Sometimes a Nanny Berry has to stand up and defend her home state from Hollywood. There are certain things Hollywood likes to poke fun at: church going people, Republicans, and West Virginians. All I know is I’m going to be in deep trouble if I ever land in Hollywood, being slapped with all three.
Lee mentioned to me the other week that he had heard a video was out about West Virginians and it all takes place in West Virginia. Wow. West Virginia had made it to the silver screens again. I rushed out to my favorite convenience/video rental store and rented Wrong Turn. Boy, was I excited. I was going to make a special lunch of it. Normally my lunches on the goat farm is, at best, one half hour long, but today I was going to eat lunch and watch a movie! I got my salad, loaded it with chunks of chicken. Got my bag of pork rinds and my diet Pepsi, and I was ready to party hardy.
But, looking at the cover of the movie, it looked like one of those gory horror movies. Well, maybe looks could be deceiving, so I put it in the VCR. Hmmmmmmm. The gist of the movie was that there were a lot of inbred West Virginia mountain folk who had badly mutated into lumpy men who were carnivores. Any out of state city folk who took a wrong turn down their road, well, you can guess the rest.
Being from the mountains of West Virginia, I was totally shocked and offended with what I saw. Those lumpy mountain men didn’t have a clue on how to cut up meat! I never saw such waste! They were suppose to be hunters and I never saw such a lot of wasted meat. And, they badly bruised the meat, running it, hitting and slashing it until, really it wouldn’t be fit for the table.
And, of all things, who they picked to eat was unbelievable. They were mainly scrawny little women who had as much meat on them as a Banty chicken wing. If those lumpy mountain men had been fishing, I’m sure they would have tossed all those women back, or, at least brought them home to fatten up. Really they would have been far too much trouble to cut up for the amount of meat you would have got. It was down right insulting calling those lumpy wasteful guys West Virginia mountain men.
When I indignantly told Lee about the movie, he said, "Uh, what about them portraying us as inbred mutated people who ate out of state city people. Weren’t you insulted about being that?"
"What?!" I said. "That was nothing compared to how they portrayed out of state city people. They might have thought us inbred mutants, but at least those lumpy guys had a brain between them!"
It was true. The city people they portrayed in the movie, who took the wrong turn, were absolutely clueless. It was like the shock of greenery and clean air had dissolved their brains. They walked into situations that even a three year old would have known better.
One was even a med student and he and his buddies wandered into a really spooky looking cabin, that was huge by the way, looking for a bathroom. Good grief, what did they think bushes were for? I spotted immediately human bones on the plates on the table. He didn’t recognize them for what they were. If nothing else, if they had listened to the movie music, they would have known they were in a dangerous place.
But, on through the cabin they snoop, looking for the bathroom. The lumpy mountain men, by the way, were out catching their next meal, this groups other two friends left by the broke down car. The bright med student opens up a door and inside this room is a generator running and ten or twenty refrigerators are being run from it. At least the mountain men knew how to keep meat from spoiling.
The med student opens a refrigerator door and finds a huge Tupperware bowl. He takes the lid off and it’s absolutely the biggest liver I have ever seen. No way it came from those scrawny little women the mountain men had been catching. They all decide they had better leave because the place really smells and then they hear the lumpy mountain men coming home. At least the city people hide. The lumpy mountain men drag in the body of their very skinny friend, a tiny woman, and throw it on the table to cut up. I don’t know what happened to the guy that had been with her. Maybe the lumpy mountain men got hungry on the way and needed a snack. Anyway, it was all absolutely ridiculous. They used all the wrong knives, wasted most the meat, it was pathetic.
Now the rest of the story is about these city people escaping the lumpy mountain men. They know these lumpy mountain men have guns and bows and arrows. What’s the best way to run away from a gun or a bow and arrow? Why, to a city person, it’s to run in a straight line, staying away from all trees. These city people were brainless. I’d been running like a totally freaked out jack rabbit, darting back and forth, behind every tree and bush, hunting for a hidey hole. Not those city folks. Dumber then hoe handles.
Finally, two of the brainless city people prevail (everyone else was eaten) and they kill the lumpy mountain men (they think) and make it back to the city. The movie was just downright insulting. Sometimes you’ve got to stand up and defend your state, unless of course they have a gun or bows and arrows.