Search - The Bushwhacker on DVD

Bush wacky

Greg Goodsell | Bakersfield, CA United States | 04/16/2008

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Cinema serves to inspire us. Such is the case of the obscure skin flick The Bushwhacker. While it unspooled on my entertainment system, I became very aware of an unsightly stain on my Berber carpet. Reaching for a long disused bottle of stain remover gathering cobwebs under my bathroom sink, I began to apply the solution to the effected area, followed by a gentle massage with a damp rag. The stain was gone. Fifteen minutes went by until I noticed another unsightly stain along the perimeter of my couch. Liberally dousing the area, I began to scrub my living room floor for highly satisfactory results. Thirty minutes into the feature, I became cognizant of some unsightly stains in between the tiles of my bathroom shower and reached for a proven tub and tile cleanser.

The story? A macho pilot and three not-that-pretty girls survive a plane crash and are stranded in the California wilderness. They walk around a lot. Eventually, "the Bushwhacker," a demented mountain man with a raccoon hat covering up his bald spot begins to spy on them. The pilot and the girls walk around some more. The Bushwhacker watches them. The pilot and one of the girls have sort-of sex. They walk around some more. There's some mild lesbian groping. They walk around some more. The Bushwhacker watches them some more. The girls and the pilot stop to admire nature. They walk around some more. The Bushwhacker watches them through the foliage. The girls and the pilot wade in a nearby stream. The Bushwhacker watches them some more ....

Finally, one hour into the feature the Bushwhacker abducts a shapely brunette; there is some unconvincing bondage, beating, torture, murder and minor necrophilia. The pilot and surviving girls must fight for their lives, and there is a duel to the death, and - I began to scrub my kitchen windows by then, so I'm still not sure how it eventually turned out.

We'll cut to the chase. The Bushwhacker is seen by some as the death rattle of the "roughie," an exploitation staple that lathered up scenes of nudity and sex with violence. The latest Something Weird catalog notes that very few prints of the film were made, giving The Bushwhacker an undeserved aura of being a long lost classic of perversity. No dice! This thing is strictly two steps removed from Coleman Francis' The Beast of Yucca Flats (1960) due to it being in color and sound. It may be three steps removed if we count breasts. Truly, it feels as if it took as long to make as it takes to watch. Seeing as screen slime vet Byron (The Defilers) Mabe stepped in to play the titular Bushwhacker in addition to helming this monstrosity, it's not hard to assume that the entire cast and crew consisted of the girls, the pilot, Mabe and maybe a cameraman. Minimalist and amateur in the extreme, the end credits are written with felt pin on distaff pieces of paper.

The Bushwhacker does have redeeming value in that it will give the most apathetic couch potato thinking of all the other things they could be doing in lieu of watching it. As for myself, I never before realized the buildup of grease at the bottom of my oven ..."