The exploitation output of Floridian filmmaker William Grefé gets an HD bump up in Arrow Video's Blu-ray boxed set HE CAME FROM THE SWAMP – THE WILLIAM GREFÉ COLLECTION.

Fishermen and bathing beauties are disappearing around the Florida Everglades, and the only body that has turned up appears to be the victim of the STING OF DEATH of a jellyfish that would have to be several hundred times the size of a normal one. Although oceanography expert Dr. Richardson (Jack Nagle) – who has been conducting experiments involving jellyfish at his island cottage – and his younger colleague Dr. John Hoyt (Joe Morrison, RACING FEVER) claim that no jellyfish exists bigger than eighteen inches, Richardson's faithful deformed assistant Egon (John Vella, THE WILD REBELS) claims that it is indeed possible. When Richardson's daughter Karen (Valerie Hawkins) arrives with a quartet of schoolmates (Sandy Lee Kane, LAND OF THE GIANTS' Deanna Lund, Lois Etelman, and Blanche Devereaux) and John invites some of his students for a party, shunned Egon grows jealous of Karen's attraction to John and soon a man-sized walking humanoid jellyfish attacks the revelers.

Seeming like an even lower-budget variation on THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH, STING OF DEATH has acting that ranges from competent to horrendous and some laughable effects – the normal jellyfish that attack the kids attempting to escape the island look like inflated sandwich with tails while the humanoid one is a black wetsuit and an inflated garbage bag as a headpiece – but the production value of the Everglades locations is actually quite scenic including the Richardson house (presumably the residence of an investor like some of the handsomer locations in other Florida-lensed exploitation films of the period), and the title sequence boasts some nice underwater photography as the jellyfish drags a female victim from a dock to his underground lair. Vella manages to elicit some audience sympathy but the twist is obvious from the start, but that's about it for characterization. While THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH had the catchy "Zombie Stomp", STING OF DEATH has the horrible earworm "Do the Jellyfish" written and performed by Neil Sedaka.

In DEATH CURSE OF TARTU, archaeologist Ed Tison (Fred Pinero, Grefé's THE DEVIL'S SISTERS) and his wife Julie (Babette Sherrill) lead an expedition of college students – interchangeable Johnny (Sherman Hayes), Cindy (Mayra Gómez Kemp), Tommy (Gary Holtz, STING OF DEATH), and Joann (Maurice Stewart) – deep into the Florida Everglades to meet up with colleague Gunter (Frank Weed, STANLEY) who is excavating a Seminole burial ground despite the warnings of guide Billy (Bill Marcus) who refuses to accompany them. There is no sign of Gunter in his ruined camp but Tison discovers an artifact with writing that documents the curse of witch doctor Tartu (Doug Hobart, who also did the film's make-up effects) who vowed to destroy anyone who sets foot on his burial ground. Tison dismisses Julie's nervousness about the area but is unable to explain an attack by a shark in fresh water and other inexplicable occurrences to the tune of native drumming that suggest that they have indeed brought the "death curse of Tartu" upon themselves.

Similar to STING OF DEATH in isolating a handful of characters on an Everglades "island" with a low rent menace, DEATH CURSE OF TARTU is the cheaper-looking of the two films shot almost entirely outside during daylight with the exception of a couple visits to Tartu's cavern tomb, anticipating in some ways Fred Olen Ray's SCALPS with the mysterious drumming but minus much in the way of inventive or gory deaths. Like HANNAH, QUEEN OF THE VAMPIRES, Tartu largely stays in his tomb in body, transforming into snakes, alligators, and sharks to stalk his victims until the climax which is severely undermined by the aforementioned drumming which the attentive ear will realize is the same ten second sample probably stolen from some old western looped repeatedly with the same abrupt in- and out-points. Grefé's fellow Floridian filmmaking colleague Brad Grinter (BLOOD FREAK) has an uncredited role during the opening teaser. The film was shot and edited by Julio C. Chávez who performed the same jobs on several subsequent Grefé films as well as Joseph Adler's SCREAM BABY SCREAM.

