“Murder Mountain” Director Interview; Humboldt Last Week

“Murder Mountain” Director Josh Zeman, submitted

Humboldt Last Week features quick local stories and typically ends with a longer one. Downloadable.

In the latest episode of Humboldt Last Week (9:08)

Right now it feels like the rest of the world is looking at Humboldt County through the lens of “Murder Mountain,” a six-episode series out now on Netflix.

“My goal is to show the dark side and then peel back the layers and show the humanity underneath,” said Director Josh Zeman in an interview with Humboldt Last Week on December 20. “…at the end of the day you may see the true-crime top but on the bottom I think you’ll really understand it’s about community…The Humboldt legacy is so rich…”

In the program Zeman discusses many of the comments made about the show including those by law enforcement. He also chats about community nerves regarding their portrayal, whether he’d encourage people to get involved in Humboldt’s cannabis industry, and a Humboldt-inspired tattoo he purchased.

The interview begins at 9:08.

Other stories in Episode 110

Free WiFi in Old Town, a court update on a notorious former Trinidad resident, “Bird Box” will perch tourists on the North Coast, a new zebra, an HSU alum’s rookie NFL season is assessed, the drug confiscation Olympics, crabigrants, tourism upsides, and more.

Humboldt Last Week also has some lightheartedness, new music picks, and event suggestions. On the radio throughout the day Mondays on 99.1 KISS FM.

Episode partners: Belle Starr clothingFerndale Music CompanyCafe NoonerBongo Boy StudioTuyas Mexican Restaurant

 

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New episode💜link in bio☺️ #humboldt

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38 Comments
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Pharmstheproblem
Guest
Pharmstheproblem
5 years ago

He lied to everyone he talked to… did they even have Humboldt County filming permits? just courious.

Muck Truck
Guest
Muck Truck
5 years ago

He talked to me and didn’t lie. Our sheriff would make a good game show host. Wheel of Fortune would be up his alley.

Keep On Dancing 🕺💃 🎼
Guest
Keep On Dancing 🕺💃 🎼
5 years ago
Reply to  Muck Truck

Why? Does he wear a toupee too?

LostCoastEMP
Guest
LostCoastEMP
5 years ago

I want a new show with just bong hits dookie and tweeker bandanna guy. The two representatives of the emerald triangle. Tital “the green ghetto”.

Funny how this director couldn’t find the real OGs and players of so hum!?!?!? Lmao. All n all. Kudos. It was entertaining and well directed

Wonton_ameda
Guest
Wonton_ameda
5 years ago
Reply to  LostCoastEMP

Dookie stains should pay his workers

visitor
Guest
visitor
5 years ago

Kym Kemp sighting in Ep02 at 39m 39s. Pardon me if incorrect, Kym.

Kym Kemp
Admin
5 years ago
Reply to  visitor

I don’t remember which episode but I was in a courtroom scene hugging my daughter-in-law.

visitor
Guest
visitor
5 years ago
Reply to  Kym Kemp

That’s the one. Thought I’d recognized you.

Film Professional
Guest
Film Professional
5 years ago

I have not yet seen Murder Mountain. Still, in this competitive market (and way before then, of course), television Producers exploit the most ‘sensational’ aspects of a ‘story’ and play those up, in order to gain notoriety (and ratings = $$$!).
Josh Zeman has a few (interesting) credits (as Producer and Writer) on IMDB (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0954722/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm). This seems his first director debut. So, is he mainly trying to make a name for himself? Or is he unafraid to become involved with and telling complicated, difficult stories, as he did in (adapting) Mysterious Skin?
While ratings ($$$$) rule, best to look at the big picture when trying to understand motivations.
(And yes, the first hand experiences with Josh and his Producers, while they were here, on location, will also be telling).

Film Professional
Guest
Film Professional
5 years ago
Reply to  Myles Cochrane

I stand corrected. Good catch. I had relied on one IMDB search…..

