The Legend of Blood Mountain

"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.

Bestoink Dooley (George Ellis) was the host of The Friday Night Big Movie Shocker! shown at 11:00 PM on the Atlanta area CBS Affiliate WAGA.Later it was also shown on Saturday mornings at the end of the "kiddie" line up. George and his brother later purchased and managed the Ansley Mall Film Forum in Atlanta. As bad as "Blood Mountain" might have been, his taste in films was excellent. I saw numerous cult films, such as "A Boy and His Dog", and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" at the Forum, along with other great movies like Zefferelli's "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" and "Ballad of Narayama". I'd love to get a video of "Blood Mountain", are there any out there?

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.

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 was a student at Georgia Tech when a fellow Photography Club member told me that he had shot stills for this movie company. I went with him one day to see what goes into making a movie and started helping out with the filming chores on Stone Mountain (outside Atlanta, GA). Asked if I would like a job, I quickly accepted and spent all my spare time on the film for 6 months. I organized the rushes (16mm version of each roll of film shot with each frame numbered) and learned how to assemble the scenes into a rough cut movie. I also worked with the music library (350 hours of music themes) to add background music to the film (I had specialized in recorded sound during my high school years). After the film was roughed in, we went to Master Recording Studio for about a month to record the dialog for the film. Using the preliminary movie print and the tinny sound recorded on site as a guide, we had the original actors come into the recording studio to rerecord their voices to match the image. These rerecorded dialog tapes were synced to the movie print at this point. Later, when the first review print was ready, we viewed it at the Paramont (I think) studio in downtown Atlanta. This was a 30 seat theatre with a 35mm projector and communication with the projectionist so that we could tell him when to start, stop, rewind, etc the film as we made comments on continuity, color balance, voice, and music.

This film was made to show in the Saturday morning movie circuit of about 450 "hardtop" theatres. Comedy/horror was a popular movie type at the time that almost guaranteed one showing in each theatre. As I recall the economics, the movie cost about $750,000 and would gross $1.25 million in one pass through the 450 theatres.

Bestoink Dooley (played by Gregory Ellis) was a "character" that had a Saturday morning kids program in the Atlanta area. He brought the exact character to the film that he used on his weekly show.

I would love to get a video of this film ... my four children have never see it (and wonder if Daddy really did this).