The strains of the knee-slappin\u2019 \u201cThe South Is Gonna Rise Again\u201d open Herschell Gordon Lewis\u2019s campy 1964 gorefest \u201cTwo Thousand Maniacs!\u201d as two cars full of northerners take a fateful detour into the Southern hamlet of Pleasant Valley.<\/p>\n
Little do these unassuming tourists know that they\u2019re about to be the very special guests of the town\u2019s Civil War centennial, a bloodbath of Confederate vengeance put on by the titular maniacs. These Southern stereotypes chug moonshine, hold their pants up with rope, wave Confederate flags, let out rebel yells, pluck banjos \u2026 and of course, detest Yankees. The unwitting visitors\u2014the bickering couple, the promiscuous woman, the perpetually inebriated pleasuremonger, the dim-witted follower\u2014are subjected to a variety of \u201cfestive\u201d slaughterings, providing a veritable B-movie cornucopia of stilted acting, fake blood, and microbudget prosthetic severed limbs.<\/p>\n
But following all this gleeful carnage is an unexpected coda. A pair of escapees flees to a nearby police station to report the massacre, putting their faith in local authority figures. It\u2019s a potentially foolhardy move\u2014after all, the mayor of the neighboring town has just led a killing spree\u2014but the cop agrees to accompany them back to Pleasant Valley.<\/p>\n
On the way, however, they discover that \u2026 there is no Pleasant Valley; it was by all accounts wiped out by the Union Army in 1865. Pleasant Valley\u2019s inhabitants are nothing but vengeful ghosts of the Civil War South, spirits that materialize in human form just once every hundred years to hold this event. The contrast between the \u201cresidents\u201d of Pleasant Valley and the flesh-and-blood policeman represents the South\u2019s social progression between the Civil War and 1965, an evolution that points towards a future\u2014perhaps in 2065\u2014when, one hopes, the nefarious aspects of Southern history seem like things of a distant past.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also a cautionary tale: If we don\u2019t stay wary, these specters could come back to haunt us. And crush us with a giant boulder. And draw and quarter us. And maybe even roll us down a hill in a barrel full of spikes.