Moonshine Mountain (1964)
Dross from Herschell Gordom Lewis about a famous country singer who goes back to his childhood roots in the Carolina hills and ends up in a feud between local moonshiners.
It’s basically Two Thousand Maniacs without the gore and killings, except for the murderous sexually frustrated sheriff that is, and lots of hillbilly sing-a-longs.
Virtually plotless and the sing-a-longs quickly become tedious this is hard going. Not only that but the Blu-ray image and sound quality is, to put it mildly, shit.
Going to the extras on the Arrow disc i followed the glories of Moonshine Mountain with Two Thousand Maniacs remake director Tim Sullivan's doc Two Thousand Maniacs can't be Wrong and then watched the film for the second time in as many days.
Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)
Probably Herschell Gordon Lewis' most successful and mainstream film... however it's still not very good, entertaining certainly but not what you'd call good.
Whilst the gory death set pieces are impressive, the rest of the film less so. Especially the many scenes which require the 'maniacs' to act, most come across terribly amateurish. Jeffrey Allen, who plays the mayor buffoons across the screen like some sort of hysterical idiot.
For the most part the film is watchable with some all round cringe inducing clunkiness as well, however it has a great denouement which might surprise first time viewers.
I must credit Lewis for coming up with the terrific song - Robert E. Lee Broke His Musket On His Knee - and it's insanely catchy chorus 'The South's gonna rise again'. It's so good i always thought it was an actual traditional song of the south.
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