2,000 MANIACS (1964)
Directed
by Herschell Gordon Lewis
Starring Connie Mason and Thomas Wood
As we all know, Lewis was one of the first filmmakers to include graphic gore scenes in his movies. In the early 1980s, Fangoria magazine did a profile of the director, sparking a revival of his work. Of all his films, "2,000 Maniacs" is arguably the funniest and most accessible because it makes light of rednecks and, in parts, is actually genuinely scary.
A car load of travelers pass through a town filled with maniacs who get off on killing people. Some bizarre redneck humor and gruesome (even by today's standards) killings result. HG Lewis wrote the music, which includes hill billy songs about killin' Yanks.
Basically the film is an excuse for some ludicrous sadism. With a corny, country music score and horrible acting, this is a hard movie to turn down. Mason, by the way, was a former Playboy playmate.
Perhaps not all that suprisingly, a remake of the movie was in the works in the late 1990s and early '00s. Latest we've heard, the film is developing and will be out sometime in the millennium.
