Unearthing the past and facing the present: a historical and social reading of "Two thousand maniacs!"

Abstract

On October 1, 1964, the Herschell Gordon Lewis movie Two Thousand Maniacs! came out in American drive-ins, showing the arrival of a group of Northerners in a crowded town of Southerners called Pleasant Valley. The Northerners see a huge banner with the text “Welcome to Pleasant Valley Centennial. April 1865–April 1965,” which contextualizes the story and opening sequence. The Southerners, holding Confederate flags, force the stylish modern couples to stay in the town, and the latter look uneasy at the idea. From this moment forward, the distinction between the two groups is firmly established. It is precisely through this distinction, as well as the conflict that pervades the film’s story, that the backdrop against which the subsequent slaughter of the outsiders can be better understood. The Southerners’ desire to take their revenge against the rogue Northern soldiers who massacred them during the Civil War drives them to want to kill all the newcomers from outside the town.Resumen del libro:

Dubbed “The Godfather of Gore,” no other exploitation filmmaker made the most of scant budgets, short shooting schedules and amateur special effects like the legendary Herschell Gordon Lewis. Making his mark with Blood Feast in 1963 and helming such notorious splatter-shockers as Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964), The Gruesome Twosome (1967) and The Gore Gore Girls (1972), the director provoked generations of indebted genre stylists – from John Waters and Frank Henenlotter to Eli Roth and Damien Leone, with his hit Terrifier franchise. This is the first academic study into the work of Lewis, covering not just his bloodstained celluloid, but also his background in sexploitation and infomercials. In doing so, this entry in the ReFocus series takes one of cinema’s most influential low budget craftsmen out of the grindhouse and considers him as an Avant Garde auteur in his own right.