- Chuck Scott plays a country western singer who goes back home to the hills of Carolina where he gets caught up in a feud between some homeboy moonshiners and "the Revenoores".
- Doug Martin, a "society" western-mountain singing star on television, goes back to the Carolina hills, to get some authenticity to his over-citified blandness. There he meets up with the Carpenters and the Bashams, two families who, together with Sheriff Asa Potter, own a gigantic moonshining-still which keeps the local countryside soaked with "white lightning." He also falls in love with Laura Carpenter, much to the chagrin of his society fiancée, Della Lawrence. Della accepts the invitation by Sheriff Potter to go out to the pond with him, then laughs at him and hacks him off to the point where he kills her. Potter also has the half-human, ape-like Luther Basham working for him, mainly killing federal revenue agents, and then throwing their bodies in the still and laughing as they bubble away. HGL has a heavy hand when it comes to comedy. It gets to the point where Potter sees a need to kill off both families and, to overcome Luther's objections to killing his own family, Potter tells him he can save and keep Mary Lou, Laura's half-witted sister. Mary Lou objects and makes use of an axe to make her point.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
- Doug Martin is a successful country-western singer who returns to his rural North Carolina home town of Stuartsville with the hope of restoring a country twang to his "citified" voice. During his drive from the airport to the town, Doug encounters hillbillies at the local general store where one of them, Raf, steals his wallet and suit jacket, but leaves behind his guitar and luggage... and car since Raf cannot drive.
Doug checks into the local Stuartsville Hotel and calls his manager to wire money to him while he decides to stay for two weeks. The next day, while wondering along a dirt road, Doug passes by a dilapidated house where he meets the redneck hillbilly family the Carpenters, led by the shotgun-toting Jeb, whom Raf is Jeb's nephew. Hearing about Raf's robbing Doug the previous day, Jeb orders Raf to return Doug's wallet and what money he has left, but lets Raf keep Doug's suit jacket. Doug quickly bonds with the partly inbred family and sings a song for them to show off his talent. Doug also meets the Carpenters neighbors and rivals, the Bashamas, who run a moonshine distillery right in their backyard which supplies the surrounding areas with moonshine whisky which is called White Lighting.
After having dinner with the Carpenters and Bashamas which are "grits and greens" Doug accompanys them to a ho-down and folk-singing party where he meets a few more locals, including the local redneck sheriff Asa Potter, who is in league with the Carpenters and Bashamas in helping them run their moonshine for a small profit as well as keeping them in line.
Doug begins flirting with Laura Carpenter, Jeb's eldest daughter whom is a college student home on vacation. Doug's snobish New York fiancee Della, arrives in Stuartsville a few days later and quickly becomes jealous over Doug's bonding with the rednecks just to get his "country flavor" back. Jealous of Doug's latest love interest, Della decides to leave for New York, but on Della's way to the local airport, Sheriff Potter stops her and forces her to follow him to a secluded pond. When she laughs at his clumsy advances on her, the sheriff pulls out his gun and shoots her dead.
Aided by the ape-like inbred Luther Basham, Potter then murders two federal agents who arrive to try to close down the still. The murderous sheriff then disposes of their bodies by throwing them into the bubbling still, which has at least three more dead bodies in.
Doug soon discovers the sheriff's evil deeds when he and Laura see Potter and Luther in the area and find one of Della's shoes on the dirt road leading to the unmarked grave site where Potter has buried her. Doug asks both family heads, Jeb Carpenter and Ed Basham, to put aside their differences and team up to help him capture the sheriff and turn him over the federal authorities.
At the climax, Potter decides to kill everyone in the community, and he convinces the simpleton Luther to plant dynamite at the still to blow it up and lure the families close to do it. But Luther bungles the job and Potter is forced to shoot and kill Luther to save his own life. Mary Lou Carpenter, Laura's inbred, retarded sister and whom Potter once raped earlier, arrives when she learns about what is happening and finally kills the evil sheriff with an ax in the back, just as the still, laced with dynamite, explodes.
In the end, after marrying Laura, Doug returns to New York City with his new bride to resume his musical career, while the two redneck families, the Carpenters and the Bashams, begin to make plans to rebuild the still.
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