After receiving the double-whammy news that his elderly mother suddenly has sold her land and been placed in a nursing home for a vague blood disorder, Hollywood stunt man Jingo Johnson (Jesse Vint, Macon County Line) returns home to Black Oak. It’s a depressing little town — the kind where the only thing to do on Saturday night is watch a talent show of kazoo-playing and helium-singing.
Jingo immediately runs afoul of two people in particular. One is a stogie-smoking developer (Robert F. Lyons, Death Wish 2) who not only now owns the Johnson farm, but is dating Jingo’s ex (Karen Carlson, The Octagon). The other is Sheriff Grimes (Albert Salmi, Caddyshack), a man so shorn of scruples that he tells the wife he’s cheating on why he doesn’t spend time with her: “Because you look like sumthin’ a wolf ate and shit over a cliff.”
Something with his mom’s situation just doesn’t sit right with Jingo. One might say that more he noses around, the more he’s stuck in a conspiracy — a Black Oak Conspiracy!
This Roger Corman production was a big one for Vint (the poor man’s Dennis Hopper, and that’s not meant as a slam), for whom this represented a first try at writing and producing. The directing, however, was left in the hands of Bob Kelljan (Rape Squad), who fills the flick with enough fistfights, shoot-outs, car chases (one scored with goofy music bearing that sound of plucked rubber bands) and casual sex to make it a solid, overlooked entry in redneck-vengeance cinema. —Rod Lott