Manly Wade Wellman worked in so many genres — historical fiction, detective tales, Western stories, juvenile fiction, comic books, non-fiction, science fiction and fantasy — and had his stories become episodes of The Twilight Zone and Monsters but he’s best known for the fantasy and horror stories set in the Appalachian Mountains near the North Carolina he loved so much.

Perhaps his most beloved character is Silver John or John the Balladeer. He may be a simple country man who has just returned from Korean, where he was a sharpshooter, but he has a high degree of knowledge, mostly of the occult. He carries John George Hohman’s Long Lost Friend, a book of Pennsylvania Dutch spells, talismans and remedies. Most importantly, he has a guitar with strings of pure silver. There’s also some spiritual link between him and John the Baptist.

Beyond these stories being filled with the legends of the Carolinas, the songs that John sings throughout are all true. I love this quote about these tales: “Whereas Tolkien integrated Northern mythology into his mythos, and C.S. Lewis the European Fairy Tales of yore, Wellman’s stories are drenched in the folktales and songs of old Americana; the haunting stories of the slaves and the tall tales of the Revolution, strange beasts, witch-women and dark apparitions.”

Based on two of the Silver John adventures, “The Desrick on Yandro” and “O Ugly Bird,” this is nearly a portmanteau of many tales of John (Hedges Capers), as well as information on all manner of legends, including dowser Mr. Marduke (Severn Darden) explaining how important the devil is to Appalachian culture. Oh yes — a dowser is someone who uses a diving rod to find water, minerals or gold underground.

We also learn how John gets his silver stringed guitar from his grandfather (Denver Pyle) who decides to sing against the Defy, who is the devil around these parts. Their battle is so brutal that is literally breaks the film and ends with the devil triumphant, as American silver is not as pure as the money of the past.

Before John can outsing the dark one, he goes to a mountain where he meets Zebulon Yandro (Harris Yulin), whose grandfather once turned against a witch that he had been given gold by. He told her he’d be her lover for a year but took the treasure and ran to become an undertaker. Now that she still lives on the mountain and looks like a young, gorgeous girl (Susan Strasberg) but Yandro doesn’t get the good end of this deal. John does, as he’s pointed to the next stage in his quest, Hark Mountain, which is being mined by warlock O. J. Onselm (Alfred Ryder), followed by a sharecropper named Captain Lajoie H. Desplaines IV (Percy Rodrigues). Luckily, John has the help of Uncle Anansi (Chester Jones), who is related to the West African spider god.

Why does John help people who would sooner be afraid of him? Well, that’s just what he does. He’d probably be happier living with his woman, Lily (Sharon Henesy), sleeping in the warmth of the fire instead of outside in the mountains, getting to spend time with her and his dog Honor Hound. But heroes don’t get to make choices for themselves.

Directed by John Newland (who directed 96 episodes of One Step Beyond and the TV movies Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and Crawlspace) and written by Melvin Levy, this takes a departure from the books by having John younger and way less sure of himself. It does have the benefit of “The Devil,” sung by Hoyt Axton, and that Hedges Capers was such a good singer himself. More for hippies than perhaps the audience for the books, this is still such a unique film, one I’d wanted to see for so long and quite pleased that it’s as magnificent as it is.

Who Fears the Devil is part of the new Severin box set, All the Haunts Be Ours Volume 2. It has extras including the alternate opening for The Legend of Hillbilly JOhn introduced by Severn Darden; audio commentary by Amanda Reyes; interviews with producer Barney Rosenzweig and actor and musician Hedges Capers; author David Drake remembers Manly Wade Wellman; occult historian Mitch Horowitz on the arcane texts of Wellman’s John The Balladeer stories and a trailer.

You can order this set from Severin.