You may think you live in a classless society, but I've got a big pack of redneck zombies and white trash vampires who say otherwise. Hick monsters have been marauding through popular culture for decades, tormenting prissy middle-class types and eating the rich. There's no better time than the present to raise a broken beer bottle full of fresh human blood to our class-conscious, monstrous comrades. That's why I've compiled a list of the top five redneck monster movies for you. Read on if you dare, hippies!
5. House of 1000 Corpses (2003) – Directed with panache by hillbilly rocker Rob Zombie, this flick has everything: stupid middle-class kids with a broken-down car, evil clowns, non-consensual surgery performed on wide-awake "patients," a family of supernatural hillbillies who run a creepy roadside attraction, wanton cop-shooting, and Karen Black. Also offers a nice tip of the hat to Herschell Gordon Lewis' wondrous 1960s hick ghost movie 2,000 Maniacs.
4. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1932) – The Rouben Mamoulian version of this well-pedigreed flick offers us a Mr. Hyde who is the early-twentieth century version of a nasty, low-class fellow. Hyde goes to dance halls, drinks lots of beer, dresses in shabby clothes, and takes up with a hooker who does burlesque for cash. Poor, upstanding Dr. Jekyll is constantly tormented by his inner thug, who wants nothing more than to bring the good doctor down a peg or seven.
3. Deliverance (1972) – Burt Reynolds nearly gets ass-raped by a bunch of inbred Appalachian "bluebird" people while on a camping trip with his city slicker pals. Need I say more?
2. From Dusk 'Til Dawn (1996) – Who says hicks have to be white? This cross-cultural gorefest starts with rapist-killer Quentin Tarantino freaking out in the US with brother George Clooney and zooms across the border to a Mexican bar bubbling with vampiros. Written by Tarantino and directed by Robert Rodriguez (the guys behind upcoming treat Grindhouse), this is a pitch-perfect mashup of a psycho flick and a vampire death orgy film, populated entirely by border scum who love tequila, blood, and bullets.
1. Near Dark (1987) – This amazing, frenetic vampire movie is directed by action auteur Kathryn Bigelow and stars Adrian Pasdar (Heroes) as a good ole boy kidnapped outside his ranch by a group of white trash vampires careening across the south in an RV with the windows blacked out. Their leader, played with wry menace by Lance Henrickson, is a former foot soldier who fought on the wrong side in the Civil War. This film is worth it for the redneck barroom bloodbath scene alone, but the acting and writing are so over-the-top great that they elevate this cult nugget to a geniune B-movie classic for the ages.
