#hedges capers

[eclecticpjf]

Now watching:

The Legend of Hillbilly John a.k.a. Who Fears the Devil (1973, dir. John Newland)

[sloshed-cinema]

The Legend of Hillbilly John (1972)

Appalachia is chock-full of things that go bump in the night. Every hill and holler brings with it legends of some creature or ghost that stalks the woods, and there is plenty of folk wisdom and superstition to go around. The Legend of Hillbilly John (aka Who Fears the Devil, depending on where you get it) is steeped in that sensibility: John subdues evil in all forms, from a large vulture-like bird to a crazed old man to potentially the very government itself, all with a tune on his lips. Because that’s the other side of it: this film is also chockablock with hillbilly tropes and standbys. Even the first minutes are a treasure trove. A group of cantankerous hill folk hate the highway being built, a man tipples from his whiskey still, and the Devil and the Government are in cahoots to make it all worse for the rest of them. Narration is quick to draw a line between satanic influence and the bourgeois progress of things like highways and other such atrocities. Maybe John is gonna go fight Canada over the tariffs imposed while ignoring the fact that his entire community probably voted for the dumb fuck who incited all that mess. Who knows. The creatures he battles have a charming claymation nature to them, and there is a moralism to the discovery of the ancient ghost-demon who promises gold but only delivers eternal sexy times with a gross old lady in punishment for greed. Talk about a paper bagger. John of course is as pure as the true silver of his guitar strings and cannot be corrupted.

Vast stretches of this film consist of John’s wanderings in the wilderness, generally accompanied by his dog and sometimes by his lady friend Lily. The songs sung during this period are lovely in a simple way, with the absolute banger that opens the film being a highlight. If this can also drag at points, it’s more than made up for by occasional gonzo filmmaking choices. When John’s grandpappy tries to strike down the Devil, his encounter is so traumatic that it rends the very filmstock of the movie, causing the effect of a projection error. The ghostly encounter atop the mountain of gold has a delightfully eerie quality to it, and a head-scratching episode stepping back in time plunges the film into sepia-adjacent tones. It’s slack, but not without its merits.

THE RULES

SIP

Someone says 'Grandpappy' or 'Ugly Bird'.

A song starts.

Cantankerous locals.

BIG DRINK

A dog clearly has concerns about things.

It suddenly becomes an experimental film.