2000 Maniacs

2000 MANIACS-1964-Herschel Gordon Lewis' second installment of his infamous "blood trilogy" after BLOOD FEAST is a bit of a letdown. It's a kind of gory version of BRIGADOON without singing. Maybe Lewis blew it. He could have created the first gore musical! 


Anyway, the ghost town of Pleasant Valley (I wonder if this all happened on a Sunday..??) appears 100 years after the beginning of the Civil War. It's full of a bunch of redneck hicks who also happen to be cannibal murderers out for revenge for the slaughter of their village during the war. They kidnap/trick 6 couples (including BF leads Thomas Wood/Rooney Kerwin and former Playboy centerfold Connie Mason) from the North and plan to use them in their centennial. Four are killed in various HG Lewis fashion. One woman has her arm chopped off. A guy is pulled apart by horses. Another guy is put in a barrel with nails and rolled down a hill. Another woman is crushed by a boulder. That's about it. Mostly it's yokels laughing and saying "yankee" a lot. 


2000 MANIACS was filmed in Florida, where previously BLOOD FEAST was also made but while BF had extreme gore and humor (some of it unintentional) at least it was entertaining and moved along at a good pace. This drags and the hillbilly ranting becomes annoying. 


Ben Moore (who's also in Lewis' MOONSHINE MOUNTAIN) plays an ax toting lunatic.  I love the cool theme song (written and sung by HG) though called "The South's Gonna Rise Again". 


It was remade in 2005 as 2001 MANIACS with Robert Englund in the lead. 


Thanks for reading!