JoeB131
This movie was produced by Gordon Herschell Lewis, the "Splatter King" of Hollywood who made a lot of the grind house exploitation films of that period when the Hayes Code was disintegrating.The plot is that six Northerners are detoured into a town that was wiped out during the Civil War, but somehow the ghosts of the victims are able to manifest themselves in contemporary clothing for the purpose of killing six northerners in gruesome ways. They in fact only kill four, but somehow, that's good enough.I'm guessing the kills are supposed to be impressive for the time, but are tame by today's standards. The victims are as dumb as people in these movies always are.So I give this movie a few props for being the first movie to come up with the "Deranged rural folk kill stupid urban folk" meme. Not sure if that's something to be proud of, given how quickly the genre degenerated into illogic.
Seamus2829
If you've never seen a film by H.G. Lewis, then by crackies, it's high time you set yourself a spell,pop this evil mother into your DVD (or VHS,depending on what format you own)player,sit back & have your mind screwed with for 90 giddy minutes. H.G. Lewis was the pre cursor of splatter cinema,that would inspire untold generations of horror/exploitation directors to move ahead in this field. Lewis,and his partner in crime, Dave Friedman,crafted 'Blood Feast',',2,000 Maniacs',and others like it for drive in's across the Southern United States back in the 1960's to entertain & gross out audiences. 'Maniacs' concerns two couples that find themselves rail roaded into a Southern back water town that is celebrating a centurary of sorts. What the two couples don't know that the celebration is the 100th birthday of the Civil War. What follows is a nearly non stop blood orgy of graphic dismemberment,and sadism that even by today's standards, is very graphic. The acting is easily grade Z,and most of the special effects are laughable. If you want to scratch a truly perverted itch for a dose of early splatter cinema,then '2,000 Maniacs',or for that matter, any H.G. Lewis film should do the trick for you. Unrated,but contains enough blood,guts & gore to have earned it an 'X' rating (had there been a rating system at the time),but did earn an 'Adults Only' legend on the posters.
TheRaz39
Where to start, well, the southern accents are bad, plain and simple, in fact, the best portrayed southern accent was by Tom White (William Kerwin), whom was, in the film, simulating the twang in attempt to phone out of Plesantville. Additionally, Lester MacDonald (Ben Moore) and Rufus Tate (Gary Bakeman) gave horrible portrayals. Rufus being in a pressed clean shirt, an obviously new hat and perfectly white teeth, not to mention a ghastly attempt at a southern drawl. Coupled with Lester, whose character made a more valiant attempt at being the country bumpkin, wearing overalls and covered in dirt. However, Moore's overacting was enough to make your teeth itch. In addition, the audio is bad, the dialogue sounds as if the players are shouting in a small quonset hut (although, the sound track is awesome and fitting). That being said, believe it or not, I enjoyed the movie. The hokiness seemed to fit and some of the scenes of gore were great. Guy cuts woman's thumb while showing her his knife's sharpness. To resolve the matter, he cuts off her thumb. Things obviously out of hand (no pun intended), brings the bleeding, crying woman to the town mayor where they cut off her arm, in spite of her thumb (pun intended), priceless and silly, in a backwoods, Deliverance kind of way. In one scene, the troupe of maniacs separate husband and wife David Wells (Michael Korb) and Beverly Wells (Yvonne Gilbert). After some pressuring, you see David being lead up a hill where there is a yellow barrel with the confederate flag affixed to the surface. The barrel is on its side and without top or bottom. They tell David that is it a tradition to have a Yankee crawl through the barrel before it is rolled (you can see where this is going). Naturally he resists, however, they coerce/bully him to travel through, and as you can guess, once inside the barrel, they hold him there. Although, before the barrel is pushed down the gently sloping mound, the mayor produces a hammer and some wicked looking long nails which he then pounds into the barrel. Needless to say, David didn't make it through the ordeal. This was sinister indeed, I found myself proclaiming the proverbial "No Way". Another gruesome demise was when John Miller (Jerome Eden) was Quartered (pulled apart by four horses). Speaking of this, which I found a little misplaced. After the quartering, the group that was once elated, became sullen, after an uncomfortable silence, Lester said something along the lines of "You know what happens to those that don't follow through" this didn't fit, no harm though, the scene was quickly recovered. The movie continues in an expected way with the Hero and Heroine narrowly escaping after the usual cat and mouse. Beverly Wells, is smashed by a boulder that is propped up and rigged to drop in the fashion you may see with a carnival dunk tank. There is an epic twist though, that I enjoyed very much and it is here that I will stop, I feel that in this case, to give it away, would make it a little less enjoyable. I will state that the remake with Robert Englund is very good, adhering to the original interpretation and incorporates more humor (without ruining the feel). The remake also had a superior set, where the original utilized a more modern town that didn't fit. In addition, 2001 Maniacs expounded on the ending's twist, in a way that I thought improved the film. We can't discount though, the plain creepiness of some of the characters in the original, I got the feeling that these people, really were homicidal inbred yolkels. Happy Horrors
