Two thousand people live in the town of Pleasant Valley, an out-of- the-way place on a back road, somewhere on the way to Atlanta. All of them are maniacs, which is a decent premise for a film, and which illustrates Hershel G. Lewis's talent for what it takes to make a memorable exploitation film. Rather than being Confederate sympathizers these folks are like the ghosts of the town, which had been the scene of a Union (or Yankee) massacre exactly 100 years to the day on which all the action occurs. It's a film whose premise is a borderline sickening vengeance the maniacs inflict on four northerners (two young couples) who are detoured by two of Pleasant Valley's leading citizens, into its trap to make them the town's special guests for its one-hundred year anniversary of the massacre. Things get increasingly gory, in a kind of gratuitous way, but the storyline is almost substantial enough to hold it all together. Lewis also did the cinematography, which has many Confederate-flag drenched scenes to go along with bright red blood and a pretty blue sky.
Review of Two Thousand Maniacs!