Matthew Meyer
Guest
Matthew Meyer
5 years ago

“I have not yet seen Murder Mountain,” but here are five things wrong with it anyway. lol

Film Professional
Guest
Film Professional
5 years ago
Reply to  Matthew Meyer

Not sure what you think I characterized as “wrong”. I presented generalities found in the Film Industry that could account for some of the choices and/or the image being presented about the Director or project, in the media.

baffled
Guest
baffled
5 years ago

The bags of weed were so fake it was ridiculous.

Ernestine
Guest
Ernestine
5 years ago
Reply to  baffled

I know right. I wondered if it was meant to play to the indoor vs outdoor prejudice aspect of urban markets. I know it made the filmmaker look ill informed from the Humboldt perspective

Disgusting supervisors (we'll see madrone)
Guest
Disgusting supervisors (we'll see madrone)
5 years ago

I personally think he portrayed the sheriffs department perfectly.and he did have a couple og’s on there.the courier and the naked hippy guy were og’s been seeing them around town for 40 year’s. The bandana clown was a transplant poser and a ratt

Humboldt County Line
Guest
Humboldt County Line
5 years ago

All in all I’m not too up on the Alderpoint scene so I can’t speak to how realistic the show is. One of the old timers they interviewed claimed he was the first person to grow weed in Humboldt and he moved here in 67 or 68? I know a family in Weitchpec who had already been prosecuted for it by then so I’m pretty sure it was going on before then.

jojo
Guest
jojo
5 years ago

they meant he was the first to grow weed in the rancho sequoia sub division.

Jim Hitt
Guest
Jim Hitt
5 years ago
Reply to  jojo

Wrong

'Merican Woman
Guest
'Merican Woman
5 years ago
Reply to  Jim Hitt

Hi Jim😊

Kym Kemp
Admin
5 years ago

If the family in Weitchpec would be willing to talk to me, I would be willing to work with them on privacy concerns. My email is [email protected]

Ernie Branscomb
Guest
5 years ago

It was rumored that the Mexican railroad workers had little patches near some springs in Eel Rock before 1960. I never saw any myself, and wouldn’t have known what it was at the time. I suspect that there were even people in Humboldt county before 1968. Hard to believe, I know.

In 1960 Marijuana (as it was called back then) was discussed in health classes at South Fork High school. We were told at the time the the Mexican railroad workers grew it. We saw photos of actual human brains from autopsies. One was healthy and grey, the other from a marijuana smoker was bloody and yellow. One kid fainted at the sight of the gore, most of us didn’t believe the hype even for a minute. kids are dumb, just not stupid. It doesn’t work to tell them lies.

I found out later from a good source, that a student in school used it back then. When they run out of beer I’m even going to try it myself, until then it’s perfectly safe.

T
Guest
T
5 years ago

In a Little field in weitchepec? That trash isnt fit to print.
Incestual pederast, and probably not true anyways.

Stephen Millard
Guest
Stephen Millard
5 years ago

I own the house where the OG’s were filmed… they were told that the show would be fair and balanced(shades of another bunch of lying entrepreneurs)…between the honest successes of the counterculture and the failures. Two of my out of state relatives have seen the shows and were horrified by what they imagine goes on here. The only factual data on disappearances was misleading and only repeated for maximum shock effect. The net result of this series is yet another attempt to bury the non-violent social change movement of the 60’s in negative innuendo. The refusal to show how dangerous drugs such as meth have been part of the “daerk side” in Sohum gives a clear indication of the dishonesty of the producers.

For Sure
Guest
5 years ago

In the 40s& 50sHollywood, & even Hitler, then the Kennedys, were all on ‘Pep Pills” aka Methamphetamine. Before that, morphine was prescribed for everyone from babies, Moms, everyone. And real cocaine in CocaCola-. Then in the60s&70s, diet pills were in every woman’s medicine cabinet. Then they needed Valium to come down from the” diet pills”. America, not just Humboldt, doesn’t connect the dots very well. Again, John Trudell’s words, “Your intelligence is your medicine.” Opiates for the masses is a pretty old concept , or rather, a reality… A big , 60s style Wake Up is necessary. ARtificial Intelligence is growing exponentially…smoking pot is another sideshow, a literal “smoke” screen. Are the powers that be just banking on keeping America too stoned, drunk, opioided up to pay attention as A.I . captures the world?

