Cast:
William Kerwin (Tom White), Connie Mason (Terry Adams), Taalkeus Blank (Mayor Buckman), Ben Moore (Lester MacDonald), Gary Bakeman (Rufus Tate), Jerome Eden (John Miller), Shelby Livingston (Bea Miller), Michael Korb (David Wells), and Yvonne Gilbert (Beverly Wells) Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis (#752 - Blood Feast and #756 - Monster A-Go-Go)
Review:
Okay, so it might seem weird that a filmmaker from Pittsburgh ended up making an exploitation film involving the South that might as well seem like a precursor to future southern-fried horror films in the next decade. Born in Pittsburgh but raised mostly in Chicago, Herschell Gordon Lewis actually had studied in journalism at Northwestern University before teaching communications at Mississippi State University. Of course, he was lured into working radio managing and subsequently in advertising. In the late 1950s, he worked as director on a couple of advertisements and eventually bought a share with the company he was making them for. He became a director in 1961 with exploitation feature Living Venus, which would lead to expanded fare of what some call "nude cuties". By 1963, Lewis and producing partner David F. Friedman wanted to tap into a market that was not declining like the nude market, and they landed upon blood and splatter with what became Blood Feast (1963), Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964) and Color Me Blood Red (1965) are considered a trilogy of sorts when it comes to the splatter film pioneers. He made a variety of films using his funds he made in advertising that covered a few topics for exploitation, such as birth control, or, well comedy splatter. After retiring for three decades in 1972, Lewis returned for two more films in the new millennium before his death in 2016 at age 90.
The Pleasant Valley Boys make an appearance in the film, because no film could make sense unless you have a banjo playing group here to give you a song that seems quite literal when they mean "The South Shall Rise Again". The plot was apparently influenced by the musical Brigadoon, which seems insane enough to make rational sense. If you've seen any film that plays on the stereotypes of traveling in the Deep South, well, here's one that leans in on bits of gore and goofy sadistic weirdos for the pile. Set in 1965 as a centennial "celebration" of a small Georgia town (remember what happened in 1865) is this odd little film. I actually kind of liked this film, probably because I found it amusing when it came to such a half-baked plot of revenge that could only come from the idea of having targets that aren't even that more sympathetic than the oddballs that show a variation of the loser flag (read: Confederate flag, and I say that as a Texan). It plays on prejudices with a useful underdog and, well, effects that had their standing point of credibility if one allows it for 1964. One might have a weird time figuring what is the best of the attempts at gore when it comes to unsettling thoughts about being wrapped up for death, and that probably falls to the one where a person is tied down while a dunk tank modified with a giant rock is right by them. Probably the standout is a man named Taalkeus "Talky" Blank, an Illinois stage actor who went by "Jeffrey Allen" in the features he made with Lewis because his lack of membership in the Screen Actors Guild. Lewis liked his Southern impersonation enough to use him for a handful of films. It's good ol' boy conniving stuff that works to the film's advantage, although Kerwin and Mason (familiar in a few other Lewis films) do just fine as the resident Northern underdogs. It's a strange film that goes on the cliché of weird dwellers that might just have a prejudice or bitterness up their sleeve to go with a favoring of gore that might have a familiarity with the viewer more than they like to admit. In that sense, Lewis has made a curious gory winner that attracts my approval to my pleasurable surprise.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
Next: Anaconda.
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