House on Bare Mountain (1962)

Directors:  Lee Frost, Wes Bishop

Writer:  Denver Scott

Composer:  Pierre Martel

Starring:  Bob Cresse, Laine Carlin, Leticia Cooper, Laura Eden, Connie Hudson, Dan Hyland, William Kirk, Ingrid Lind, Virginia Mark, Ann Perry, Angela Webster, Warren Ames, Jeffrey Smithers, William Engesser

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  See Frankenstein do the twist with Miss Hollywood!

Plot:  Granny Good runs a school for girls.  What they don't know is Granny has a 7'2" wolfman in the basement working her illegal still and the cops have planted one of their beautiful, busty officers in her school to find out more.



My rating:   5/10

Will I watch it again?   No.

Nudie Cuties are good for one thing only and that's for showing lots of naked women.  They're known for also being unfunny and badly acted.  Knowing these things going in helps a lot.  If you set your expectations in the basement, there's no where to go but up, right?  This one actually made me laugh out loud a little.  That's something positive to say.  And then I was struck by the quality of "acting" from the girls.  The guys are terrible but the girls do a great job.  Usually everyone in these kinds of pictures is pretty bad but there seemed to be more talent in these gals than what rests on their chests.  Talk about a refreshing change and I loved it for that!

At Grannie's school, we get to see the girls study...

Exercise - jumping rope is a favorite!

They study the arts!

And we get to study them studying the arts!  There's a lot of talent on display!!!

All of the gals are getting ready for the annual costume party and this young lady didn't spend much time on hers.

Granny scolded her for wearing so little so she returned fully costumed.

I know what you're thinkin', pal.

The jig is up, Granny!

She just finished memorizing the dictionary she started at the beginning of the movie.

The story is as simple and dumb as it needs to be and there are exactly the number of bare boobs there needs to be as well.   Trust me, I counted each and every one.  Despite this being only 62 minutes long, there is A TON of padding, mostly during the party scene where there's lots and lots of dancing footage.  That kind of thing is usually dull but it's mildly entertaining here because of the goofiness of it all and, uh, more boobs.  The monsters on the poster don't really figure into it except for Granny's 7'2" tall werewolf slaving away at the still.  He growls every once in a while and Granny interprets this to let us know he's complaining about getting .13 an hour and he wants to unionize.  It gets an earned laugh at the end when Granny thinks it's the law that shows up (which they do but that's another part of the story) when it turns out it's a union official investigating claims of poor working conditions.

Of particular note (mostly to me) is this is Lee Frost's second directorial gig.  His first, SURTIDE 77 (1962), is my favorite movie of his (so far).  It's hilarious and worth checking out.   It's also got Bob Cresse playing this same granny character, easily ripping off Jonathan Winters' similar character.  However, he is pretty good at it and manages to get a few laughs.