Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)
- Directed by
- Herschell Gordon Lewis
- Genre
- horror film, war film, independent film, splatter film, exploitation film, gothic film
- Country
- United States
- Runtime
- 1h 27m
- Rated
- NR
- Rating
- 5.5 of 10 from 137 voters
- Elsewhere
- IMDb
The catalogue in 3D
The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.
How it feels
A group of Northern tourists are lured to a small Southern town where they are tortured and killed by ghostly townspeople celebrating a centennial. The story puts unsuspecting outsiders in danger during a twisted historical reenactment.
gruesomeexploitativecampydatedtenseshockinggory
What happens
Two Thousand Maniacs! is a 1964 American supernatural splatter film written and directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis and starring William Kerwin, Connie Mason, Jeffrey Allen, Ben Moore, and Gary Bakeman. It follows a group of Northern tourists who are savagely tortured and murdered during a ghostly Confederate celebration of a small Georgia community's centennial. The story was inspired by the 1947 Lerner and Loewe musical Brigadoon, which also features a spectral town that manifests once every hundred years, populated by ghosts of its past inhabitants. Shot in Florida and released in mid-1964, Two Thousand Maniacs! screened largely at drive-in theaters, and performed particularly well in the Southern United States. The film was met with some controversy due to its graphic depiction of violence, receiving significant cuts by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and being banned in the city of Chicago by the local police department and film board. Despite this, the film proved to be a financial success, and remained in circulation at drive-in theaters in the United States through the 1970s. Two Thousand Manaics! has been noted by critics as an early example of hicksploitation in exploitation films, as well as for its sensationalizing of national perceptions between the North and South. The theme of social class differences between the regions has been cited as a prominent feature of the film. It also contains elements of supernatural horror, and its structure has been acknowledged as an influence on the contemporary slasher film. The film was preceded by Lewis's Blood Feast (1963) and followed by Color Me Blood Red (1965), as part of what Lewis and film scholars have described as the director's "Splatter Trilogy." A remake titled 2001 Maniacs was released in 2005. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
More like this
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)
The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
The Flesh Eaters (1964)
The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre (1964)
Witchcraft (1964)
The Thrill Killers (1964)
Castle of Blood (1964)- More like this film, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.