The Legend of Hillbilly John

There is definitely one thing that I will miss if and when I move away from Seattle: Scarecrow Video. Scarecrow hosts what seems to be every movie ever made, and that means they have a lot of awesomely bad, weird films. For someone like me, it is heaven!

Last Friday, Bridget and I decided to have a lame night in. I said I wanted to watch a "Jeph" movie, and she said as long as it wasn't violent or scary, she might watch it with me. What fun! And boy, did she ever make the right decision!

I ended up finding "The Legend of Hillbilly John", from 1973, in the fantasy section. The back described some bewildering tale of an Appalachian hillbilly who stands up to defy the Devil. The front had a picture of a man with a guitar facing off with a demon bird. It was only on VHS, and was so rare it required a $150 deposit to rent. Best of all? It was rated G. In short, it looked perfect.

This movie was indescribably strange, totally low-budget, hilarious, and ridiculous. As such, it was absolutely awesome! As an adult, it is very rare that one encounters movies or stories which describe events that you just can't follow: concepts that are so alien they take time to absorb and process while you are watching, so that you are always one step behind. The Legend of Hillbilly John was one of these rare films. I had no idea what the concept of " defyin' " was. Apparently, it is when you find evil in the world, and instead of running away from it, you stand up and defy it, usually by playing some song. Yeah. So, it wasn't until about 30-45 minutes into the movie that we began to understand this concept, which helped our understanding of the movie. Sort of. This movie was bizarre in so many ways that understanding defyin' only alleviated some of the confusion.

The plot: John is a hillbilly/hippie who lives somewhere in the Appalachians. His grandpappy (who turns out to be his father) tries to defy the Devil. How, you ask? Well, he melted down some supposedly silver US coins, and turned them into silver guitar strings. However, poor grandpappy doesn't realize that US coins don't actually have silver in them anymore, so when he does the defy, he dies. John takes up his father's quest, and with the help of a sorcerer dude, finds some true silver coins to turn into guitar strings, for proper defyin'. He then goes on a series of adventures where he faces down evil in the mountains: first, an evil greedy man and a sinister sorceress, then a demon bird/demon man who has been defiling the land, and then, he emancipates the African slaves. Throughout all of this, he sings some pretty kick ass folk songs, and occasionally makes love to his aloof hippie girlfriend. After dealing with all of the evil in the Appalachians, John heads to where the evil is strongest: the final shot is of Jon walking up to the Capital building in Washington, D.C. Holy crap.


I couldn't really make heads of tails of this movie while I was watching it, or even after. I desperately searched for info on the internet, and found very little. However, I did find that this movie was based off of a collection of short stories, by some dude named Manly Wade Wellman, called "Who Fears the Devil?" After learning more about these stories, the movie makes a little more sense. But hardly. Who knows, maybe the stories are actually good!

This movie also starred a man named Hedges Capers, who wrote and played most of the awesome songs. Apparently, he was part of a folk duo, known as Hedges and Donna, back in the 70s. Brandon, if you ever find stuff by this guy, I want it! He is now apparently a business man/weird psychologist in San Diego.

Scarecrow, I love you! And Bridget, I love you even more, for putting up with movies like this!