Rating: 3/5
Cult Movie Challenge 2017 | 38/52 | HG Lewis
April 1965 Georgia native Rufus sits in a tree, binoculars in hand. He spots an Illinois license plate on a white convertible full of teenagers and signals to Lester to remove the road sign for Augusta and set up detour signs toward Pleasant Valley. When a Georgia license plate passes, they switch the signs back. They continue this routine, redirecting a red convertible driven by Terry and her hitchhiker, Tom. Pleasant Valley celebrates its centennial with guitars and banjos playing “The South’s Gonna Rise Again” and kids waving Confederate flags. Some kids make nooses from rope and strangle a black cat. It also happens to be 100 years since the end of the Civil War.
When the teens in their white convertible drive into town, the townspeople, led by Mayor Earl Buckman, welcome them with cheers. John, one of the teens, is suspicious of the townsfolk, but they pull him, his wife Bea, and their friends David and Beverly out of the car and parade them around. While all this happens, Terry and Tom also pull in, receiving a similar treatment. When Tom asks questions, beautiful women in town flirt with him. The mayor promises two days of food and festivities, all free of charge. “Southern hospitality” garners a laugh from the locals. Tom tries to pass on the offer, but the mayor won’t take no for an answer.
I reckon this is one celebration you'll remember as long as you live!
When everyone is settled in their rooms, Betsy, one of the locals, calls John to offer to show him around town. John lies to his wife, Bea, about it being the mayor and goes to meet with her. But Bea is onto him. So, when handsome local Harper calls her to invite her out, she takes him up on the offer. Harper leads her into the swamp, where they make out for a bit. Harper shows off his knife and cuts off her thumb. He takes her to the mayor, who claims to be a doctor. Rufus, Harper, and the mayor pin her down on the table while Rufus hacks off her arm with an axe.
That arm will be the first of many parts collected from the Yankees for the town barbecue. Will anyone make it out alive?
You gotta give to Herschell Gordon Lewis—he never pretends he’s making anything other than gore and sleaze. Compared to Blood Feast, this movie shows a little more craftsmanship and competence—the blood is still bright red, and the gore is still goopy but stomach-churning. The kills get progressively more ridiculous, incorporating barrel rolls and giant boulders.
This film is one of the earliest examples of Hixploitation, where Yankees get stranded in the South and backward Southerners gruesomely murder them. The best-known example is probably The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Unlike the “dumb redneck” caricature that most audiences knew, this film gives us a vengeful specter of the Confederacy. While this movie is ridiculous, especially with white Northerners being the victims, I can assure you plenty of Southerners would love to massacre their racial minority boogeyman of choice.
I love the organ stab score. How else am I supposed to know that something is amiss?
Yes, it’s slow, silly, and probably offensive, but it’s perhaps the most coherent movie H.G. Lewis put out.