• Wide Release
• Director: Jimmy Huston
• Written by: Thom McIntyre
• Running Time: 117 minutes
• Language: English
• MPAA Rating: R - Restricted
• Cast: Earl Owensby, David Allen Coe, Sunset Thomas, Ed Parker, Holly Conover, Rod Sacharnoski, Don "Red" Barry, Ron Lampkin, Leonard Dixon, Jerry Rushing, Blair Peering, Jerry Whittington, Palmer Owensby

Cut from the same quilt as John Wayne, Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson and Robert Mitchum, Earl Owensby, who stars here as the bounty hunter Seabo, was the real deal. As a former marine and close personal friend of Elvis Presley, Earl was a bonafide, genuine bad ass. No matter the film he did, he always brought a certain amount of hutzpah to whatever role he was playing, whether it be a reverend or a bounty hunter. And it was that bad assness that made him a modest favourite of the 70's era drive in circuit. Directed by his friend and frequent creative partner, Jimmy Huston (1988's "My Best Friend Is A Vampire"), “Buckstone County Jail” proves the near-perfect showcase for Owensby as it features him doing what he does best, kicking ass, taking names and just, well, being as bad ass as he can be all while muttering as little dialogue as possible.

Set in the 1950s in the scenic mountains of Shelby, North Carolina, legendary bounty hunter, Seabo (Owensby) finds himself on the trail of two murderous escaped convicts. Having just terrorized an elderly man, his wife, their teenaged daughter and a couple of youngins in their tiny farmhouse, Seabo arrives late to the party but not so late that he isn't able to halt the rape of the family's teenage daughter, already in progress. He dispatches the crazy-eyed goon with a perfectly placed blast to the ticker. Justice is swift when you got yourself a double barrel shotgun and you aren't afraid to use it. As Seabo moves to send the next sack of shit to meet his maker, he's saved the cost of a bullet thanks to the young girl's daddy and his rifle. This is a gory treat as convict #2 discovers what it feels like to get it from behind, literally, as his backside disolves into a shower of blood and bone. His cries of agony is music to Pop's ears. Fuck him, he deserved it! Seabo knows this as does the father, and a shared look between the two men says all that needs to be said. Sadly, the local authorities don't take kindly to people shooting other people in the back, so rather than getting the old guy in trouble, Seabo shuts his mouth about the matter and sets himself up as the inevitable fall guy for any legal ramifications which could follow.

Back in town word gets around that Seabo, nicknamed “half-breed” by the locals, shot a man in the back – a cowardly act by their estimation. See, this is the deep South, where racial intolerance isn't just a minor annoyance, it's a friggin way of life. Nothing like a Southern film to reinforce redneck stereotypes. As the child of a white European and a Native American, Seabo isn't exactly the toast of the locals. Now he's gotta deal with this whole 'shooting people in the back' charge. Before long, Seabo is arrested, charged with unjustifiable homicide. As it turns out, the arrest was prompted by the local Prison Warden, a silver-haired old codger named Coley (Don “Red” Barry, doing his best Strother Martin); a guy with a vendetta against Seabo going all the way back to the Korean war when Seabo served under his son, and, in his mind, inadvertantly caused his son's death.

Once in lock-up at the Buckstone County Jail, the film seems to shift into a sort of cruise control, coasting by on a series of “Cool Hand Luke”-inspired scenes in which a pair of archetypal sadistic guards, including a full-blooded Indian named Jimbo (Ed Parker), take every opportunity to berate, harrass and put the boots to Seabo. Obvious homoerotic subtext aside, Jimbo's sadistic actions border on almost fetishistic as he seems to love bringing grown men into his tiny shack, chaining them up to the ceiling and getting all hot and bothered beating the tar out of them. Of course, Seabo's unwillingness to play ball, or show emotional of any kind, just enrages Jimbo to new heights of brutality. Along the way, Seabo manages to befriend another prisoner, a stuttering child-like behemoth out-cast named Zack (Leonard Dixon). Since Zack is a black man in the deep South, he's certainly no stranger to racial intolerance, but unlike Seabo he long ago learned the futility of fighting back. It's interesting to note how similar Dixon's character was to Michael Clark Duncan's John Coffey character from “The Green Mile”, minus the spiritual/supernatrual stuff. I'm actually curious if Stephen King might have caught a late-night screening of this film back in the day and used it as inspiration.

Limping into the film's third act, there's a late night prisoner bust out, in which a guard is viciously stabbed to death during the escape. Due to his vast knowledge of the North Carolina mountains and his expertise in the field of tracking, Seabo finds himself being recruited to hunt the convicts down and bring them back to Buckstone. If he's able to complete his task, he will be a free man. Them's the conditions. Seabo agrees, but he has a couple of conditions of his own, namely, he wants Zack to come along as back up, and, well, he wants a slice of Jimbo pie. Coley begrudingly agrees to both conditions, and with that, Seabo proceeds to kick Jimbo's ass from one side of the prison yard to the other, in what is easily the film's most exciting five minutes. Hilarious is Seabo tearing off Jimbo's own belt and beating him with it. You don't have to be a psychic gypsy to figure out how this one is gonna end. I have to admit, I found the final moments (including a surprisingly explosive full-bore ambush) to be rather bizarre, and in keeping with its exploitative go-for-broke made-for-the-drive-in roots.

“Seabo” isn't anything you haven't seen before in countless other similar themed movies. It's a slow paced, gueling prison-actioner that seems to skimp on the actual action. Sorry but a bunch of jailhouse beating sequences does not a good action movie make. And unlike say, “Cool Hand Luke”, where Paul Newman proved an enjoyable, charismatic lead, Seabo isn't particularly charismatic... or all that interesting. Granted, while Earl Owensby is cool personified and I enjoyed his presence immensely, I think the film could have done a much better job at exploring his legend - or at least the legend that the film hints at. Outside of a couple of scraps and one particular scene where he orders a deputy to eat (yes, eat!) his bullets, he doesn't have much to do. He rarely speaks (and considering how attrocious the rest of the film's dialogue is, this might not be a bad thing) or shows emotion of any kind, outside of the usual mean brooding stuff. All of this adds up to a rather droll character, too droll to hang an entire movie on. A last minute revelation with regards to Seabo's involvement in Coley's son's death, and a final ambiguous shot in which Seabo seems to disappear into thin air, does work to inflate the myth of Seabo as some kind of super-human being, however the film does little to capitalize on it beyond that. Here it's the bad guys who seem to have the most fun, especially Ed Parker, who excels in his boorish head baddie role. Considering that he worked mainly as a stunt man during his career, he does manage to stand way out in this cursory acting part. Having the most fun is Republic Pictures b-Western star Sunset Carson, who plays the fair-minded Sheriff Deese. His scenes opposite whore house madam Holly Conover prove the film's funniest moments. Another element of the film that I loved was the twangy-melancholy soundtrack from Arthur Smith, Clay Smith and David Allen Coe (who also plays a rival bounty hunter in the film).

Not a great film by any means but for those interested in Southern prison flicks or Earl Owensby, the man, the myth, the legend, might find something to enjoy in “Seabo”.