Following its Thunderbird International double bill with Grefé's follow-up DEATH CURSE OF TARTU, STING OF DEATH was hard to see until Something Weird Video and Image Entertainment's 2001 DVD (which replicated the double bill). The materials are in fairly good shape and the colors are vibrant throughout in Arrow's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen presentation while the LPCM 1.0 mono audio also boast clear dialogue and music. The SDH subtitles having some proofing errors but also transcribe the Sedaka lyrics. DEATH CURSE OF TARTU found an audience with an eighties big box release from Active Home Video. Arrow's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen Blu-ray appears to be derived from different material than the Image DVD since it runs roughly three minutes longer (87:39 versus 84:08) but it is sometimes difficult to separate the damage from the original filmmaking flaws with some emulsion scratches only appearing in certain shots within a scene suggesting either a composite of two prints or the scratching happened in the camera during the shoot while light leaks pop up in a couple other scenes. Close-ups reveal texture from an early shot of Tartu's buckskin footwear to facial features, but the film looks its best in the controlled lighting conditions of the tomb set or the insides of tents. Colors pop from the Florida greenery to Johnny's red shirt while the enhanced resolution reveals what appears to be an optical composite for the shots where a snake strikes the face of a victim. The LPCM 1.0 track is clear enough that the looped drumming becomes taxing on the ear, and optional English SDH subtitles are provided.

Both films are preceded by new optional introductions by Grefé (2:51 and 3:15, respectively) while Arrow has ported over the audio commentaries Grefé recorded with filmmaker Frank Henenlotter (BASKET CASE) for the 2001 DVD double feature. On THE STING OF DEATH, Grefé reveals that building contractor Richard Flink got into filmmaking and insisted on shooting the film in his home despite Grefé's warnings about what film crews do to properties – with the custom carpeting trampled and an expensive vase knocked over by a boom pole – distinguishes the make-up effects of Harry Kerwin (BARRACUDA) – whose wife Betty was script supervisor and whose brother William was a Florida exploitation fixture with a wife known as "The Duchess" who did costumes on some of Grefé's films – and the creature make-up of Hobart, the disappearance of Morrison from acting after his work on three of the director's films, the presence of LAND OF THE GIANTS' Lund (who at the time was engaged to Larry King), as well as his decision to only shoot second unit in the Everglades and use places that looked like it closer to Miami on his subsequent films.

On TARTU, Grefé recalls that the film came about because Thunderbird needed a B-feature but could not find a horror film, so he wrote a script overnight (transposing THE MUMMY to the Everglades) and shot the film in seven days for $27,000. He also discusses the presence of animal trainer Weed in the cast and his continued collaboration through STANLEY and how the budget did not extend to superimposed titles and how he worked around that. New to the Arrow set are a pair of video featurettes. In "Beyond the Movie: Monsters a-Go Go!" (11:43), author/historian C. Courtney Joyner (THE LURKING FEAR) discusses how the bikini, monster, and rock 'n roll hybrid genre came about, referencing AIP's Beach Party movies and their supernatural elements as well as entries like THE BEACH GIRLS AND THE MONSTER and HORROR OF PARTY BEACH. In "The Curious Case of Dr. Traboh: Spook Show Extraordinaire" (10:50), Tartu himself Hobart discusses the Spook Show he wanted to create at a local theater to replace that of Dr. Silkini who had a contract but whose theatrics he found lacking, drumming up notoriety for himself in the newspapers by getting arrested at a cemetery and causing his neighbors to call the police to investigate the strange goings-on in his basement lab, and details of the show which ran for roughly three years until the theater replaced their screen with a CinemaScope screen which could not be raised to make room up front for the show. The theatrical trailers for both films are also included (2:08 and 1:34).

