Jingo!

 

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BLACK OAK CONSPIRACY-1977-Tedious hillbilly nonsense inspired by TV's The Dukes of Hazzard with a arrogant trouble making Hollywood stuntman Jingo Johnson (co-scripter Jesse Vint) going back to his hometown to visit his mom in a nursing home and uncovering a land grab conspiracy by weaselly land developer Harrison Hancock (Robert F. Lyons),who's also sleeping with Jingo's ex- girlfriend Lucy (Karen Carlson), and his not so nice father (Douglas Fowley) who he's not sleeping with. Sheriff Otis (Albert Salmi) is in cahoots with them. Lucy's father (Seymour Cassell) helps Jingo out. In the end the sheriff goes crazy and tries to blame some killings on Jingo but in a weird finale in a rock quarry Jingo triumphs and wins back his ex. 

With a quick exploding head, nudity and Phil Every doing the theme song. Filmed in Oklahoma by former actor Bob Kelljan who earlier had made the two Count Yorga movies and SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM.

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Forgotten '70's Shit

 

JC-1972-Hippie-biker-pothead JC Masters (Bill McGaha) can't hold a job and hallucinates a lot. Almost 17 minutes past before the credits are shown! 

JC wants his gang to spread love and is almost like a weird religious cult preacher. He and his girlfriend Kim (Pat Delany) and his gang go back to his hometown to visit his sister (Joanna Moore). The sheriff (Slim Pickens) and his deputy (Burr DeBenning) are very upset because JC has a black guy David Little (Hannibal Penney) with him. After the redneck duo arrest and beat up Little it's rednecks vs. hippies in a motorcycle shotgun shootout. After the deputy kills Little peace loving JC kills the deputy. In the end the Christ like JC is killed. 

Visible boom mics are in many scenes in this dumb dated misfired parable written and directed by lead actor McGaha who made one more movie after this.

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the Asylum Again

 

THE BEAST OF BRAY ROAD-2005-The Asylum Strikes again! In this useless waste of time horror flick a monster terrorizes a hick town where the only character that's not a moronic inbred redneck is the local sheriff transferred from Chicago. "The beast" turns out to be a werewolf and most everyone is killed. Director Leigh Scott later made HILLSIDE CANNIBALS.

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The Lone Star State of Horror

PSYCHO FROM TEXAS-1975-A nutty redneck named Wheeler (John King lll) has flashbacks of his mom having sex. Meanwhile a local rich retired businessman  named Phillips (Herschal Mays), who fishes with an African American kid, plans the wedding of his daughter Connie (Candy Dee). Turns out Wheeler was hired to kidnap and rob Phillips. He and a local fool kidnap Phillips and after tying him up at a remote cabin, Wheeler goes to score some weed. Now he may be psycho but he's not very smart leaving the shit for brains local to watch over their captive. Sure enough while Wheeler is out making a pest of himself Phillips escapes. The local gives chase. They keep referring to Phillips as an “old man" but he takes off and their chase scene seems to go on forever!  Meanwhile Wheeler visits Connie and a neighbor informs her that her daddy is missing. (The kid he goes fishing with found his abandoned car) It seems Connie's fiance Steve (Reed Johnson) is behind the plot. The long long chase finally ends with Phillips stabbing the local ass in the neck. He eventually makes it to police headquarters.  After Wheeler kills Connie's friend, he gets some KFC and visits a bar. Steve is arrested but when he sees Phillips is alive he grabs a cop’s gun and bolts. Yes! Another chase scene! The chase is inter-cut with Wheeler's antics at the very darkly lit bar where he kills the only other customer and makes the bartender (Linnea Quigley) dance naked and pours beer on her (she looks like she's laughing on one point). A cop shoots Steve in the head, father and daughter are reunited and the sheriff (who’s daughter Wheeler killed) shoots Wheeler whose last words are “Don't hurt me, mama!”.  

This fairly boring slasher film began life as the never released WHEELER. It went through several changes and titles before it became PSYCHO FROM TEXAS. The bar scenes with  Linnea Quigley (this could be her first film role depending on when the scenes were shot) were added to this version providing the only actual highlight of the whole film. Seems like they put it toward the end to give at least some kind of payoff. Two directors are credited: Jack Collins (who plays the sheriff) and Jim Feazell.

