Wolfman (1979)

I like to believe that Earl Owensby had an absolute blast during the ’70s, building a production facility in North Carolina so he could generate a string of low-budget movies in which he starred, despite having negligible acting skills. Most of his flicks were redneck-themed action pictures, but every so often he threw a curveball with something like Wolfman. As the unimaginative title suggests, this on-the-cheap creature feature delivers a bland lycanthropy tale owing a great deal to The Wolf Man (1941). Owensby’s Wolfman is a terrible movie, thanks to anemic acting and sluggish pacing, but it’s almost endearingly bad because one gets a sense it was fun to make. After all, what movie fan wouldn’t get a kick out of building Gothic sets, drenching them with artificial moonlight, and shooting scenes with hands popping out from graves, monsters crashing through windows, and supernatural zealots wielding silver daggers? Plus, by casting himself in the title role, Owensby got to emulate Lon Chaney Jr. by sitting still while makeup applications and overlapping dissolves create the unconvincing (but charmingly old-fashioned) illusion that he’s becoming a hirsute horror. Not that it matters, but the plot, which is set in the early 1900s, goes like this: After his father dies, Colin (Owensby) returns to the family estate, where conniving relatives make him the latest victim of family’s werewolf curse. There’s other stuff—forged legal papers and romance with the girl next door, et cetera—but that’s all background noise. The “pleasure” of experiencing Wolfman involves watching a doughy dude with a drawl and his down-home pals shuffling their way through what amounts to a Halloween-themed costume party.

Wolfman: LAME

Death Driver (1977)

Earl Owensby, an enterprising actor/producer who made a string of successful pictures for the drive-in circuit during the ’70s and ’80s, rarely aimed for high art. Yet even by his low standards, Death Driver is a shabby piece of work. Bogusly billed as “The True Story of Rex Randolph,” it’s actually a fictional story set in the world of thrill shows, with Owensby playing a dude who became famous by attempting to drive a car through a flaming house while crowds watched. The general shape of the piece is that of a redemption saga, with Randolph (Owensby) searching for new forms of income and validation in the years following his brush with death. Viewers are asked to believe it’s a tragedy that Randolph can’t find anything more satisfying to do than attempting the same incredibly dangerous stunt again, even though he’s well past his prime and therefore unlikely to survive. Had Owensby and his collaborators demonstrated any measurable skill at characterization and drama, this storyline could have been poignant. Unfortunately, Randolph comes across as a backwoods scumbag. He steals cars and demolishes them in stunt shows. He cons a woman into sex by pretending he’s acquainted with a Hollywood talent agent. Et cetera. Instead of telling the sad story of a man who is only good at one thing, Owensby and his team tell the pointless story of an adrenaline junkie who feels entitled to whatever gratification he desires, no matter who gets hurt along the way. Death Driver is so vapid and wrongheaded that the only enjoyable aspect of the movie is sarcastic commentary spewed by the yahoo speaking over the PA system during race scenes. When a nameless guy who never appears onscreen delivers a film’s most dynamic element, that’s a sure sign something major is lacking.

Death Driver: LAME

Buckstone County Prison (1978)

          Something of a backwoods equivalent to Roger Corman, South Carolina-based filmmaker Earl Owensby was on a roll by the time he made Buckstone County Prison (also known as Seabo), the grim story of a bounty hunter who suffers abuse after being wrongly incarcerated. An unpretentious storyteller with an affinity for drive-in fare, Owensby eliminated movie-star fees by casting himself in the leading roles of his early films, and he used outdoor locations and semiprofessional supporting players to stretch his budgets even further. His efforts gave birth to the self-sustaining E.O. Studios and eventually made Owensby a multimillionaire. Not a bad record of achievement, seeing as how most people have never heard of the man.

          Buckstone County Prison illustrates the pluses and minuses of Owensby’s modus operandi. After half-breed bounty hunter Seabo (Owensby) angers corrupt local authorities, he’s thrown in jail on trumped-up murder charges. Vicious Native American guard Jimbo (Ed Parker) beats the shit out of Seabo, among other inmates, apparently for the sole purpose of demonstrating Seabo’s toughness to the audience. Eventually, Seabo gains his freedom and participates in a manhunt for several convicts who escaped with the help of another bounty hunter, Reb (played by country singer David Allan Coe, who cut some tunes for the soundtrack). Additional story elements include a corrupt warden, a hooker with a heart of gold, and other hackneyed tropes. The characterizations and storyline are so simplistic that viewers could nap through several minutes and pick up the narrative without difficulty.

          Actors are cast to type, so most of them render perfunctory iterations of clichés—the stuttering African-American man-child, the sneering warden in a seersucker suit, the madam made of brass, etc. Some of the players deliver adequate work and some don’t, but it’s all part of the same down-and-dirty vibe. As for Owensby’s turn in the title role, he’s a paunchy everyman who growls most of his lines through clenched teeth. At best, Owensby is a weak facsimile of a movie tough guy—he neither adds much to the experience nor takes much away. So it goes for the movie as a whole. With its copious violence and hissable villains, Buckstone County Prison is a mindless rendition of things that viewers have seen a million times before, and yet the picture unspools with a measure of heaviosity. For unapologetically derivative junk, Owensby’s opus is weirdly sincere.

Buckstone County Prison: FUNKY