Disc two replicates not a theatrical double bill but Something Weird Video's DVD double bill of THE HOOKED GENERATION and THE PSYCHEDLIC PRIEST, the latter shot in 1971 but unreleased until 2001. In THE HOOKED GENERATION, Florida dope pushers Daisey (Jeremy Slate, TRUE GRIT), Dum Dum (Willie Pastrano, REVENGE IS MY DESTINY) – so named for his favored firearm – and Acid (John Davis Chandler, THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES) on their first solo drug deal end up murdering Castro's drug-running soldiers when they demand twenty-five thousand dollars more than the agreed-upon price due to "inflation." When the Coast Guard comes asking after a blown-up Cuban boat, the trio try to pass themselves off as average fishermen but necking couple Mark (singer Steve Alaimo) and Kelly (Cece Stone) grass on them, having witnessed the pushers dumping their stash. In the aftermath of the shootout, Kelly is held hostage while Mark is forced to dive for the drugs, and they become hostages at the trio's Everglades hideout. When they try to sell the drugs to kingpin Book Everett (Milton 'Butterball' Smith, MAKO: JAWS OF DEATH), they discover that the feds are already on their trail and the drugs are too "hot" to handle. Fleeing deeper into the Everglades with their hostages, the trio find shelter at a Seminole camp where they wreak more havoc and up the body count as the feds close in.

A mix of drug film and crime film, THE HOOKED GENERATION is modest in its execution but more than a little dull. Slate, Chandler, and Pastrano are entertaining – Chandler's Acid shoots up in the midst of a shootout – but the "action" is as static as the photography, and the hostage couple are almost nonentities. The most interesting section of the film is Chandler's visit to a Coconut Grove hippie house which culminates in a shootout that is more memorable than the swampland finale. The jazzy score is credited to Chris Martell and the band Odyssey. Martell acted in a handful of Florida-area exploitation films including Herschell Gordon Lewis' THE GRUESOME TWOSOME, Grefé's THE WILD REBELS, and SCREAM BABY SCREAM as well as working behind the scenes on SOMETIMES AUNT MARTHA DOES DREADFUL THINGS and CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS.

Released theatrically by Allied Artists, THE HOOKED GENERATION was not released on home video until 2001 when Something Weird Video put out a DVD double feature with THE PSYCHEDLIC PRIEST. The DVD image was nothing to write home about, and much of Arrow's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.33:1 pillarboxed fullscreen image looks rather drab with the occasional pop of saturated reds and blues in the wardrobe. The exterior night shots look the worst while the interiors of the hideout have a bit more depth and rather uneven blacks, with the best-looking segments consisting of the Seminole camp and hippie house sequences. The LPCM 1.0 mono track is generally clean apart from some surface noise on the optical track from wear and fading to the print. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided.

The film is preceded by an optional introduction by Grefé (2:40) while the audio commentary by Grefé and Henenlotter has been ported over from the Image DVD in which he reveals that Slate and Pastrano – who collected for the mob after he lost his boxing title and was Grefé's body guard against the Hell's Angels during THE WILD REBELS shoot – were the film's unofficial drug consultants, and some interesting stories about working on a low budget – although the $100,000 was a step up from his earlier films – including finding an abandoned boat since he could not afford to buy one to blow up, adding chunks of wood with squibs to another boat's hull since he could not blow holes in it, and how he did not realize the effects guys were using dynamite caps instead of squibs causing near misses for the cast and crew with shrapnel (as well as a syringe which became a projectile). Grefé also suggests that Sylvester Stallone – who was apparently living in Miami around the time – based ROCKY on Pastrano. Henenlotter describes the film as "if The Three Stooges were junkies." Some rare behind the scenes footage (23:29) shows a somewhat larger crew than we expect of Grefé's accounts of the shoot, and the material is silent and scored with a mix of tracks from both THE HOOKED GENERATION and THE PSYCHEDLIC PRIEST. A still gallery (6:40) is also provided.

