Whiskey Mountain (1977)

Yi-haaaa, now where did I put my banjo? It has been ages since I watched a good old-fashioned 70's hillbilly-hicks exploitation thriller that shamelessly imitates the plot & success aspects of "Deliverance"! Sadly, however, the obscure "Whiskey Mountain" nearly didn't meet my – admittedly too high – expectations. I don't understand what went wrong, because all the omens indicated that this movie would be right up my alley. I love cheap and trashy drive-in cinema from the seventies, I absolutely love the cool horror protagonist Christopher George ("Pieces", "City of the Living Dead", "Grizzly"…) and I even have a fond but inexplicable weakness for the previous work of the reputedly incompetent director William Grefé. Yes, I confess… I'm a really big fan of "Stanley" and "Impulse" and I also tremendously enjoyed notorious stinkers such as "Mako: the Jaws of Death" and "Sting of Death". Then what exactly is the problem with "Whiskey Mountain"? Well, quite frankly, this film is incredibly boring and approximately half of the running time consists of pointless footage of the four lead characters driving through remote backwoods areas on their motorcycles with guiding evergreen music playing in the background. The foursome, two couples, is heading towards Whiskey Mountain in search of family treasures, but they encounter a bunch of unfriendly and marijuana- addicted rednecks on their paths. Nothing of interest happens during the first full hour of the film and I really had to fight sleep several times (sleep often won) in order to reach the climax. The tone and ambiance of the film aren't nearly as gritty and unsettling as they should be and even the excessive use of banjo music gets pretty dire after a while. Christopher George, cult wench Roberta Collins ("Death Race 2000", "Eaten Alive") and the rest of the cast deliver decent enough performances, but the script simply is too weak. But the main shortcoming definitely was that I was watching a crummy old VHS tape with terrible picture quality and nearly inaudible sound. Perhaps if "Whiskey Mountain" ever finds its way to DVD, complete with restored picture quality and remastered soundtrack, I'll give it another chance.

Being a person who is drawn to films, simply because of how obscure it is, can, from time to time, lead to some interesting discoveries within the world of B-entertainment. Other times, not so much. Enter Whiskey Mountain. Of course it has nothing to do with Moonshine Mountain. Why would it? Whiskey Mountain is more like a semi-ripoff of Deliverance, (allegedly) for the Drive-In crowd, with a positively uncalled for PG rating. A quality which doesn't really hold back this Hixploitation epic as much as one would assume. I guess you could call it a hard PG. However, I must say I expected a tad more from something that came from William Grefe, as I found this obscurity to be slightly underwhelming. Whiskey Mountain is about 2 Bikers, I mean 2 motorcyclists (along with the wives), who end up making some local pot farmers nervous, after they head out to said mountain, lookin' for gold. So, they ain't lookin' for weed, but the farmers don't know that. A very, very long weekend is what follows. The vicious hicks, by no means, intend on letting these people go. Besides an entertaining performance from the legendary William Kerwin, and some quaint scenery, here and there, there ain't a whole lot for Whiskey Mountain to brag about. Perhaps if good ol' Jeffery Allen had been present, there would have been a little more life in this shin-dig. It's just too normal and serious for it's own good. Not Grefe's best, by any means. You may just want to check out Electric Shades Of Grey, and call it a day. Or, if you must discover some 70's Hixploitation that no one cares about, you might be better off with something more like God's Bloody Acre. However, for you vintage/obscure/exploitation completists out there, you could go whole a lot worse than Whiskey Mountain. I say give it a chance. Just be sure to keep your expectations in check. 6/10

Four motorcyclists -- rugged Bill (solid Christopher George), easygoing Dan (likable Preston Pierce), sassy Diana (the always radiant Roberta Collins), and feisty Jamie (a lively portrayal by Linda A. Borgeson) -- run afoul of a gang of evil redneck pot farmers while searching for hidden treasure in the deep woods. Director William Grefe, working from a blah script by Nicholas E. Spanos, crucially fails to build much in the way of tension and allows the narrative to plod along at a too leisurely pace for the first hour. Moreover, the mild PG rating ensures that this movie never completely acquires the hard, gritty edge it truly needs to work and nothing much happens until fifty minutes into the story. Fortunately, things perk up considerably in the final half hour with a dynamic burst of thrilling and well-staged action that's topped off by a genuinely startling surprise bummer ending. The veteran cast of familiar B-pic faces do their best with the mediocre material: George, Pierce, Collins, and Borgeson make for appealing leads, perennial bad guy thespian John Davis Chandler does well as slimy and nasty head hillbilly Rudy, Robert Leslie almost steals the whole show with his hilariously kooky and energetic turn as a crazy old hermit, and William Kerwin is suitably hateful as the seedy Homer. Julio C. Chavez's sunny cinematography makes nice occasional use of strenuous slow motion and boasts lots of breathtaking shots of the gorgeously verdant sylvan scenery. Charlie Daniels' twangy and harmonic score does the rousing trick (Daniels also wrote and sings the catchy theme song). A strictly passable time-waster.

One of the worst movies ever made... If you can get through this movies without falling asleep, then you are doing pretty good, considering no matter how hard you turn up the volume you cant hear what the 'actors' (?) are saying and if you can acually see whats going on from the terrible film (I mean hell if you cant find anything that works better... use a Home movie camara... AT LEAST YOU CAN ACUALLY TELL WHATS GOING ON!)It is beyond my imagination how people get a movie like this to slip through the cracks, and escape on video... and further more.. how do people making this not know how terrible it is... good god... (!)After what I have just told you... If you are waiting for me to give you a summary of this piece of trash movie, there is nothing to tell... a group of campers on motorcycles get lost in the woods and a bunch of people terrorize them... or somthing to that... whats more so an action movie than a horror... this 'movie' (?) is of NO interest... if someone acually likes this I litterally feel for you.... Absolute Trash... not even one of those cheap funny flicks to watch go rent.. 'Plan 9 From Outerspace' and have a ball