Two Thousand Maniacs poster & wallpaper

Ben Moore, Connie Mason, Gary Bakeman

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!...( read more  read more... )I>. 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

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56% liked it

2,902 ratings

Unrated, 1 hr. 26 min.

Directed by: Herschell Gordon Lewis

Release Date: January 1, 1964

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DVD Release Date: February 22, 2000

Stats: 184 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (184)

  • stopitgoaway
    September 30, 2009
    stopitgoaway
    An entire town bathed in pulsing human blood! Madmen crazed for carnage! Brutal...evil..ghastly beyond belief!

    The two thousand maniacs of a small town clebrate the 100th anniversary of the Civil War by forcing a handful of Notherners to serve as "guests" for a variety of macab...( read more)re, 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 te only clever Yank (Thomas Wood), he and the lovely Terry Adams (Connie Mason, "Playboy's Favourite Playmate") try to escape...

    Photographed, written & directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis who has become known as the 'Godfather of Gore' this was the second in his so-called Blood Trilogy following Blood Feast (1963) & followed by Color Me Blood Red (1965) & is a neat enough little exploitation gore film that has a reasonable story behind it. The script moves along at a nice enough pace, it's populated by over-the-top character's & gore although I think the twist ending goes on for too long & could have been edited down to be a bit punchier & dramatic. The basic story here is pretty good, it show's a bit of imagination especially during the set-piece gore scenes & I especially liked the barrel with nails hammered inside which is then rolled down a hill with someone inside, ouch! This is a surprisingly good effort on what was probably intended to be no more than a quick cheap gore film to capitalise on the huge success of Lewis' seminal Blood Feast which is widely regarded as the very first gore film ever made. I liked it.

    Director Lewis has a decent imagination & is good at getting the most out of what must have been tiny budgets (apparently he did the voice over on the trailers for his films because he didn't want to pay anyone) but he really can't direct at all, his films look dull & are very poorly staged. Here for instance look at the reactions of the victims as they appear to be in mortal danger, none of them put up any sort of fight or struggle & almost seem willing to let their tormentors kill them, he just can't direct actor's & Two Thousand Maniacs! is a good case in point. There's some good gore here although tame by todays standards, someone has her thumb cut off & then her arm chopped off with an axe, someone is drawn & quarter having had his arms & legs tied to four separate horse, someone is rolled down a hill in a barrel full of nails which ends in very bloody results at the bottom & someone is squished with a huge boulder. The special effects aren't too bad either although the blood looks a bit bright.

    With a supposed budget of about $65,000 only Two Thousand Maniacs! didn't turn out too bad but it's hardly any work of art & the sound is absolutely terrible. It's sometimes hard to understand what character's are saying as their voices 'echo' on location, there are constant pops & crackles in the soundtrack & the sound effect of those cars at the start sound nothing like cars at all, I have to admit I thought the opening theme was annoyingly catchy. The acting is truly terrible, I'm sorry but there's no other word to describe it.

    Two Thousand Maniacs! is a neat enough exploitative gore film from the 60's with a slightly better story than you would perhaps expect, if that sounds like a film you might like then by all means check it out, if it doesn't then don't.

    A marvelously perverse cult classick, TWO THOUSAND MANIACS! is also the second of the infamous "blood trilogy" (which includes Blood Feast and Colour Me Blood Red) from profucer David F. Friedman (Trader Hornee) and director Herschell Gordon Lewis (Blood Feast). Yeeeee-Ha! Oh, the South's gonna rise again!

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  • rubystevens
    November 10, 2008
    rubystevens
    much better than blood feast and more of a straight up comedy film. awesome banjo soundtrack :D
  • Stinger839
    July 6, 2008
    Stinger839
    Horror Not to Miss List Commentary:
    This middle movie of Herschell Gordon Lewis' Blood trilogy offers a great contrast of the grotesque with large celebration. The acting gets a bit annoying, and any gore hound will complain that their isn't enough blood on the screen, but I ...( read more)think what is there and what is implied is sufficient. I get tired of the victims wandering about befuddled and acting poorly in a "middle of a Twilight Zone episode" sort of way, but it pays off when those scenes cut to a killing ritual occuring simultaneously on the other side of town. Don't waste your time with the over-gored and shitty remake '2001 Maniacs' until you've watched Lewis' hugely influential piece.
    "So Fucked Up" highlight:
    the barrel roll
  • tromafan666
    May 6, 2008
    tromafan666
    Two Thousand Maniacs" is a wonderful Brigadoon-esque film about two groups of Yankees who become guests of honors for the southern town of Pleasant Valley's centennial. What these "guests" don't realize, though, is that they are going to be murdered in bizarre (and I mean, BIZARR...( read more)E) fashions because of a war lost by the south 100 years ago.

    The festivities include a woman being dismembered and barbecued, a man being quartered with four horses, and the infamous "barrel roll" sequence where a man is pushed down a hill in a barrel that has nails driven into its sides.

    The movie altogether has a wacky, feel-good charm (despite its gruesome nature) that keeps you smiling, and you'll surely be singing its theme song after the movie's over! I sure as hell was.
  • YosemiteSamFan
    December 26, 2007
    YosemiteSamFan
    A black comedy as a group of city folks end up as part of a small-town annual celebration, where they become victims in the events. Hillbilly humour and surprisingly gorey, albeit fake. The deaths are creative and interesting. It feels very explotative but offers cheap demented c...( read more)ruel fun.
  • oldkentuckyshark
    September 20, 2009
    oldkentuckyshark
    For my money, this is H.G. Lewis' best work. The acting, effects, and story are still ludicrous, but they seem to be on a slightly higher level than the films that preceded and followed it. The barrel scene is one of my favorites.
  • eskaton666
    August 2, 2009
    eskaton666
    What can you say about H.G.L.'s gore film inspired by 'Brigadoon?' Not a whole lot...
  • mpghoul1973
    May 7, 2009
    mpghoul1973
    My favorite H.G. Lewis flick. Connie Mason cant act her way out of a paper bag but thats the charm of a Lewis film. Great musical numbers by the Pleasant Vally Boys. I got the soundtrack just for them. IAm not ashamed!
  • kingmob6
    April 20, 2009
    kingmob6
    There's not much suspense to be had in this one, but the tongue in cheek low budget gore and hammy Sourtherners make it an interesting watch. I also liked it just as a time capsule of the time, when the ketchup looking blood was actually a big deal to theatergoers.

    Worth a look.
  • RCMerchant
    April 5, 2009
    RCMerchant
    Most HG Lewis movies are dam near unwatchable....(and not because of the cheap ass gore effects). But this one is a keeper! Where elese can you witness cackling EC Comic book hillbillys hack up a woman with an axe-AND listen to some GREAT bluegrass music at the same time? Skip BL...( read more)OOD FEAST...see this one!

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Two Thousand Maniacs Trivia

  • One hundred plus years after a group soldiers slaughtered most of the town's people during the Civil War, six friends on vacation were made the guests of honor in the town's celebration. What movie was it? (original)  Answer »
  • After quitting the movie business, Herschell Gordon Lewis - auteur of Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs - invented which modern-day plague?  Answer »
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