Tag Archives: HG Lewis

Bad Movie Monday: Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)

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This may not be the first example of a Hicksploitation movie, but it’s certainly one of the more important ones. It pretty much paved the way for similar entries in the genre like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), The Hills Have Eyes (1977), or even Wrong Turn (2003). Without this one, you wouldn’t have those. Degenerate inbred illiterate hillbillies as the bad guys? Check! Naive city folk as the victims? Check! A twisted mix of Southern Gothic, Bugs Bunny Cartoons, and Exploitation Movie atmosphere? Double Check! This is the good stuff. This is the kind of movie that begs to be watched while sitting in the back seat of a musclecar at a seedy Drive-in, drunk on cheap beer, and making out with a stripper you picked up hitchhiking. There’s just no other way to truly appreciate insanity such as this. Hold on to your horses, because I’m going to review H.G. Lewis’ Two Thousand Maniacs!
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BAD MOVIE MONDAY: BLOOD FEAST (1963)

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The film I’m reviewing today is the granddaddy of low budget trash. There had been low budget movies before, of course, and many were pretty trashy. However, none of them had been quite as shameless in their crass exploitation of sex and violence as this one. I can only imagine what the crew cut and beehive hair crowd of 1963 must have thought watching this for the first time.
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Lost Films Of Herschell Gordon Lewis (Blu-Ray/DVD)

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HGL_package_webFor fans of HG Lewis, Vinegar Syndrome’s newest DVD/BD release of three of his rare films is one of the most interesting jewels in the collection of folks who fancy themselves Lewis fanatics. While the trio of films do not feature the gonzo and hysterical anarchy and grue Lewis mastered and transformed in to artistic expression, the trio of films do have marks from director Lewis who adds his own sense of lunacy on occasion, while worshipping the female form in the process.
Ecstasies of Women from 1969 has a real fancy free Russ Meyer vibe to it, and is a sixties sex comedy in every sense of the word. Lewis opens the film on a strip club where busty naked dancers bounce around on stage, with one of the dancers familiarizing herself with a group of male drinkers enjoying the show.

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Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)

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When “Two Thousand Maniacs!” arrived into the cult kingdom of the horror geek, Herschell Gordon Lewis’s horror comedy was an all out assault to Southern xenophobia and fanaticism, as well as a look at the vengeful spirit the South possessed if society continued to evolve from an Aryan aristocracy, to a melting pot of multi-racial ethics and politics. I mean, I’m sure there’s a vengeful spirit for almost anything, including pure evil, and Lewis’s horror comedy is a stripped down, low budget over the top horror film about the vicious unforgiving ghosts of the South who wreak havoc on outsiders that have evolved in the new world, punishing them for their decadence, sexuality, and freedom.

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