Two Thousand Maniacs!
Encyclopedia
Two Thousand Maniacs! is a low budget 1964 splatter film
directed and written by Herschell Gordon Lewis
. It is the second part of what the director's fans have dubbed "The Blood Trilogy", including Blood Feast
(1963) and Color Me Blood Red
(1965). The film has since become known as a classic of the drive-in theater
era.
The film is known for its scenes of full color gore
and torture
, as well as for B-movie
type direction and acting. The film and its director attracted a following, largely due to the over-the-top quality of the violence and the villains. The film starred 1963 Playboy
Playmate
Connie Mason
. It was remade in 2005 as 2001 Maniacs
, starring Robert Englund
.
The film's title song was written and sung by director Lewis. The movie would later inspire the name of the band 10,000 Maniacs
.
In the restrospective of Lewis' films, A Taste of Blood: The Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis
, by Christopher Wayne Curry, the author notes the particular fondness the director had for Two Thousand Maniacs!: "The prop plaque, bearing "Pleasant Valley's Epitaph", hung for years in Lewis' Chicago home in remembrance of one of his finest film achievements. Released in 1964, Two Thousand Maniacs "was one of my favorites,"
musical Brigadoon. Six Yankee tourists are lured into the small southern town of Pleasant Valley by the redneck citizens to be the guests of honor for the centennial celebration of the day Union troops destroyed the town. The tourists are separated and forced to participate in various sick games which lead to their gory
deaths. The methods employed by the festive townspeople include:
After discovering the nefarious plans of the townspeople, the two remaining tourists manage to escape; they then return with a local sheriff, only to discover that the town has disappeared. The film ends with two of the townspeople looking forward to the next centennial in 2065, when Pleasant Valley will rise again to resume its vendetta against the Yankees.
. According to a contemporary report, the entire town participated in the film.
are horrifically murdered by virulent, backwoods southerners This subgenre of Grindhouse
peaked with the release of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
(1974) ten years after 2000! Maniacs.
During the Civil Rights Movement
, television and mainstream narrative films opted for a less realistic depiction of redneck than the televised news of the era. Films that tried to comment on the issue of race relations were commercial failures . However, Herschell Gordon Lewis
’ plotline in Two Thousand Maniacs! focuses on the ghost of a violent, vengeful Confederacy
, and is aware of the region’s violent history and place in the anxiety of the rest of the United States
Although the film was released in 1964, in the midst of the Civil Rights movement
, issues of race relations and segregation
are never interrogated in the film. Despite the lack of African American characters, the racial element of the violent South
does not lurk far beneath the surface. By returning to celebrate the centennial destruction of Pleasant Valley by Union troops, the redneck ghouls take part in ritualistic acts of revenge that is indicative of the South obstinate refusal of desegregation and Civil Rights
in the 1960s. The film dictates the anxieties the rest of the nation held towards the South’s, and its white inhabitants, history of extra-legal violence, perceived primitivism
, and unresolved regional conflict . The 2005 remake, 2001 Maniacs
, explores some of these same themes. While the original film’s “Yankees" were strictly white, the remake focuses on the race relations, Gender equality
, and Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures
of the outsiders as they are slaughtered and turned into barbecue
by the residents of Pleasant Valley. This suggests that while the original parodied the images of the virulent, rural Southerner, or redneck, the remake posits the nation’s anxieties towards the reactionary backlashes against race and sexuality in the new millenium on, and working through, motifs of Southern redneck.
The film is also an ironic commentary on the myth of Southern hospitality
, and how it elides some of the ethical dimensions and historical atrocities imbedded in its discourse. In his essay entitled "Remapping Southern Hospitality", Anthony Szczesiul explains the film’s use of Southern hospitality and other Southern stereotypes: “The film’s ironic parody of southern hospitality highlights the performative
nature of the discourse. When Mayor Buckman delivers his promise of southern hospitality in his thick, cartoonish accent, the reference is immediately recognizable to all – the characters in the film, its actors and director, its original audience, and by us today – but here the possibility of southern hospitality is transformed into a cruel joke: the visitor becomes victim . ” Throughout the film, the "Yankee" victims are simultaneously celebrated as “guests of honor” while being tortured. Together, with the theme song The South’s Gonna Rise Again and other twists on Southern tropes, like the cannibalistic communal barbecue of the northern outsiders, the film alludes that region’s historical conflict and intractability towards modernization are still unresolved.
Splatter film
A splatter film or gore film is a subgenre of horror film that deliberately focuses on graphic portrayals of gore and graphic violence. These films, through the use of special effects and excessive blood and guts, tend to display an overt interest in the vulnerability of the human body and the...
directed and written by Herschell Gordon Lewis
Herschell Gordon Lewis
Herschell Gordon Lewis is an American filmmaker, best known for creating the "splatter film" subgenre of horror...
