Where you goin city boy?

Directed by John Boorman and released in 1972, Deliverance is an American classic and one of the scariest films ever made. It boasts no vampires, aliens, monsters, or any other such supernatural beings. No, Deliverance uses one of the most effective horror techniques available: scaring the shit out of people with the mundane. What is more mundane, for instance, than heading off for the weekend to go camping? Not many things, surely. As it typically goes, a group of friends looks for someplace secluded to hang out, tell stories, play music, cook, hike, and sleep rough. In this case, it was a group of business men from Atlanta who wanted to go canoeing and experience the glory of the river before it was to be dammed up. They just wanted to have fun and hang out. If they had been smart, however, they would have stayed in Atlanta and gone to the club to play golf instead. Because what those city boys never imagined, was being terrorized by hillbillies.

I don't mean terrorized in some highly stylized Wes Craven fashion, because this was 1972; budgets were low and naturalism was in. I mean terrorized by people who had really bad teeth and even worse dispositions. People who really didn't care whether you were a woman, man, or pig as long as there was a suitable orifice.

Original theatrical trailer

My refusal to go camping since 1972 is based solely on this film. In response to camping invitations, my argument has always been, "Look, if four white guys can go into the woods and get fucked with like that, what on earth would happen to me??" That argument has worked on everyone who has seen the film, and for those who haven't seen it, I describe it in detail, lingering over the "Squeal like a pig" bit to drive my point home . . . so to speak.

Still, a trip to the back woods might have been worth it had I been guaranteed a musical performance like this one:

Dueling Banjos, Grammy winner in 1974
for Best Country Instrumental Performance

Right, who am I kidding? That's one of the best scenes in film history, and if I were promised something like that if I would just agree to go on a camping trip, I'd still have to decline. That's what movies are for . . . oh, and YouTube.

For the record, my refusal to go camping is not restricted to the United States. I recently turned down an offer to go camping somewhere near the Swiss border. In my mind, camping sites spontaneously generate hillbillies. I'm also convinced that hillbillies dwell in those spaces where no cell phone signals are possible (hence no emergency calls to police). Using this logic, it would be safe to bet that the Alps would have an even scarier version (mountainbillies?) since those are proper mountains and not hills.

No thanks.

I suppose I should qualify all of this by saying that I'm sure some hillbillies are lovely people. In fact, most of them probably are. I just think that it would be better not to test this assumption. They gave those Deliverance city boys hell, and I'm even willing to concede that with their condescending city-folk ways, they might have deserved some of what they got. But certainly not all of it. So I'll just keep my black ass in the city and leave camping to my amazingly brave friends.

Deal?