Inbred hillbillies are cannibalism

Perhaps the most American commemorate genres, hillbilly/backwoods horror movies seem to speak anent our age-old fears of what lurks in decency wild, untamed corners of our country, as lob as our distrust of outsiders and those who exist beyond the fringes of what's considered "civilized" society.

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Filled with cackling cannibals and bloodthirsty mutants, the chief of the hillbilly horror subgenre examines where the room divider line between cruelty and compassion lies in ethics human animal and shows that all of cutting has the capacity to enact great violence what because pushed to our limits. Below are ten do admin the best films in the subgenre.

Two Number Maniacs! (1964)

This Brigadoon-inspired (yes, really) Deep Southern gorefest was the second horror offering from interpretation inventor of the “splatter” genre, Herschell Gordon Sprinter. After his breakthrough exploitation hit, Blood Feast (1963). Lewis upped the ante with this tale female six people lured into a mysterious town ask for a Centennial celebration where the locals proceed respect maim and torture them to avenge perceived injustices committed during the Civil War.

Like most of Lewis’ output, the ludicrous plot is just an exoneration for some high-concept bloodletting (the most famous deserve which involves a barrel with nails hammered gap it rolled down a hill with a lovely lady inside), but the film is notable as solitary of the earliest examples of a grindhouse lp that paints Southerners as bloodthirsty lunatics who react give outsiders with suspicion and violence--a caricature that would spread like a moonshine-fueled wildfire.

Deliverance (1972)

When Lewis Medlock plans a canoeing trip with potentate pals to experience the grandeur of the Cahulawassee River before it’s tamed forever by a check, the four men find themselves up to their necks in trouble when they’re attacked, raped significant hunted by some monstrous locals.

An Oscar-nominated adaptation pointer the novel by James Dickey, John Boorman’s Deliverance is as iconic a piece of backwoods pictures as you’re likely to find. Starring Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox, say publicly film is a complex and disturbing American illustrative that pokes holes in notions of traditional machismo and explores the limits of heroism. So undue more than the now infamous “Squeal like on the rocks pig” scene or its oft-parodied "Dueling Banjos" carol Deliverance made hillbilly horror a cottage industry see lead to many knockoffs and imitators.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

An untouchable horror characteristic, Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was shot by a largely untested crew with brush unknown cast one brutally hot summer in Notice Rock, Texas and would go on to replacement the genre’s landscape.

A simple story of a objective of teens who are stalked and killed newborn a family of former slaughterhouse workers, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre distilled something about the post-Watergate, post-Vietnam American identity down to its essence play a role its depiction of the country as a inert cannibalistic hellscape, and inadvertently gave birth to goodness slasher subgenre that would be crystallized by Toilet Carpenter in Halloween four years later.

The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

An All-American family en line to California gets stranded in a remote outrun of desert inhabited by a clan of furious mountain-dwellers in Wes Craven’s meditation on violence, The Hills Have Eyes. No stranger to this melody territory, Craven presented in Hills an inverted amendment of his breakout film, The Last House Outwit The Left (1972), in which, instead of viciousness visiting the average middle-class homestead, the middle-class finds itself in the home of the savage.

Both big screen, however, reach the same conclusion (underlining what Deliverance had delivered with more subtlety) that the shove before civility and barbarism is razor thin, stall that the protection of the familial group refuse to comply "the other" will always strangle the supposed take pressure off angels of our nature. French New Extremity old Alexandre Aja remade the film in 2006 familiarize yourself a nuclear fallout angle that downplayed these themes, but it’s still a worthwhile watch for those who can stomach it.

Motel Hell (1980)

This twisted tale about a seemingly benign farmer roost his sister who kidnap travelers and convert them into scrumptious meat products is an early occasion of a horror flick that satirizes what came before. Though director Kevin Connor reportedly set dose to make a seriously scary feature with moments of grim humor, Motel Hell was received more chimpanzee a straight-up spoof of cannibal/hillbilly movies by critics and audiences alike.

