Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)

Two Thousand Maniacs! is a 1964 American splatter film written and directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis. It follows a group of Northern tourists who are savagely tortured and murdered during a Confederate celebration of a small southern community's centennial. The film starred 1963 Playboy Playmate Connie Mason.

It was the second part of what the director's fans later dubbed "The Blood Trilogy", a trio of films starting with 1963's Blood Feast and ending with 1965's Color Me Blood Red. The film has been noted by critics as an early example of Southern caricature in grindhouse films, as well as for its sensationalizing of national perceptions between the North and South. The film was remade in 2005 as 2001 Maniacs. The story of the film was inspired by the 1947 Lerner and Loewe musical Brigadoon.

Synopsis

Six Yankee tourists are lured into the fictional small Southern town of Pleasant Valley by "redneck" citizens, to be the guests of honor for the centennial celebration of the day Union troops destroyed the town. The tourists are initially treated with hospitality and given rooms to stay in the local hotel. However, that evening, one of the women is attacked by a local man; she runs toward the town for help, but is accosted by the mayor and several other locals, who hold her down on a table and dismember her alive with an axe.

Actors