BMW no.3: Two Thousand Maniacs

A town of Southern good ol' boys and gals hack, cut, rip and dismember a group of travelers with frightful glee in H.G Lewis' gore classic.

The tiny Southern hamlet of Pleasant Valley is smack dab in the middle of a Centennial celebration. However, the festivities cannot be complete without some yankee guests of honor. Y'all see, this here celebration commemorates the hundred year passing of a band of Northern troops who came into the fair city and massacred the citizens, so every hundred years the butchered population comes back to get some long awaited revenge.

Heading up the kill squad are Lester and Rufus. These homicidal hayseeds have devised some insidious means of doing away with those danged Northern aggressors. Especially charming is "The Barrel Roll" and "The Teetering Rock", though the "horse pull" and the "mutilation melee" are sure to please.

This is the second part of David Friedman's and H.G. Lewis' Blood Trilogy. The flagship being 'Blood Feast' with 'Color Me Blood Red' riding caboose. '2K Maniacs' may be the most enjoyable of the three. With its cartoonish characters whom are both sinister and lighthearted at the same time, Maniacs succeeds in wedging a splinter of uneasiness upon the viewer. Ok, a tiny splinter.. Alright, you got me, a dinky shard of a splinter that is barely noticeable. ANYWAY, this underlying current of non-calm can be lost in the not so subtle presentation of the exploitative material. Let's be honest, rednecks are a scary tribe. Give 'em a sharp pointy thing and you're shaking hands with terror, and Lewis makes sure you see as much as possible. Nothing is left to the imagination. This was the intent of the director, for his target audience back in the 60's would "live south of the Mason-Dixon line, would be between twenty-five and forty-five, would live in rural rather than urban circumstances, would proabably be male, would not be highly educated, and would have a terrific number of prejudices." Today, however, Lewis says the fans he runs into are exactly the opposite. *Wiping sweat from brow*


It's weird, blunt, kooky, and fun. They way murder and mayhem oughta be.

Runtime 87 minutes, COLOR, 1964

CREDITS
William Kerwin .... Tom White
Jeffrey Allen .... Mayor Buckman
Ben Moore (I) .... Lester
Gary Bakeman .... Rufe
Connie Mason .... Terry Adams

Directed by:
Herschell Gordon Lewis

FACT SHEET
# Connie Mason was the Playboy Playmate of the Month June 1963.

# Nothing shuts a woman up like a teetering rock.

# Poor Census Taking: 34 Maniacs more representative of the populace.