Lensed in 1971 but not released until 2004, THE PSYCHEDELIC PRIEST – also known as JESUS FREAK and ELECTRIC SHADES OF GREY – is about Catholic priest and schoolteacher Father John (John Darrell) who ponders a more effective means of connecting with his students off the pulpit. When his students dose his coke with LSD, he goes on a trip and all of his resentments about his father wanting to live vicariously through him come to the fore. He grows out his sideburns and takes to the road to California. He picks up hitchhiker Sunny (Carolyn Hall) who is wary of the attentions of male motorists but soon is touched by his gentle nature. Helping a hippie in labor, they meet black medical student Ed who has retreated to the hills trying to find himself and is moved by them to return to the city to help those in need on the streets. Unfortunately, they run into some racist cops in a small town and Ed is murdered. When Sunny proclaims her love for John, he reacts badly, asking how she can claim to know him so intimately when he does not even know himself. When she hitches a ride while he is asleep, his trip is diverted by guilt as he tries to track her down once he arrives in Los Angeles and starts a downward descent into alcohol and hard drugs in despair. His only rescuers turn out to be reformed Jesus Freaks who may be the last kind of salvation he needs or wants.

A shapeless, episodic combination of road movie and "head movie," THE PSYCHEDLIC PRIEST is not a particularly good film but it is interesting, not only in Grefé's adapting not only to the scattered nature of the production but also out of his element in Southern California with a cast of real hippies and some people who had not even the pretense of wanting to be actors. Rather than the "psychedelic priest" as hippie savior, the film has drugs bringing to the fore repressed doubts and resentments, and the realization that his role as priest may be a shell that hides his lack of self. The scene late in the film of a revival meeting of ex-addicts suggests that religion is as much an escape for them as drugs were before, and a circular ending is the only place the film has to go. Direction is credited to producer Stewart Merrill who had appeared in THE HOOKED GENERATION and worked behind the scenes on some other Florida exploitation films, and Grefé explains just why in the extras.

Unreleased upon completion, the 16mm-lensed, 35mm blow-up production THE PSYCHEDELIC PRIEST made its debut from Image and Something Weird Video from a 16mm print which was presumably a reduction rather than something closer to the negative. Little projected, the image looks cleaner on Arrow's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.33:1 pillarboxed fullscreen Blu-ray, with stable colors and some varying contrasts with the rough and ready photography. The LPCM 1.0 mono track also sounds cleaner than the other more worn elements for the other Grefé films. Optional English SDH subtitles are included.

Besides the Grefé introduction (2:15), the disc includes an audio commentary by Grefé and Henenlotter from the DVD. Grefé reveals that Merrill was in Los Angeles and contacted him about coming to the West Coast to direct the film but would not send the screenplay. He refused to come initially until Merrill paid for his flight, and arrived to discover not only that Merrill's $100,000 budget consisted of trading stamps but that there actually was no script, just a concept. As they sketched out ideas at the local Ramada that accepted Merrill's trading stamps, he saw Merrill approach people off the street to act in the film including hippie Hall and Darrell who actually was an actor. He describes how the day-to-day shoot mirrored the road trip structure, as they worked out scenes the night before and largely ad-libbed the dialogue. He even recalls driving by Jeremy Slate on the way to a happening. Grefé reveals that he could not take directorial credit because Ivan Tors had just made him president of his Miami studio – where shows like FLIPPER were produced – so he could not have his name associated with non-family fare, and that Joe Solomon of Fanfare Films wanted to distribute the film but the release was scuttled by a physical altercation between the distributor and Merrill over money.

Film historian Chris Poggiali appears in a pair of featurettes for the two films. In both "Beyond the Movie: That's Drugsploitation!" (7:51) and "Beyond the Movie: The Ultimate Road Trip" (8:22), he notes the existence of a genre of "loser" films and how the characters of both film seem to fit that mode, also noting that THE HOOKED GENERATION is a biker film without bikes and that it was promoted with the now-unthinkable gimmick of giving away pills at schools that had inside them a note urging students to see the film while THE PSYCHEDELIC PRIEST brings to mind some of the "Billy Graham Presents" films of the period that mixed genre with religious messages.