Central HumCo
Guest
5 years ago
Reply to  For Sure

~well said. Thank you For Sure.

Jeffersonian
Guest
Jeffersonian
5 years ago

Best comment i’ve read all day, Mr. Millard. The show should have been called Meth Mountain…

Keep On Dancing 🕺💃 🎼
Guest
Keep On Dancing 🕺💃 🎼
5 years ago

Quit complaining. Clearly, the truth hurts. Alderpoint is a dangerous place with some seriously looney violent idiots who have essentially gone unchecked by local law enforcement for decades. Stop trying to shoot the messenger, and put your guns away already you crazy bastards! 🤪

No one in their right mind moves to Alderpoint, unless they are desperate with no other options but homelessness.

John
Guest
John
5 years ago

It was painful watching Sgt. Kerry Ireland back his way out of that botched raid without taking responsibility and offering a clear-cut apology. Instead he just got chummy with the guy he had previously had guns pointed at, as if that was going to make anything better. Humility doesn’t come easily and it is a precious thing to behold. Too bad he came up short in that regard with the whole world watching. Maybe a lesson was learned. Kind of doubt it.

eleggua
Guest
eleggua
5 years ago
Reply to  John

Tough to tell from the editing throughout however I’m wondering if Humboldt Cure / Joe Fasho was interviewed for the first time after the raid or before the raid.

A bit odd that one of the major interview subjects throughout the entire series ends up incorrectly raided in the final episode. When the phalanx drove through the gate, the sight of the Humboldt Cure banner on it was an “uh-oh”. We’d seen the banner and heard Joe describe the meaning behind its imagery in an earlier episode. The cameraman in the raiding SUV took a moment to focus on the banner on the way through the gate.

TC
Guest
TC
5 years ago
Reply to  John

What’s up with the paintball guns? The botched raid must have been staged, I don’t believe Sheriff’s show up on a raid with paintball guns.

Blackberry Amnesia
Guest
Blackberry Amnesia
5 years ago

I sure do love the conspiracy theories, in the comments on RHBB!
You folks are partly correct, too!

Many, many persons were on “pep pills” and also tranquilizers, in the fifties and probably before. John F Kennedy, and The Beatles, were known to take Preludin (phenmetrazine), an analogue of Amphetamine. Introduced in 1954, it was VERY popular in America and Europe, and then was banned, although you can still get another analogue. Sounds like fun!

Popular tranquilizers were Barbiturates and Benzodiazepines, alcohol, and, even Marijuana!

Don’t think of it as mind control, or even as the government’s method of keeping the people down, think of it like this: as long as humans will pay money to obtain relief from the craziness of life, the relief will exist!

So you get what you have here, Marijuana “farms” all over the place!

In a location as resistant to government and policing as Humboldt County, we will always see a derangement of normal commerce, an influx of “easy money” types and persons who enjoy intoxication. These folks exhibit the loose morals, the narcissistic “opinions” that whatever they do, it’s OK. When these folks start enforcing their own laws, however, society and government, have a problem…

“Murder Mountain” explores the relationship between a remote location and the Outlaw Society that “Drug Commerce” attracted to the location.

MM should have been more exhaustive and accurate, but it degenerated into fantasy, conjecture, and mis-truth!

We, as the consumers of this program, have some responsibility for the contents, but in the end, the show was produced to sell to Netflix. Netflix itself is a form of Narcotic, after all… Just as the drug industry as a whole, Netflix exists to make money, by relieving the angst of existence.

