South of Hell Mountain (1971)

          At the risk of overstating this grimy picture’s virtues, South of Hell Mountain feels like a mixture of backwoods horror flicks and the idiosyncratic style of German filmmaker Werner Herzog. The backwoods stuff manifests in the main plot, about a group of rednecks who rob a mine, kill several people in the process, and seek refuge in a remote cabin populated only by a lonely woman and her long-suffering stepdaughter. The Herzog stuff manifests in the weird parallel storyline of a young woman suffering cruel indignities in a filthy asylum. The connection is that the mental patient is the aforementioned stepdaughter, so all the scenes taking place outside the asylum are flashbacks. Seeing as how South of Hell Mountain is a low-rent exploitation picture without any marquee names, expecting a satisfactory movie experience is unreasonable. Sure enough, the plot is mean and ugly, the acting is wildly uneven, and some scenes are bewildering. Yet South of Hell Mountain is a touch more interesting than the usual southern-discomfort fare, if only because it contains so many bizarre narrative and stylistic flourishes.

          The décor of the asylum suggests some wreck of a place in Eastern Europe—cracks on the wall, hay on the floor. Periodically, Sally (Anna Stuart) interacts not with other patients but with rats. That is, when she’s not receiving mental or physical abuse from her vile matron (Elsa Raven). Even the way the camera lingers on Sally’s vacant face evokes European art cinema. None of these remarks are intended to suggest that Herzog was an influence on South of Hell Mountain, as his work was mostly unknown in the U.S. at the time this picture was made; the point is simply to note an odd cinematic coincidence. Similarly, none of these remarks are meant to suggest that South of Hell Mountain is actually good. It’s not. But it is, however, peculiar. For instance, the movie’s tone becomes nonsensical when jubilant harmonica music accompanies a sexual-assault scene, and it’s startling that the filmmakers make direct allusions to Cinderella by having Sally do housework at the behest of an evil stepmother. South of Hell Mountain doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but it is not timid, and that’s worth something.

South of Hell Mountain: FUNKY