, this isn't Blood Feast either. In Blood Feast, the first gore film in history, we are treated to a grisly dismemberment within just the first few minutes of the film and the carnage escalated from there. No, Herschell toys around with us here. As an audience, we know (or better well know) that the sauce is going to flow at any minute, but he does the surprising... He tells a story! Instead of administering one brutal murder after another, instead we watch a town preparing for a festival with sadism on their minds... Sure, no gore for a while but we're getting there, we can taste it.
But we've been had (in a good way, stick with me). If we were to follow the same progression as Blood Feast, then you could see each murder as a bloody punch-line to a sick joke. Each murder has a set-up and we are waiting for the resultes with bated breath... But not here, our first bloody act comes out of the blue and soon a woman's thumb is cut off, a moment later her arm...
Well, now we're back on track. Not as high of a body count, nor is the lighting as creative as its predecessor, but there's something to be said about production values. We have a well made romp that reveals a film with results precisely as the doctor intended. Humorous dialogue, sadistic set-up, and... A man is pulled apart by horses, and another is rolled down a barrel lined with nails. Where the hell do you see scenes like that? Certainly not far from the man's catalogue, he pretty much had (and has, if you ask me) the market cornered. And this one, well it's just good old fashioned southern hospitality, have fun and don't keep "Teetering Rock" waiting!
- M.
Rednecks 'N Gore, Yeehaw!!! January 13, 2009
PUMPKIN MAN
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I thought this movie was pretty boring, and the town was like Mayberry and Hazzard put together! There was too many rednecks and white trash, it seemed like a Rob Zombie film! I did love all the gore scenes. If you are a redneck and love gore, you might like TWO THOUSAND MANIACS!!!
p.s. The South WON'T rise again!!!
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