Coventry 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.

Woodyanders 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.

smittie-1 "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.

microx96002 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???