So, why discredit and slander the Sheriff of Humboldt? Why make Alderpoint and Garberville look like enclaves of Narco-Terrorism? Why make Humboldt County look like it is full of uneducated drugged-up morons, criminals, and drug dealers? Hmmmmm, because that’s just how it is in Humboldt?

Own it, Humboldt. You earned it.

Central HumCo
Guest
5 years ago

~salute.

Central HumCo
Guest
5 years ago

“So, why discredit and slander the Sheriff of Humboldt?”

~shoulda said – the wanna-be Sheriff is a discredit and slandered because: 1) he’s not standing in the republic. 2) no bond is filed into the public records to cover lie-ability. 3) he wouldn’t know land jurisdiction, Supreme Law of the Land, if he found it in his oatmeal.

Bonnie Sullivan
Guest
Bonnie Sullivan
5 years ago
Reply to  Myles Cochrane

YES YES , I got a pitiful chuckle at him.

Central HumCo
Guest
5 years ago

~and the beat goes on.

Off the subject of fiction:

The whole thing is about to crash, the whole scam is rigged and the light is so bright in the eyes of the rancid, they cannot stand it. What is happening is a “collective conscience” awakening. It’s not enough to control-chain the flesh, the mind must be captured, and divide and conquer via fear is the main weapon.

The “banker fraud ” is finished. The alleged debt will be a credit. OwnerShip of slave thing going on and it appears they ( re title ) want to kill the trust….I do not agree. Definition of TRUST right out of law dictionary…says it has two “owners” Legal title holder (not owner) and beneficiary aka Jane or John….. alternate pyramid is near complete and the “they” cannot even see it, and are not aware of it. Not much room at the top, so, the final stone will be laid by one. And not a freemason or a skull and boner. etc.

I do believe that if We, the People, are patient for just a bit longer, We will see miraculous things happen within this year. Have trust and faith.

~peace from central

California Expatriate
Guest
California Expatriate
5 years ago

I write this as a fan of Humboldt County. Absolutely love the independent spirit and natural beauty of the county. I’ve visited the area dozens of times, and sometimes didn’t want to come back. I grew up in SoCal, have numerous friends and former colleagues who either grew up in Humboldt, went to school at HSU, or attempted leave LA and SF for a more relaxed lifestyle. Unfortunately, they all have one thing in common: They eventually left. None of them left angry, bitter, or victims of crime. The bottom line was that economic opportunity just isn’t stable in Humboldt, and they moved to other areas of the country.

Humboldt is a stunning, mystical, and complex world. I think the documentary raised a lot of great points, albeit with a lot of imperfections. I do agree that legalization will eventually help, but there is going to be a lot of pain before that shakes out. Moreover, unfortunately, Sacramento is particularly adept at hurting instead of helping, and much of that was illustrated well in this documentary. California has become notorious for driving business out of the state, and the way they implemented legalization could’ve been more business friendly, especially to small operations. I quietly shook my head as several of the growers expressed their frustrations.

Final Note: Ironically, my background and education is in law enforcement. I have an M.A. in criminology, and wrote my thesis on the constitutionality of capital punishment for juveniles. I worked in the juvenile justice system in California for 7 years in the 1980s, before moving on into the business world. I felt the problems in the California Youth Authority system were intractable, which (unfortunately) turned out to be correct.

I hate to say this, and my intent is not to be trite, but Humboldt is definitely not attracting the best and the brightest in the field. Indeed, they have a difficult job in a highly unique environment, but it’s obvious that the HCSO needs a deeper talent pool. I read the search warrant of the “alleged”, and you can see that extreme attention to detail and the highest level of professionalism aren’t there. Hopefully, newer generations of law enforcement will eventually rectify that problem.

Best of luck to you all up there. My last visit was December 2016 with my wife, and we had a great time. Humboldt doesn’t leave the soul. Although much of the tone of the documentary put Humboldt in a bad light, and perhaps justifiably so, many throughout the country want to see Humboldt succeed. People appreciate individualism, independence, and freedom. That is indeed the Humboldt ethos.