House on Bare Mountain

Directed by Lee Frost.

1962. Not Rated, 62 minutes.

Cast:

Bob Cresse

Laine Carlin

Leticia Cooper

Laura Eden

Ann Perry

Connie Hudson

Dan Hyland

John Nada

Since the beginning of cinematic time there has always been crap. True, also, is there are varying degrees of crapiness. There is that painful crap that soils the screen with the difficult to excrete, hardened mass of its existence. Then, there is that joyous, smooth sliding crap. The turd itself, so happy to be crappy, revels in its own crappiness. It’s shape, size and smell are all sources of great pride in the crapper. House on Bare Mountain is just such crap. By the way, you only get one guess at where I was when I dreamed up this paragraph. Too much? Let’s move on.

Alledgedly, there is a plot. I’ll sketch it out as briefly as I can. Granny Good, of course played by a man in a dress (Cresse), runs a boarding school for girls. By the way, he’s definitely channeling Jonathan Winters for his performance. Granny is also a moonshiner. She doesn’t actually make it herself, though. She keeps a werewolf in the basemant who spends almost all of his time concocting the stuff. Yes, you read that correctly. Every now and again he sneaks out to bay at the moon. The cops send in Sally (Perry) to work undercover, presumably to bust the old lady.

As simple as it sounds, executing the story in a coherent manner proved too great a task for the masterminds behind this one. There is plenty of humor, both intentional and not. Dialogue ranges from dumb to slightly less dumb. The acting is pretty bad across the board with one exception. Cress is actually enjoyable as Granny Good. The of the cast obviously weren’t chosen for their skills as thespians. How do I know how the “actors” were chosen? The title offers a hint, but the (lack of) work by the wardrobe department is a dead giveaway. The young nubiles at “Granny Good’s School for Good Girls” rarely wear any clothing. This is quite literally a tits-n-ass movie. Since it is a flick from the 1960s, another part of the female anatomy remains off-camera. Nontheless, there is so much flesh on display the word “exploitation” doesn’t even begin to describe Bare Mountain.

Given what I’ve just told you, you may be incredulous as to what I’m going to say next. Truth is, there is an innocent vibe to the whole thing. It’s far different than boobie movies that would come out even less than a decade later. There is no sex or violence. One would be hard-pressed to find a trace of mean spiritedness. It’s just a bit over an hour of women walking around and doing other random things like shower (lots of showers, by the way), jump rope, read, and go up and down stairs in various stages of undress. I suppose you could argue the constant ogling of women is, in itself, mean. I won’t even try to dissuade you from your point. Certainly, I won’t try to say Bare Mountain has any artistic merit whatsoever. Still, it’s goofy fun for guys who feel like wasting sixty minutes, or so. It’s so bad, it’s awesome!

MY SCORE: -10/10