3. Visit The American South
Back in 1964, Herschell Gordon Lewis's splatter-fest Two Thousand Maniacs! initiated Southern rednecks into the pantheon of horror villains. Often depicted as ignorant, inbred, cruel and completely absent of morals, hillbillies hold an unusual position in the genre in that their actions require no motives or explanation: southern gore films work on the understanding that rednecks are inherently violent and murderous, particularly when northern or white-collar protagonists are involved. The politics and history behind these representations are blatantly obvious but interesting nevertheless, particularly when combined with issues of the family (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and sexual assault (I Spit On Your Grave, Deliverance). The theme has been taken to its logical conclusion by featuring mutant hillbilly cannibals in The Hills Have Eyes and Wrong Turn, but Rob Zombie's House Of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects show that there are still interesting avenues to be explored in the American backwoods.