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Truckers

WHITE LINE FEVER-1975-Carrol Jo Hummer (Jan Michael Vincent  who died in February 2019) comes back from the army and gets married to his sweetheart Jerri (Kay Lenz). He buys his own rig and becomes a trucker. That's when the trouble starts! He finds his dead father's old friend Duane (Slim Pickens) is corrupt and has a bunch of thugs (including Martin Kove) working for him. The real villains are three rich guys Buck (LQ Jones), Cutler (Don Porter) and their lawyer (RG Armstrong). Carroll tries to organize a union, gets blacklisted, beat up and almost tried for murder but Jerri's tear jerking testimony gets him off. Buck tries to kill him with a forklift. After Cutler seems to make a deal with the truckers, Hummer's house is burned down and Jerri who was pregnant loses her baby and becomes comatose. Dick Miller (who died in January 2019)  has a small role as Birdie Corman. This depressing little tale was directed by Jonathan Kaplan three years before the similarly plotted big budget FIST starring Sylvester Stallone. Kaplan later directed THE ACCUSED (1988) and recently was the executive producer of a documentary about Dick Miller (THAT DICK MILLER GUY).

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2000 Maniacs

2000 MANIACS-1964-Herschel Gordon Lewis' second installment of his infamous "blood trilogy" after BLOOD FEAST is a bit of a letdown. It's a kind of gory version of BRIGADOON without singing. Maybe Lewis blew it. He could have created the first gore musical! 


Anyway, the ghost town of Pleasant Valley (I wonder if this all happened on a Sunday..??) appears 100 years after the beginning of the Civil War. It's full of a bunch of redneck hicks who also happen to be cannibal murderers out for revenge for the slaughter of their village during the war. They kidnap/trick 6 couples (including BF leads Thomas Wood/Rooney Kerwin and former Playboy centerfold Connie Mason) from the North and plan to use them in their centennial. Four are killed in various HG Lewis fashion. One woman has her arm chopped off. A guy is pulled apart by horses. Another guy is put in a barrel with nails and rolled down a hill. Another woman is crushed by a boulder. That's about it. Mostly it's yokels laughing and saying "yankee" a lot. 


2000 MANIACS was filmed in Florida, where previously BLOOD FEAST was also made but while BF had extreme gore and humor (some of it unintentional) at least it was entertaining and moved along at a good pace. This drags and the hillbilly ranting becomes annoying. 


Ben Moore (who's also in Lewis' MOONSHINE MOUNTAIN) plays an ax toting lunatic.  I love the cool theme song (written and sung by HG) though called "The South's Gonna Rise Again". 


It was remade in 2005 as 2001 MANIACS with Robert Englund in the lead. 


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Sleaze with Stars

 


POOR PRETTY EDDIE-1975-Leslie Uggams plays singer Liz Weatherly (apparently known for singing the Star Spangled Banner on TV). When her car breaks down in the back woods somewhere she runs into some demented hillbillies at restaurant/motel. It’s run by floozy digusto drunk Bertha (Shelly Winters) and her Elvis impersonating psycho lover Eddie (Michael Christian). Unfortunately, Bertha gets jealous when Eddie decides to hold Liz prisoner. Ted Cassidy (former TV 's Lurch) is the hired hand who they both order around. Slim Pickens plays a perverted redneck sheriff with an idiot assistant. It’s a pretty sleazy and bizarre film with the low light being the sicko scene of Eddie raping Liz inter-cut with a scenes of Cassidy and some other rednecks watching two dogs humping (while a country love song plays)! After some weird goings on Eddie wants to marry Liz. Dub Taylor plays the Justice of the Peace. Cassidy seems to die twice but manages to break up the wedding ceremony where Liz get her revenge (while "Amazing Grace" is heard).

Director Richard Robinson made other unusual movies like ADULTERY FOR FUN AND PROFIT and IS THERE SEX AFTER MARRIAGE?. Cinematographer David Worth may have been a co-director.

I really wonder about some of the casting in this movie. Pickens, Cassidy and Taylor would have done anything, but two years later Uggams played a major role the hot mini-series ROOTS. Was her singing career so non-existent that she had to do this? Winters was an Oscar winning actress. WTF??

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