Two Thousand Maniacs!
| Two Thousand Maniacs! | |
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Promotional poster
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| Directed by | Herschell Gordon Lewis |
| Produced by | David F. Friedman |
| Written by | Herschell Gordon Lewis |
| Starring | William Kerwin Connie Mason Jeffrey Allen |
| Music by | Larry Wellington |
| Cinematography | Herschell Gordon Lewis |
| Edited by | Robert Sinise |
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Production
company |
Jacqueline Kay (as The Jacqueline Kay, Inc.)
Friedman-Lewis Productions |
| Distributed by | Box Office Spectaculars |
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Release date
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Running time
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87 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $65,000 (estimated) |
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.
Six Yankee tourists whom make up two married couples, John and Bea Miller, David and Beverly Wells, plus an unmarried couple of Tom White and Terry Adams, are lured via detour signs placed in the road into the fictional small Southern town of Pleasant Valley by "redneck" citizens, to be the "guests of honor" for the April 1965 centennial celebration of the two days where Union troops destroyed the town at the end of the Civil War. The three couples meet the town mayor, Joseph Buckman, and his two right-hand men, Rufus and Lester, as well as shop owner Harper and his girlfriend Betsy. The tourists are initially treated with hospitality and given rooms to stay in the local hotel. However that afternoon, after an argument with her husband, Bea goes off with Harper to a wooded area for alone time where he shows off his pocket knife, but then slices off her right thumb. Harper takes Bea to Mayor Buckman's office where she is accousted by Rufus and Lester who hold her down on a table and dismember her alive with an axe.
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Wikipedia