A few of the taglines used to promote Two Thousand Maniacs!:
An Entire Town Bathed In Pulsing Human Blood! Madmen Crazed For Carnage!
Gruesomely Stained In Blood Color!
A town of madmen crazed for carnage!

The film is often referred to as 2000 Maniacs.

The film's working title was Centennial.

All of the extras in Two Thousand Maniacs! are residents of St. Cloud, Florida.

Herschell Gordon Lewis considers Two Thousand Maniacs! his favorite and subsequently the best of his gore trilogy. "First of all," he said in an interview (with Paul Bistoff), "Two Thousand Maniacs! has respectable acting in it. It has a different kind of horror. It has mounting horror; it's not just mindless gore. And I wrote the script, and it's my voice on the soundtrack doing the sing-song opening theme. Not that I'd ever felt like an auteur, I don't dare take that posture with movies that were that cheap."

Two Thousand Maniacs! is the second installment in the "Blood Trilogy" or the "Splatter Trilogy". It's preceded by the infamous Blood Feast in 1963 and followed by Color Me Blood Red in 1965.

The main theme song of the film, "The Rebel Yell (The South's Gonna Rise Again)" was written and performed by Herschell Gordon Lewis.

Actor Jerome Eden who plays John Miller in Two Thousand Maniacs! appeared in all three of the "Blood Trilogy" films.

Editor Robert L. Sinise is the father of actor Gary Sinise.

Two Thousand Maniacs! was released with a paperback novelization written by Herschell Gordon Lewis.

H.G. Lewis described his approach to audience expectations for Two Thousand Maniacs! in RESearch: Incredibly Strange Films: " We pull them up short, because just when they think they've got it, they don't have it...In Two Thousand Maniacs!, you're never quite sure until that first thumb comes off, and from that moment, we've got 'em! That audience doesn't know what to do! We have them! How many films are there where the production keeps the audience in such an unsettled state that the audience literally doesn't know what to do? They're afraid to leave their seats because that's a sign of cowardice. They're afraid to watch because they're afraid of what they'll see. But the one thing that does happen is they leave the theatre not feeling cheated!."

Director John Waters paid homage to Herschell Gordon Lewis and Two Thousand Maniacs! when titling his 1970 underground masterpiece, Multiple Maniacs. Waters has always been an enormous fan of Lewis' films, so much so that he included direct references and scenes from Blood Feast in his 1994 comedy, Serial Mom. Also, in his 1981 memoir, Shock Value, Waters sits down with Lewis for a lengthy and entertaining interview.

The movie's title inspired the name for the alternative rock band, 10,000 Maniacs.

In 2005, Tim Sullivan wrote and directed a pseudo sequel/remake to the film called 2001 Maniacs and featured horror icon Robert Englund (famous for portraying Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street films) as the evil Mayor Buckman. As of late 2008, a sequel to that film is in production entitled, 2001 Maniacs: Beverly Hellbillys, also directed and written by Tim Sullivan.

Interestingly, the city of St. Cloud, Florida is about to commence their own Centennial Celebration in 2009! The city was founded in 1909 and the city plans a series of events culminating with celebration festivities on April 18, 2009.

Compiled by Eric Weber

SOURCES:
Herschell Gordon Lewis interview by Andrea Juno, Mark Pauline and Boyd Rice, RESearch: Incredibly Strange Films
www.monstersatplay.com
St.cloud.org
stcloud100.rogueherald.com
Audio commentary by director Herschell Gordon Lewis and producer David F. Friedman on the Something Weird DVD release of Two Thousand Maniacs!, released by Image Entertainment in 2000.
Shock Value: A Tasteful Book about Bad Taste, John Waters, 1981 a Delta Book published by Dell Publishing.
Imdb.com
Allmovie.com
Wikipedia.com