6.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
The citizens of a small Southern town celebrate the anniversary of the Civil War by forcing a handful of Northeners to participate in a variety of blood-crazed fun and games!
Starring: Connie Mason, William Kerwin, Jeffrey Allen, Shelby Livingston, Ben Moore (I)Horror | 100% |
Dark humor | 6% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: LPCM Mono
English
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Note: This film is available as part of
The Herschell Gordon Lewis Feast.
Mention the initials “H.G.” to most people, and my hunch is virtually everyone will default to thinking about H.G. Wells, the legendary author
whose
science fiction masterpieces resulted in such memorable films as
The Time Machine, The Invisible Man,
The Island of Dr. Moreau and War of the Worlds. Certain fans who have a slightly
different definition of what constitutes a memorable film might have a variant reaction to those same initials, however, positing one Herschell
Gordon Lewis instead of Mr. Wells. Lewis has long been known by the sobriquet “Godfather of Gore,” and his early exploitation pictures were, for
their
day, amazingly overt in their depiction of what ultimately came to be called “splatter”. Lewis, who only just fairly recently died at the age of 90,
had
an interesting if not especially distinguished career, though it’s notable that Lewis maintained a more than abundant sense of humor about his
films
and his contributions to the supposed art of cinema. Lewis’ filmography (it’s a bit of a stretch to actually call it an oeuvre) hasn’t been
especially well served in the Blu-ray era, though there have been at least a few releases of his work, including The Blood Trilogy, The Wizard of Gore / The Gore Gore Girls and The Lost Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis. Now, in
what
amounts to an elegy of sorts for Lewis, Arrow Video has assembled what will certainly go down in the annals of the Blu-ray era as one of the
most
lavish deluxe sets produced, at least within the confines of what can only be accurately described as “cult cinema”. Along with a collection of
fourteen
films (nine making their Blu-ray debut), Arrow also includes a glut of bonus content (some with Lewis’ involvement), as well as impressive
packaging
and non disc supplements.
Arrow has included some general verbiage about the transfers in this set:
All film materials sourced for restoration were scanned in 2K resolution on a pin registered 4K Lasergraphics Director Scanner at Deluxe Media, Burbank. Film grading and restoration was completed at Deluxe Restoration, London. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris and light scratches were removed through a combination of digital restoration tools. Overall image stability and density fluctuation was also improved when possible.Additionally, this film comes with the following disclaimer:
The original mono soundtracks were transferred from 35mm prints by Deluxe Audio Services, Los Angeles, and were conformed and restored at Deluxe Restoration, London.
Additional audio conform for How to Make a Doll and Just for the Hell of It by David Mackenzie.
Although the best existing elements were sourced for this project and every attempt was made to present the films in this collection in the highest quality possible, some of the films still exhibit varying degrees of damage that could not be digitally repaired to our satisfaction. The condition of the existing materials for Moonshine Mountain, The Gruesome Twosome, How to Make a Doll and This Stuff'll Kill Ya all contained extreme levels of dirt, scratches and debris as well as many instances of torn or missing frames. They all exhibited heavy degrees of colour fading as well. Likewise, the print sections sourced to complete A Taste of Blood were both faded and heavily scratched. Throughout the restoration workflow process, our priority was to retain the original photochemical look of the films rather than create unwanted digital artefacts by heavy handed picture cleanup. Therefore, many of the films in this collection exhibit "warts and all" appearance, in keeping with their distribution history and physical condition.
Restoration supervised by James White, Arrow Films.
Two Thousand Maniacs was restored in high definition by Something Weird from the original elements. Additional sections sourced from standard definition tape masters were also used to create the most complete version of this film possible.Two Thousand Maniacs is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This transfer has some pretty heavy damage at times, but generally looks good, with a coarse but organic looking grain field and pretty convincing and nicely suffused color. Reds and blues are especially strong, helping to bring the Confederate imagery alive. There are still anomalies like scratches (sometimes long both in length and duration, and often bright green, as can be seen in some of the screenshots accompanying this review) and flecks, along with momentary warping and torn frames. There are understandable wide variances between the film and tape source elements, as can be seen by comparing screenshots 7 and 8.
Two Thousand Maniacs' LPCM mono track provides surprisingly clear accountings of elements like the banjo music and not much hiss overall, though there are occasional changes in volume as well as transitory anomalies like low level hum (particularly annoying during some cues like a nice guitar piece). Still, a lot of the music and effects like clapping reverbate decently if with a noticeably boxy sound.
Arrow has packaged this set a little unusually, with two films per disc and one set of supplements for both movies available from a main menu. While some of the supplements are obviously geared toward one individual film, others are a bit more general in nature, and so I'm listing the complete supplemental package for each particular disc rather than for each individual film. The supplements for Two Thousand Maniacs and Moonshine Mountain are:
- Two Thousand Maniacs Trailer (1080p; 2:14)
- Moonshine Mountain Trailer (1080p; 1:29)
Lewis loved Two Thousand Maniacs, and it's not hard to see why. While the film plays as just a bit derivative and predictable, it's still kind of wackily inventive on its own terms. Technical merits are problematic but acceptable, and the supplemental package very enjoyable. Recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
1965
1963
1967
1971
1967
1967
1964
1970
1968
1972
1963
1968
1968
1963
1990
AIP Cut | 60th Anniversary
1963
Collector's Edition
1981
Also Includes = I Eat Your Skin and Blue Sextet
1970
1986
Limited Edition
1982