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.

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).

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.

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.

DEMON HUNTER aka THE LEGEND OF BLOOD MOUNTAIN was an Atlanta-lensed monster flick starring Atlanta TV legend George Ellis as his "Bestoink Dooley" character. The writing and cinematography are "freshman year film school" at best but the film has a surprising amount of charm and is helped by a running time of just over one hour. It is comprised of set pieces that make you constantly go "WTF??". The blood and monster effects are pretty lame even by 1965 standards (you have to remember that American had already been hit over the head by the appalling excess of BLOOD FEAST by this point) so more laughs and chuckles than real horror. Despite the massive flaws it DID make money and the cast has a certain charm that is hard to ignore. Especially George. No matter how bad the comedy bits get and no matter how bumbling Bestoink is, he manages to maintain a certain dignity during the proceedings that most actors would never be able to manage with such material. You often watch this movie and swear that it was written and shot by Hal P. Warren of "Manos" infamy. Even some of the background music is very reminiscent of the jazz tooting in "Manos". From a "film school" standpoint, this movie is a complete bust. From a "have a few beers and let her rip" point of view, LEGEND is a film that can easily go toe to toe with such other anti-classics such as "Manos", "Monster A-Go Go" and "The Giant Spider Invasion". Not bad company to be in if you are a bad film...