. It is the second part of what the director's fans have dubbed "The Blood Trilogy", including Blood Feast
Blood Feast
Blood Feast is a 1963 American horror film directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, often considered the first "splatter film". It was produced by David F. Friedman. The screenplay was written by Alison Louise Downe, who had previously appeared in several of Lewis' other films. Lewis also wrote the...
(1963) and Color Me Blood Red
Color Me Blood Red
Color Me Blood Red is a low budget 1965 horror film directed and written by Herschell Gordon Lewis. Color Me Blood Red is the third part of what the director's fans have dubbed "The Blood Trilogy", including Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs! .-Film synopsis:An eccentric artist is criticized by...
(1965). The film has since become known as a classic of the drive-in theater
Drive-in theater
A drive-in theater is a form of cinema structure consisting of a large outdoor screen, a projection booth, a concession stand and a large parking area for automobiles. Within this enclosed area, customers can view movies from the privacy and comfort of their cars.The screen can be as simple as a...
era.
The film is known for its scenes of full color gore
Graphic violence
Graphic violence is the depiction of especially vivid, brutal and realistic acts of violence in visual media such as literature, film, television, and video games...
and torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
, as well as for B-movie
B movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
type direction and acting. The film and its director attracted a following, largely due to the over-the-top quality of the violence and the villains. The film starred 1963 Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
Playmate
Playmate
A Playmate is a female model featured in the centerfold/gatefold of Playboy magazine as Playmate of the Month . The PMOM's pictorial includes nude photographs and a centerfold poster, as well as a short biography and the "Playmate Data Sheet", which lists her birthdate, measurements, turn-ons, and...
Connie Mason
Connie Mason
Connie Mason is an American model and actress who was Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month for its June 1963 issue. After winning Playmate of the Month, Mason started a career in film by starring in the gore movies pioneered by Herschell Gordon Lewis, Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs!...
. It was remade in 2005 as 2001 Maniacs
2001 Maniacs
2001 Maniacs is a 2005 American comedy horror film directed by Tim Sullivan, starring Robert Englund, Jay Gillespie, Dylan Edrington, and Matthew Carey. It is a remake of the 1964 film Two Thousand Maniacs! written and directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis. The film is distributed by Lions Gate...
, starring Robert Englund
Robert Englund
Robert Barton Englund is an American actor, voice-actor and director, best known for playing the fictional serial killer Freddy Krueger, in the Nightmare on Elm Street film series. He received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors in...
.
The film's title song was written and sung by director Lewis. The movie would later inspire the name of the band 10,000 Maniacs
10,000 Maniacs
10,000 Maniacs is a United States-based alternative rock band, which formed in 1981 and continues to be active with various line-ups.-1981–1993:...
.
In the restrospective of Lewis' films, A Taste of Blood: The Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis
Herschell Gordon Lewis
Herschell Gordon Lewis is an American filmmaker, best known for creating the "splatter film" subgenre of horror...
, by Christopher Wayne Curry, the author notes the particular fondness the director had for Two Thousand Maniacs!: "The prop plaque, bearing "Pleasant Valley's Epitaph", hung for years in Lewis' Chicago home in remembrance of one of his finest film achievements. Released in 1964, Two Thousand Maniacs "was one of my favorites,"
Synopsis
The story of the film is inspired by the 1947 Lerner and LoeweLerner and Loewe
Lerner and Loewe are the duo of lyricist and librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe, known primarily for the music and lyrics of some of Broadway's most successful musical shows, including My Fair Lady, Camelot, and Brigadoon....
musical Brigadoon. Six Yankee tourists are lured into the small southern town of Pleasant Valley by the redneck citizens to be the guests of honor for the centennial celebration of the day Union troops destroyed the town. The tourists are separated and forced to participate in various sick games which lead to their gory
Splatter film
A splatter film or gore film is a subgenre of horror film that deliberately focuses on graphic portrayals of gore and graphic violence. These films, through the use of special effects and excessive blood and guts, tend to display an overt interest in the vulnerability of the human body and the...
deaths. The methods employed by the festive townspeople include:
- Dismembering a woman with an axe, and thereafter roasting her in a barbecue pit;
- Staging a "horse race" in which a man is ripped limb from limb;
- rolling a man downhill in a barrel embedded with nails;
- Crushing a woman with a boulder held aloft in a contraption resembling a carnival-style dunk tankDunk tankA dunk tank, also known as a dunking booth or dunking machine, is an attraction mainly used in funfairs, fundraisers, and personal parties. Basically, a dunk tank consists of a large tank of water, over which a seat is suspended...
.
After discovering the nefarious plans of the townspeople, the two remaining tourists manage to escape; they then return with a local sheriff, only to discover that the town has disappeared. The film ends with two of the townspeople looking forward to the next centennial in 2065, when Pleasant Valley will rise again to resume its vendetta against the Yankees.
Production
Two Thousand Maniacs! was filmed in 15 days, early in 1964, in the town of St. Cloud, FloridaSt. Cloud, Florida
St. Cloud is a city in Osceola County, Florida, United States. The population was 35,183 at the 2010 census. St. Cloud is closely associated with the adjacent city of Kissimmee and its proximity to Orlando area theme parks, including Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando Resort, and Seaworld.St...