The NAKED ZOO returns to Miami's hippie stronghold Coconut Grove in which frustrated novelist Terry Shaw (Stephen Oliver, WEREWOLVES ON WHEELS) has become a gigolo to rich older women to supplement his meagre income. When his latest check from socialite Helen (Rita Hayworth, THE LADY FRON SHANGHAI) bounces, he tires of her and takes up with the more age appropriate Nadine (Fleurette Carter, AROUSED). When Helen draws him back with the promise of more money now that the health of her invalid husband (Ford Rainey, HALLOWEEN II) has taken a turn for the worst but the older man discovers them in a clinch and tries to gun them both down and dies from an accidental fall. Terry leaves Helen to deal with the mess, but his resentment over the state of his career and his reliance on the affections of rich older women brings out a cruel streak that shocks even his jaded hippie friends. When Helen blackmails him into coming back into her bed, there may be only one thing to do when the games stop being fun.

Featuring faded starlet Hayworth – once the wife of Orson Welles – and Oliver who had starred in the television spinoff of PEYTON PLACE and was currently on the popular but short-lived series BRACKEN'S WORLD, and lensed in some attractive Coconut Grove locations, NAKED ZOO was not only Grefé's highest-budgeted film but also his most stylistically-assured. Although relatively tame in terms of nudity and sex for a 1970 film, NAKED ZOO hits all the marks of a middle-aged approach to the psychedelic brand of late sixties melodrama with marijuana – which Oliver deliberately mispronounces in the manner of SOUTH PARK's school counselor Mr. Mackey – LSD tripping, hippie performance art, and the equating of free love and immorality before a violent climax and a sting-in-the-tale ending. One wonders if Peter Carpenter saw the film when he was coming up with his BLOOD MANIA follow-up POINT OF TERROR. Comedian Joe E. Ross (CAR 54, WHERE ARE YOU?) has a guest appearance, and STING OF DEATH's John Vella has a small role as a square at Terry's party. When NAKED ZOO was released to theaters by R & S Film Enterprises Inc. – as THE NAKED ZOO – it was in a recut version in which nearly eleven minutes was trimmed out – including Rainey's introductory scene with all of his dialogue – and a two minutes sequence with Terry's "juvenile bitch siren" G lying in bed nude with a non-phallic vibrator and a four minute performance by the band Canned Heat inserted into Terry's party late in the film. The original title sequence was also replaced and several scenes trimmed for pacing and losing some smaller bits like Terry trashing his living room after his publisher refuses to send him an advance. Pastrano and Jeff Gillen (CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS) have less showy role as hippie friends of Terry's.

Never released on home video, NAKED ZOO first became available on VHS and DVD-R from Something Weird Video in a transfer that would be Grefé's first attempt to restore his director's cut from print materials and Mahon's negative (an unauthorized DVD from Substance offshoot Televista featured the Mahon cut). Arrow's Blu-ray features Grefé's original director's cut (92:02) comes from a 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen transfer of a scratchy and faded 35mm print composited with superior quality footage from Mahon's recut negative while the 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen transfer of the Mahon cut (86:53) is more consistently beautiful with some nice depth in some wide angle shots and some handsome color gel lighting. The DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 mono track on the director's cut seems more consistently clean even as it move back and forth between sources while the Dolby Digital 2.0 mono track on the Mahon cut sounds fine as well. Optional English SDH subtitles are only included for the director's cut.

In addition to another introduction by Grefé (2:42), the director's cut is accompanied by the first of Grefé's new commentaries recorded for this set. He discusses his original concept titled "The Grove" and his desire to get Hayworth for the film only to discover her agent wanted $250,000 which was the entire budget of the film, so Grefé asked his investors to wire him $50,000 and he presented the agent with a cashier's check for the lesser amount and struck a deal, while Oliver became interested both by the script and the Hayworth's involvement. He discusses the shoot, asking his crew to donate items of furniture when the set dressing rental people inflated the bill to four times the agreed-upon amount upon delivery of furniture, and his use of the compact combat/newsreel 35mm Eyemo camera to get some shots in tight confines as well as a few overhead shots where he could not afford a crane (the spinning effect done by suspending the camera from a rope). A still gallery (2:00) for the film is also included.

