Bonny Blue Flag

On Oct. 31, 2008, Time Warner Classics aired a movie entitled, "2000 Maniacs". The tagline: About a haunted Southern town whose ghosts seek revenge for a Civil War massacre / made in 1964.

Writer/Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis
Stars: Connie Mason
William Kerwin
Plot: Six people traveling from "somewhere up north", are lured into a small deep south town for a centennial celebration where the residents proceed to kill them one by one as revenge for the town's destruction during the Civil War.

Consider Brigadoon, a Scottish town that comes alive every 100 years. Replace this with Pleasant Valley, Georgia, a town in a similar predicament. The townspeople are shown as happy hillbilly bafoons with a taste for blood and violence, but only Yankee blood will do. This is the focal point of each fairground game and ride. Of the 6 northern visitors, 2 escape this nightmare. They run to the local sheriff who denies any exsistance of such a town. He does say, however, during the Civil War there was a town of the same name that was destroyed and it's people massacred by a group of Yankees.

The movie's "special effects" are lame and it all moves at a snail's pace. The only saving grace was the music--a truly talented musical group named Pleasant Valley Boys.

When the music is better than the movie, it is truly a bad movie!

What's next, a horror flick with Sandra Dee? Yes! A 1970 movie, "The Dunwich Horror" with Sandra Dee and a very young Dean Stockwell.

IS NOTHING SACRED?

--BBF

tjadams

Maybe I can find it on Netflix?

Bonny Blue Flag

You are a glutton for punishment, TJ! (I have no clue if it is on Netflix.)

Good hunting.

--BBF

tjadams

I'm used to seeing Civil War movies with only Confederates killed and Confederates
always the bad, despicable, un-Godly hunch back heathens. This one sounds no
different.

Bonny Blue Flag

The victors continue to write history, and scripts.

--BBF

unclefred

Most of the southerners I know are hunch back Baptists.

tjadams

Ha. Maybe you need to expand your demographics.

Salah

I still say that Glory and to a lesser extent, Gettysburg, are the only good movies on the Civil War I'm aware of.

I appreciate Glory for its intimate depiction of the lives and challenges of both officers and men, white and black alike. It also hints at some of the corruption and almost criminal negligence that tainted the Union war effort, and even if it depicts the Confederates as the 'bad guys', it doesn't get preachy about it.

Gettysburg is fun to watch, though I find the dialogue of many of the characters preachy and rather stiff. The battle-scenes were impressive for their time, though I am annoyed at how half the soldiers are depicted as overweight, middle-aged men, some with glasses.

It seems the movies and reenactors alike tend to forget that the average Civil War soldier on either side was a dirty, scrawny, 20 year-old with greasy hair, blistery feet, and a dingy uniform, who would have sold his soul for a hot meal.

unclefred

Stephen Crane for the win.

tjadams

My personal favorite is "Gods & Generals".

That reminds me of the 2003 move "Cold Mountain" Much of the footage shot in
Romania was filled with extras for that 'raw-boned' skinny, lean build that many of the
US period solder would have looked like.