Halloween horror marathon: Two Thousand Maniacs

poster-2000maniacsThe Herschel Gordon Lewis gore-fest that is Two Thousand Maniacs is a movie that can only be described as “slimy.” The mayor, the townsfolk, all the characters – even the Yankees – are all two-faced individuals, quick to deceive.

Granted, it’s because the mayor and townsfolk are the angry spirits of a hamlet slaughtered by Northern soldiers during the Civil War, bent on vengeance. Don’t worry: this revelation spoils nothing. If anything, it makes the shrill cackling and maniacal laughter at every bad joke and unsubtle double entendre in the movie’s early moments easier to take.

Besides, the entire point of Two Thousand Maniacs is to see innocents unaware of their fate butchered in terrible, yet creative ways. Arms are hacked off with axes, there’s a spiked barrel roll, and more, all doused in blood. It’s so cartoonish as to be ridiculous, which is what makes Lewis’ movie entertaining. Were it not for the leering, gesticulating townsfolk making like twisted, demonic redneck caricatures, with blood like red paint, Two Thousand Maniacs would seem like a fucking snuff film. The plot is merely a device to move from one butchering to another, with some atrocious acting to tie it all together.

“It’s the centennial of blood vengeance. It means we’re here to be killed.”

And they are. The drawing and quartering is shot like cinema verite, and the way the horses rear in fright turn this movie into something a little too real. It has to do with the way b-grade horror gets made. When you shoot in low light, with amateur actors, and obscure the details, it all ends up coming within a hair’s breadth of someone actually being murdered onscreen.

However, when the blood-splattered corpse is visibly breathing, you’ve nothing about which to worry. Two Thousand Maniacs is one of my favorites for this very reason: everything’s so obviously fake, you just groan and laugh, and can enjoy the gore and violence without any need to peep through fingers clutched over your eyes. Super-happy bloody fun time.