Richard Jaeckel follows up his turns on the receiving end of nature run amuck horror in DAY OF THE ANIMALS and GRIZZLY with MAKO: JAWS OF DEATH as Sonny Stein, a former navy salvage man who was saved from gold-hungry bandits by shark and given initiated into a South Seas shark cult. Returning to the states, he becomes a hermit in the Florida Everglades scrounging food scraps for his shark friends and occasionally deep sea diving into the ocean to cut sharks loose from fishing lines and turn their human predators into chum. His already dismal view of humanity is about to be eroded further when scientist Whitney (Ben Kronen, DREAMSCAPE) convinces him to let him borrow a female shark to film the birth of its babies for "scientific purposes" – all the while plotting to discover where Sonny gets his shark friends with Pete (Harold "Odd Job" Sakata, GOLDFINGER) and Charlie (John Davis Chandler again) who kill sharks and sell their corpses to fishermen looking to brag about their catches at the office – and when he falls for "Aquamaid" Karen (Jennifer Bishop, HOUSE OF TERROR) whose bar owner husband Barney (Buffy Dee, LADY ICE) wants to liven up her swimming tank act with a shark.

In a couple of the extras, Grefé claims that he had the script for MAKO: JAWS OF DEATH before JAWS, but that he could not find any investors for it until the success of the Spielberg film. While the film appears to be a response to the Spielberg film's shark hysteria, Grefé's claim is believable in that the film is also sort of a reworked version of his snake horror film STANLEY with Jaeckel talking to sharks and setting one loose on more than one unsuspecting swimmer. Jaeckel manages to be the most sympathetic character her despite being introduced murdering three men, and one hopes that a few bits of violence against sharks are indeed simulated unlike some of the snake slamming and tearing of the aforementioned film. There is less gore than the Spielberg film, probably because the script by Robert W. Morgan – a noted Bigfoot tracker/author who would direct the Florida-lensed BLOOD STALKERS the same year – sides with the sharks and sums up Stein's madness as "he just cared too much." FLIPPER's Luke Halpin has a small role as a cop.

Released theatrically by the earlier incarnation of Cannon Films as THE JAWS OF DEATH, the film was more widely-seen on its CBS airings which continued into the eighties than even on its Paragon VHS release. The film skipped DVD altogether, premiering digitally stateside on Arrow's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray from a 35mm theatrical print. The quality varies with some clear and crisp underwater scenes, HD detail in close-ups and overall softer medium and wide shots with some harsh sunny daytime shadows and some murky blacks during the night scenes in addition to the wear on the print material. If it looks this dark on Blu-ray, some scenes must have been unreadable on a drive-in screen. The DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 mono track has some wear but the dialogue, music, and effects are always intelligible. Optional English SDH subtitles are also provided.

In addition to an optional Grefé introduction (4:06), the film is also accompanied by another new audio commentary (2020) in which Grefé has the highest of praise for Jaeckel, notes that Bishop and Sakata had previously appeared in IMPULSE – Bishop having been the fiancée of Socrates Ballis who appeared as the leader of the Cuban military drug runners in THE HOOKED GENERATION and produced IMPULSE – and reveals that the sharks were not trained but captured in a Bimini harbor daily. He also recalls the disastrous first day of shooting when the lighter-weight Arri camera he wanted to use fell off the tripod and cracked, two boats used for the shoot ran around, and Jaeckel split his head open (returning ready to work after getting stitches). He also reveals that he wanted Neville Brand (EATEN ALIVE) for one of the villains but he fell ill so Chandler came from Los Angeles at the last minute (his death had to be swapped with that of Sakata's character since he refused to go in the water after hearing from Alex Rocco that Grefé let loose live snakes in the swimming pool to elicit fear from him on STANLEY).

