coltish gallimaufry
BUSHWACKER
“Bushwhacker! It’s a woodsman! A woodsman that’s been cut off from civilization for a couple of years, lives alone up in this brush, starts to talk to himself after a while, gets a little wacky! A little bushwacky! A bushwhacker!”
Yes, The Bushwhacker. On Something Weird’s “Top 10 Want List” since the company began, we’ve finally acquired a good-looking 35mm print of The Bushwhacker and, yup, it’s a nasty one alright….
A goofy-looking guy in a Davy Crocket hat, The Bushwhacker sees an airplane flying over the desert and, apparently hating aviation, shoots the plane out of the sky with two shots from his trusty rifle. Fleeing from the (offscreen) wreckage are stud pilot Dan (FORMAN SHANE of Henry’s Night In and numerous films for Steve Apostolof) and three sexy starlets: Sherry, Maureen, and Dawn (MERCI MONTELLO, Miss “Playboy Playmate December 1972”) who struts around in bright white go-go boots. Undaunted by the ordeal, Dan and Dawn get it on that night while poor Sherry is first fondled by The Bushwhacker, then by horny lesbian Maureen (billed here as “Acee Decee”).
Hiking to a nearby stream the next day, Dan and the girls stop to rest, Sherry starts to skinny dip, and The Bushwhacker quickly carries her away. Dan and the remaining girls search for her for all of about, oh, three minutes or so before Dan and Dawn get nekkid and paw each other once again. By this time, the big bad Bushwhacker has dragged the topless Sherry to a tree where he strings her up and bites her arms and legs like she’s fresh hamburger meat. He also slices her up with a knife. Dan, Dawn, and Maureen eventually discover Sherry’s lifeless body, at which time Maureen climbs on top of her and makes love to her dear dead friend. Yes, she does.
Greedy for more, the Bushwhacker finally shoots Dan and makes off with another of the girls who’s found with one of her boobs cut off….
Director BYRON MABE, of course, helmed films for Dave Friedman such as A Smell of Honey, She Freak, and Space Thing. He also starred in Friedman and Frost’s seminal roughie The Defilers. But as Friedman learned with The Adult Version of Jekyll & Hide (which Mabe also produced), by the late sixties, skinflick audiences didn’t like their sex mixed with gore. And exhibitors didn’t like The Bushwhacker in particular. “No one would play it,” recalls Friedman. “It was a ‘red flag’ right from the get-go. The Pussycat chain immediately turned it down.” As a result, the distribution rights were split between two small indies, Falcon Films (“13 Western states”) and Chancellor Films (“Eastern U.S. and world wide”), and shown in lower-end grindhouses with a print run that must’ve been less than ten.
But one of those prints has finally surfaced and this Holy Grail of Cinematic Degeneracy can now run amok in your very own living room. Brainless sex and violence, The Bushwhacker is the perfect film for any pervert. -- Frank Henenlotter
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Product Details
SKU: 38009 Weight: 0.25 lbs Format: DVD-R Year: 1968 Color: Color Starring: Merci Montello Co-starring: Foreman Shane Other cast: Ronnie Runningboard Directed by: Byron Mabe ("B. Ron Elliott")
Price: $10.00