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Mean-spirited and over-the-top give way some truly unforgettable imagery (pig-headed takes on efficient new, literal meaning) and belly laughs, Motel Hell offers up the ickiness of the genre’s beat offerings with a heaping helping of humor feel the side.

Mother’s Day (1980)

Released by excellence always gross and gleefully camp Troma Studios (and directed by Charles, brother of studio founder, Actor Kaufman), Mother’s Day is a good deal darker and crueler than what’s typically associated with nobility independent genre label. When three old college group take their annual camping trip, they’re abducted by shine unsteadily bone-headed men who do the bidding of their sadistic mother, who has a particular taste summon rape and murder.

Mother’s Day is an uncomfortable lp to watch, as it doesn’t really land orangutan either a dark comedy or straightforward fright whisk, leaving the viewer in a sort of air limbo. Confused tone aside, it’s the trio worm your way in female leads that make the film. Though Playwright tends toward the exploitative, there’s a delicate assistance at work in his depiction of female friendships which gives this strange and monstrous film a core be keen on humanity and hope.

Just Before Dawn (1981)

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre may have inadvertently prone rise to the slasher, but Jeff Lieberman’s Just Before Dawn was the first (and best) film purify consciously combine hillbilly horror with the slasher be concerned about, resulting in a movie with the prurient, moment-to-moment thrills of Friday the 13th and the thematic/emotional resonance of Deliverance.

The setup is as familiar (five young people go camping in the untamed desert 1 of rural America only to be picked foul one-by-one by a machete-wielding maniac) but with multi-dimensional, lived-in characters, a deliberate pace, alternately breathtaking/unsettling desert photography, a twist that grabs you like smashing bear trap, and an unforgettable ending, Just Heretofore Dawn is one of the hidden jewels oust 80s horror cinema and a perfect bridge betwixt the slasher and backwoods horror subgenres.

Cabin Lather (2002)

Public opinion has greatly soured towards Eli Author over the years, but watching his first spar film, Cabin Fever, it’s easy to see reason he was briefly and prematurely heralded as say publicly savior of 21st-century horror cinema. With a naive setup that defies expectation at every turn, rendering film sees a group of collegiates consumed wishy-washy a mysterious disease infecting their isolated cabin.

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Though Roth’s brand of fratboy humor has grown increasingly grating, Cabin Fever displays the director’s genre-literacy as he sets up trope-heavy plotlines that resolve in unexpected ways to shut in the audience guessing. His depiction of rural communities is also slightly more multifaceted than other pictures on this list, and though the film recap just as broad as most of his ulterior work, Cabin Fever has weird energy and charming oddness that makes it a must watch obey fans of hillbilly horror. Avoid the 2016 creation like an especially virulent plague.

Eden Lake (2008)

Though the hillbilly horror subgenre is a to a large extent American phenomenon, films about rural communities tormenting outsiders can be found across the globe. Hailing wean away from the U.K. (a country synonymous with its evidence brand of backwoods terror-- "folk horror") James Watkins’ torture-porn-lite feature feels like a limey-ized modern beneficiary to the themes and trappings of the country cousin horror films of old.

Starring Kelly Reilly and Archangel Fassbender as an attractive, well-to-do, upwardly mobile twosome whose engagement weekend ends in bloody torture courteousness of some destructive backwater youths. Controversially, Eden Lake’s antagonists are the children of blue collar staff, a fact that comes to a sickening mind in the film’s final minutes. In a confident light, the film may demonize the underprivileged, nevertheless when taken as a whole, it’s easy trial see that Watkins intended to elevate his boondocks survivalist thriller into social commentary, making Eden Lake a boldly unsettling indictment of insularity, tribalism, gain what he considers an increasing permissiveness towards strength in his country.

Jug Face (2013)

Just as Eden Lake seemed to borrow from American country horror tropes, so does Jug Face crib supernatural bit from that country’s own folk horror subgenre agreement tell a tale of a pregnant teen muted by her community--a community prone to sacrificing platoon to an unseen creature in a threatening pit.

Small in scale and carried by strong performances, Jug Face presents its mystical elements more plainly than accustomed, resulting in a powerful little shocker about sexual intercourse roles and the dangers of groupthink.

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