In "Beyond the Movie: That's Sharksploitation!" (7:27), Fangoria's Michael Gingold discusses the sharksploitation genre including the Universal injunction against GREAT WHITE – suggesting MAKO avoided this because they beat JAWS to release in Europe – through to the more recent Asylum examples as well as other nature strikes genre films. "The Aquamaid Speaks" (9:49) is an audio interview with actress Bishop conducted by Ed Tucker in which she reveals that she made her own costumes – her mother made her shiny bikini – and she claims to have never shared the tank with a live shark – while "Sharks, Stalkers, and Sasquatch" (10:28) is another Tucker audio interview with screenwriter Morgan who recalls being in Florida on another Bigfoot expedition when he met Grefé and that he did not see JAWS before writing the script, transposing his experiences to the shark story. The disc also includes a Super 8 digest version (15:06) with the MAKO title which includes the opening sequence, Stein's flashback, and the third act killings, as well as the film's theatrical trailer (1:35), and original promo (10:24) Grefé created to get foreign pre-sales at Cannes – featuring some familiar library music from NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD – a CBS promo (0:33), a behind the scenes segment (2:09) from television news in which Grefé mentions having the idea before JAWS and Jaeckel espouses some ecological views, as well as a still gallery (8:10).

WHISKEY MOUNTAIN is the purported North Carolina backwoods location of a cache of Civil War muskets hidden by the late grandfather of Jamie (Linda Borgeson) who convinces her husband Bill (Christopher George, CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD), his buddy Dan (Preston Pierce, I SPIT ON YOUR CORPSE), and his wife Diana (Roberta Collins, THE WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA) to take advantage of an area dirt bike race to ride up into the mountains for a treasure hunt. The locals, of course, do not take kindly to strangers – acerbic Rudy (John Davis Chandler again) claims that Whiskey Mountain does not even exist – and they wake to find their campsite on fire the next morning. They continue on their journey, nevertheless, and discover a cave in the titular mountain; however, there is something more dangerous than a moonshine operation hidden there, and they may not escape Whiskey Mountain with their lives.

Grefé's backwoods adventure has some DELIVERANCE vibes – that film's location manager Frank Rickman worked on the film – it also anticipates in some ways the atmosphere of JUST BEFORE DAWN (that film's producer Doro Vlado Hreljanovic also produced Grefé's MAKO) with the most effective passages concentrating on the scenic but sinister locations. Charlie Daniels contributes a catchy theme song that tells a more compelling tale than the film. Although there is no bootlegging involved, the film ultimately has more in common with the various Southern moonshine films with the backwoods operation, corrupt local authorities, banjo-scored chases, and gunplay. The film dips into unpleasantness with a rape scene – depicted via a progression of developing Polaroids – and builds up to a de rigueur downbeat seventies freeze-frame ending. George and Pierce are likable leads in thinly-sketched characterizations, Borgeson gets the hysterics while Collins is given the film's effectively subtle emotional reactions during the climax, while Chandler gets the most multi-faceted characterization of the villains. Grefé's Floridian cohorts William Kerwin and Jerry Albert (MAKO) appear as part of Rudy's gang along with North Carolina filmmaker J.G. Patterson (AXE). Brad Grinter has a small role as an antiques dealer.

Given scant theatrical release by Celestial, WHISKEY MOUNTAIN was largely seen in a dead-center cropped Best Film & Video clamshell VHS edition. The film's scope premiere came late in the day on DVD when Ballyhoo Pictures put the film out as a bonus feature on the documentary THEY CAME FROM THE SWAMP: THE FILMS OF WILLIAM GREFÉ, and the worn source of that transfer has been utilized here for Arrow's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.55:1 widescreen Blu-ray which exposes the entire Panavision with some fading hard to distinguish from large lens flares, a lot of scratches, and only fair overall sharpness while the underlit night scenes once again must have been unreadable theatrically. Presumably the original negative is long gone, but the photography was not all that hot to begin with (Grefé having switched back to editor/DP Julio Chavez after using Gregory Sandor on some of his other recent films).

In addition to an optional introduction (2:54), Grefé appears on another commentary in which he reveals that the project stemmed from his dual loves of Civil War history and dirt bikes, and that he already had a property in North Carolina. He wanted Ross Hagen and his wife Clare for the role of George's buddy and his wife but they were in the Phillipines shooting NIGHT CREATURE, and Pierce was a friend of George while Chandler was again hired when Neville Brand was not available. George was a professional although he did object to his Winnebago being used to haul two outhouses to the location. Producer Lewis Perles (IMPULSE) suggested Daniels for the theme song but the singer was about to go on tour and only became available because he injured his hand. The film's theatrical trailer (1:16) is included along with a radio spot (0:33) and a TV show excerpt (1:27) from a report by Barbara Walters.

