The Legend of Blood Mountain

My first wife and I were dancers in the beach party scene with Marriane Gordon. I worked with George Ellis who played Bestoink Dooley at Dimension Incorporated in Atlanta, GA and he offered me and my wife the bit parts in the movie. The beach party scene which lasted just a few minutes took all night to film. BTW This movie was one of the top 10 grossing movies of 1965, by grossing over a Million dollars. I assume it played at a lot of drive-ins. I have a DVD copy of the movie that I have shown to my family until they were sick of it. George Ellis also starred in "Moonrunners" that movie was a prequel to "The Dukes of Hazzard" TV show.

Wannabe reporter Bestoink Dooley (George Ellis) hears that Blood Mountain is "bleeding" again and heads there to try and get the scoop. He meets some locals and a scientist, who soon discover the ancient Indian legend about the bleeding mountain is true. Woooo boy! This horror-comedy indie shot in Georgia and uses Stone Mountain to pretty good effect. Unfortunately, there is the rest of the film which suffers in both the horror and comedy departments. Director Massey Cramer draws it out to such a degree that you feel sorry for audiences that didn't have the advantage of fast forwarding. Not that I did any of that because I felt it was essential to my life to watch Bestoink Dooley -- BESTOINK DOOLEY!!! -- slowly eat some cookies before bed or have dreams where he is a private eye who slooooowly sits with two girls. Ellis looks like a Zero Mostel knockoff minus the funny bone. Camp Video put this out on VHS in 1988 and were really selling it on the fact that Kenny Rogers' wife appears in one scene as a background extra (they even put a full pic of her on the back). They also re-titled it Demon Hunter and gave a fuzzy look at the monster with the hope some unsuspecting fool would pick up the VHS and watch it...oh dang, that's me!

I remember seeing this film in 1965, I was a young girl. I had nightmares for months from this film. I think this was the first horror film I ever saw. I grew up in GA near stone mountain. I have told my children of this movie for years. I would love to see it again. Funny thing I have turned into quite a horror movie watcher. Stephen King is my favorite author. Maybe this movie had a bigger impact than I thought.

"Blood Mountain is bleeding again," according to a TV news report, and middle-aged copy boy Bestoink Dooley sees his chance for a promotion. Poking around the mountain woods, he runs into geologist Dr. Stinson, who dismisses the phenomenon as "rock rust." When a hunter turns up dead with a torn-out heart and his "blood sucked dry out," Dooley correctly assumes the Blood Mountain monster is responsible. It finally shows up and kills a few people.

If you see one camp/cult/crap movie this year, go out of your way to rent or buy this jaw-dropping schlock, filmed in 1965 but released on video in the 1990s under the title DEMON HUNTER by Camp Video, and made to look like just another routine horror quickie.

As most of the monster stuff unreels in the last ten minutes, we must wade through a lot of inept, low-ball comedy shtick for about an hour. The opening third of the movie introduces Dooley (George Ellis, who looks kinda like an Italian Joe Besser) and shows him, well, doing things. We watch as he prepares for bed, goes to sleep, has a dream, wakes up. . . Performed in the manner of a backwoods high school play.

All the dialog is dubbed and the soundtrack consists of laughable "library music" (you can even hear someone dropping a needle on an LP before the opening scene). The monster suit is hilariously tacky -- the actor wears what looks like a wasp's nest on his head, lambskin chaps, cotton balls glued to his navel and chest, and two big rat-tails on the thighs! Everyone says "Bestoink" with a straight face, the women have classic 60s coifs, and there are footstep sounds on the soundtrack even though no one is walking around. Decatur University of Cosmetology gets credit for the great hair.

THE LEGEND OF BLOOD MOUNTAIN, filmed at Stone Mountain Memorial Park, near Atlanta, Georgia, was probably the first Bigfoot movie. See it.

Regional schlock(in color, amazingly) about a humble reporter named Bestoink(!), who is trying to solve an ages-old cowtown mystery. It seems that a certain mountain has been known to "bleed" human blood, marking the start of a killing spree by an ancient beast which lives within the mountain's hollow.

Said monster does, indeed, turn up...and it's one sad looking critter, let me tell you...sort of a mangled conehead with furry riding britches and tails hanging from both hips, covered with what appears to be cottonballs. The creature growls like a lion, kills a couple of the resident good ol' boys, and chases Bestoink around for several minutes of unsuccessful intended comedy.

This is pure amateur-night dross with rampant sub-adequacies in every facet of production. In short, its gold-star entertainment for enthusiasts of artless American filmtrash. Leading lady Erin Fleming became a a hot topic for tabloid fodder concerning her strange and often turbulent relationship with Groucho Marx during his later years. Country singer Kenny Rogers' ex-wife, Marianne Gordon(who also had a bit part in ROSEMARY'S BABY), is also featured.

3.5/10.