TWO THOUSAND MANIACS! (1964)

(Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis)  

"I'm supposed to be laughing with and at it, but I didn't."- Signed by MartialHorror.

Plot: Six Yankees find themselves the guests of honor in an isolated Southern town, only to find out that being the guests of honor means that they get to die gruesome deaths.

Review: 

H.G Lewis certainly has his place in horror history, although it's debatable as to what that place is. His movies tend to be either remembered as insanely gory for its time, extremely bad for any time, or both. My only other experience with one of his works was “Blood Feast”, a craptastic splatter film that stood out to me for both of those reasons. It was insanely gory, shockingly so considering it was the 60's. But it was also hilariously awful and I personally had a blast with it. It's bad, but it's fun. Yet it's also supposed to be one of his better films, which makes me wonder what his worst films look like. “Two Thousand Maniacs” is also considered to be one of his better films. In some ways, it's superior to “Blood Feast”. But in others, it's far less enjoyable.

The film opens with obnoxious hillbilly music playing over the wacky hijinks of two red necks. They are tricking various Yankees into visiting their town by placing a detour sign on the road they are supposed to take. Everything here is so stupid and loud that for a brief terrible moment, I was wondering if I was watching the low budget version of “Smokey and the Bandit 3”. Then a kid strangles a cat for no reason, so I knew I was watching a low budget version of “Smokey and the Bandit 3”. Nah, in all seriousness, “Two Thousand Maniacs!” isn't a horror film, but more on that later. They fool six STUPID FUCKING YANKEES- but more on that later too- into taking a detour in their town. The six guests are celebrated as guests of honor, but it soon turns out that the town has more nefarious plans for the Yanks. Wacky hijinks ensue?

The first thing I want to stress about “Two Thousand Maniacs”, which might be the key reason for my indifference to it, is that it is not a horror film. It is instead a black comedy that might be the low budget horror film response to the classic piece of literature known as “The Lottery”. Don't get me wrong, it's not really an adaptation. But it goes for the same kind of irony and answers the question of “what if classic literature was turned into a tasteless, splatter film?”. Personally, I wish I saw more classic literature turned into tasteless, splatter films. But the joke gets old and this brand of comedy tends to be too broad and stereotypical. Does a hillbilly caricature acting wacky sound appealing to you? Not to me! Even “Blood Feast” was more of a horror film. “Two Thousand Maniacs” is just an annoying comedy with gore.

 

It's also pretty shoddy but not in the hilarious way that Lewis's previous film was. Back there, we got to see many different forms of awful acting and dialogue. Here, the acting is awful, but everybody is the same kind of awful. The dialogue isn't very laughable either, instead coming across as redundant and lazy. The technical blunders are bad too, but not in a good way. Instead of blatant disregard for continuity, you get bad lighting during the night sequences and bad audio during the dialogue heavy sequences. It makes the film incomprehensible and inaudible at times, and there's nothing funny about that.

On the other hand, it's obvious that H.G Lewis has more money to play with this time around. Some of the locations aren't bad and the gore effects are still pretty unsettling and mean spirited. There are even a few standout sequences. My favorite was the 'dunk tank' parody scene, which was fairly suspenseful. There is also an effective scene right after the “Horse Race” bit where the town looks almost unnerved at what they've done. There is even a startling twist ending, which should've been obvious, but went right over my head. Plus, there are a few unintentionally hilarious sequences. But that's it. “Blood Feast” was always entertaining, whether in a good way or a bad way. “Two Thousand Maniacs” is only sometimes entertaining, whether in a good way or a bad way. The rest of the movie ranges from annoying to tedious.

It also doesn't help that I found myself hating everyone whom I was supposed to root for. The first couple is detestable, the second couple are moronic and the two main protagonists are generic. Who does that leave? The townsfolk? I guess this was supposed to be a movie where you root for the killer(s), but they are just flat out irritating. Because everything about this movie annoyed me, the bad ultimately outweighed the good. H.G Lewis delivered what people expected out of him I guess: Gory crap. But this time, the crap dominated the gore.

Violence: Rated R worthy. Pretty nasty.

Nudity: None, although there is some fanservice.

Overall: “Two Thousand Maniacs!” might be worth watching if you want to see an H.G Lewis movie, or if you like backwoods comedies that happen to have gore. But if not, AVOID.

1.5/4 Stars