Two Thousand Maniacs!

Herschell Gordon Lewis's best film, and a nasty piece of Southern-gothic gore. A ghostly Confederate town lures Northern tourists to a centennial celebration and murders them one by one in inventively cruel ways, as revenge for a Civil War massacre. The politics are queasy and the film does not examine them.

It is cheap and crude, but the premise is eerie and the kills are staged with real showmanship. Lewis essentially invents the American gore film here, a year after Blood Feast.

Historically important and more atmospheric than its budget suggests.