Whiskey Mountain (1977)

Very Cool!!!

Powerful

Absolutely the worst movie.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

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.

"Music and lyrics written and performed by Charlie Daniels"... 'nuff said. Just don't be expecting anything along the lines of "Devil Went Down To Georgia", ol' Charles sorta talk-sings through one song early in about the Whiskey Mountain (duh) and that's it for lyrics. Hey though, fans of arty rape scenes will get a kick out of the Polaroid montage (my second-hand copy is classified as a FAMILY film) and who doesn't love interminable scenes of rednecks gawking at purty wimmen? The box art made the movie look a hell of a lot weirder than it was, with the promise that "you can lose your life-- or your mind!", but mostly it's two couples trekking through the sticks and "acting" natural. Love that hermit.

This movie was not released.... it ESCAPED!!!!!! I actually got brain damage watching this. It is hard to believe people got paid for acting (oops, too strong a word)"being" in this! At least I presume they got paid. How could it have made any money???