Whereas WHISKEY MOUNTAIN was an extra on the DVD release of THEY CAME FROM THE SWAMP, the opposite is true here, with the full documentary (126:49) available in the extras menu. Grefé discusses his beginnings as a stage actor, working fulltime as a fireman in Miami while trying to sell screenplays, being promoted to director on THE CHECKERED FLAG when the original director had a breakdown, noting the influx of Cuban filmmakers into Florida during Castro's reign and how a role in a film by Jose Priete lead him to the realization that 35mm films could be made on low budgets. The body of the film takes us through Grefé's filmography with some of the same anecdotes heard in the commentaries along with comments from actor Joe Morrison, Steve Alaimo, Chris Robinson (STANLEY) – William Shatner discusses IMPULSE via an audio interview excerpt and Alex Rocco on STANLEY via an archival TV interview – and Bill Marcus (who played the non-mummified version of TARTU) along with make-up effects artist Doug Hobart, sound recordist Henri Lopez, Brad Grinter's son Randy who worked on WHISKEY MOUNTAIN and THE PSYCHEDELIC PRIEST), screenwriter Gary Crutcher (STANLEY), and Grefé's daughter Melanie who was promoted to assistant director on WHISKEY MOUNTAIN.

Florida transplants David Friedman and Herschell Gordon Lewis also discuss Florida's filmmaking movement and their interactions with Grefé at the time while filmmaker Fred Olen Ray, Poggiali and Henenlotter provide some contextual comments on the films and the Florida filmmaking scene. Also of interest are Grefé's discussions of side projects like shooting second unit on Del Tenney's I EAT YOUR SKIN and the Bond film LIVE AND LET DIE, as well as a seeming wealth of behind the scenes color 16mm footage of the various productions – including some footage of the shooting of the climax of THE DEVIL'S SISTERS (the final reel of which is missing from the DVD release and possibly lost for good) as well as Sakata's near fatal "hanging" on IMPULSE where we see him rescued by Shatner who had just broken a finger during the same stunt.

Also ported from the DVD set are a selection of deleted scenes (7:07) and the "Crown Jewels" (17:23) documentary on Crown International featuring Poggiali, Grefé, and Hagen, noting the convergence of American International dumping Crown in favor of handling their own distribution in Crown's territories with Grefé approaching them with THE WILD REBELS which provided quick competition with AIP's biker films and was followed up quickly by other pickups THE HELLCATS and THE SIDEHACKERS with Hagen, with the remainder of the short documentary discussing the trends of the distributor's productions and releases. One of Grefé's television advertisement films is included in "Bacardi and Coke Bonanza '81" (7:29) while "On Location: Grefé in Miami" (5:26) appears to be recycled and slightly extended from the location revisit extra on the Code Red and BCI DVDs of STANLEY. The disc also includes a bonus trailer gallery featuring trailers for Florida-related exploitation films, some made by Grefé associates, including THE WEIRD WORLD OF LSD (1967), FIREBALL JUNGLE (1968) by Cuban director Jose Priete who cast Grefé in an early film, KING OF THE JUNGLE (1969) – the English version of Manuel Cano's TARZAN IN THE GOLDEN GROTTO starring Steve Hawkes of Grinter's BLOOD FREAK – THE MAGIC LEGEND OF THE JUGGLER (1970) – a Slovenian period comedy with Joe E. Ross – SUPERCHICK (1973) penned by Crutcher, while the trailer for BLOODY FRIDAY turns out to be a rare English-language one for U.S. release rather than the 1974 Claudia Jennings proto-slasher THE SINGLE GIRLS by GATOR BAIT directors Beverly Sebastian and Ferd Sebastian penned by an uncredited William Kerwin.