Coventry Review of Whiskey Mountain

Whiskey Mountain (1977)

Perhaps an actual bottle of whiskey could have made this more fun .

[4/10 · 30 November 2014]

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.