. According to a contemporary report, the entire town participated in the film.
Critical Analysis
Two Thousand Maniacs! introduced drive-in theater audiences to the formulaic plot-line of southern gore films: northern outsiders who are stranded in the rural SouthSouthern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
are horrifically murdered by virulent, backwoods southerners This subgenre of Grindhouse
Grindhouse
A grindhouse is an American term for a theater that mainly shows exploitation films. It is named after the defunct burlesque theaters located on 42nd Street in New York City, where 'bump n' grind' dancing and striptease were featured.- History :...
peaked with the release of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a 1974 American independent horror film directed and produced by Tobe Hooper, who cowrote it with Kim Henkel. It stars Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, and Gunnar Hansen, who respectively portray Sally Hardesty, Franklin Hardesty, the...
(1974) ten years after 2000! Maniacs.
During the Civil Rights Movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
, television and mainstream narrative films opted for a less realistic depiction of redneck than the televised news of the era. Films that tried to comment on the issue of race relations were commercial failures . However, Herschell Gordon Lewis
Herschell Gordon Lewis
Herschell Gordon Lewis is an American filmmaker, best known for creating the "splatter film" subgenre of horror...
’ plotline in Two Thousand Maniacs! focuses on the ghost of a violent, vengeful Confederacy
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
, and is aware of the region’s violent history and place in the anxiety of the rest of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Although the film was released in 1964, in the midst of the Civil Rights movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
, issues of race relations and segregation
Racial segregation in the United States
Racial segregation in the United States, as a general term, included the racial segregation or hypersegregation of facilities, services, and opportunities such as housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation along racial lines...
are never interrogated in the film. Despite the lack of African American characters, the racial element of the violent South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
does not lurk far beneath the surface. By returning to celebrate the centennial destruction of Pleasant Valley by Union troops, the redneck ghouls take part in ritualistic acts of revenge that is indicative of the South obstinate refusal of desegregation and Civil Rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
in the 1960s. The film dictates the anxieties the rest of the nation held towards the South’s, and its white inhabitants, history of extra-legal violence, perceived primitivism
Primitivism
Primitivism is a Western art movement that borrows visual forms from non-Western or prehistoric peoples, such as Paul Gauguin's inclusion of Tahitian motifs in paintings and ceramics...
, and unresolved regional conflict . The 2005 remake, 2001 Maniacs
2001 Maniacs
2001 Maniacs is a 2005 American comedy horror film directed by Tim Sullivan, starring Robert Englund, Jay Gillespie, Dylan Edrington, and Matthew Carey. It is a remake of the 1964 film Two Thousand Maniacs! written and directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis. The film is distributed by Lions Gate...
, explores some of these same themes. While the original film’s “Yankees" were strictly white, the remake focuses on the race relations, Gender equality
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
, and Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures
Human sexuality
Human sexuality is the awareness of gender differences, and the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. Human sexuality can also be described as the way someone is sexually attracted to another person whether it is to opposite sexes , to the same sex , to either sexes , or not being...
of the outsiders as they are slaughtered and turned into barbecue
Barbecue
Barbecue or barbeque , used chiefly in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia is a method and apparatus for cooking meat, poultry and occasionally fish with the heat and hot smoke of a fire, smoking wood, or hot coals of...
by the residents of Pleasant Valley. This suggests that while the original parodied the images of the virulent, rural Southerner, or redneck, the remake posits the nation’s anxieties towards the reactionary backlashes against race and sexuality in the new millenium on, and working through, motifs of Southern redneck.
The film is also an ironic commentary on the myth of Southern hospitality
Southern hospitality
Southern hospitality is a phrase used in American English to describe the stereotype of residents of the Southern United States as particularly warm and welcoming to visitors to their homes, or to the South in general.__FORCETOC__...
, and how it elides some of the ethical dimensions and historical atrocities imbedded in its discourse. In his essay entitled "Remapping Southern Hospitality", Anthony Szczesiul explains the film’s use of Southern hospitality and other Southern stereotypes: “The film’s ironic parody of southern hospitality highlights the performative
Performativity
Performativity is an interdisciplinary term often used to name the capacity of speech and language in particular, as well as other non-verbal forms of expressive action, to intervene in the course of human events. The term derives from the work in speech act theory originated by the analytic...
nature of the discourse. When Mayor Buckman delivers his promise of southern hospitality in his thick, cartoonish accent, the reference is immediately recognizable to all – the characters in the film, its actors and director, its original audience, and by us today – but here the possibility of southern hospitality is transformed into a cruel joke: the visitor becomes victim . ” Throughout the film, the "Yankee" victims are simultaneously celebrated as “guests of honor” while being tortured. Together, with the theme song The South’s Gonna Rise Again and other twists on Southern tropes, like the cannibalistic communal barbecue of the northern outsiders, the film alludes that region’s historical conflict and intractability towards modernization are still unresolved.