Uncle Sam

Director: William Lustig
Script: Larry Cohen
Cast: Will Smith, Mathew Flint, Anne Tremko, Tim Grimm, P.J. Soles, Thom McFaddon, Isaac Hayes, Robert Forster, Bo Hopkins
Running time: 89 minutes
Year: 1996
Certificate: 18

While physical media isn’t as popular as it once was, there are still a growing number of boutique labels out there that will spend the time and money unearthing some of the more obscure titles for cinephiles to enjoy, replete with lots of juicy extras to help us better acquaint ourselves with what we’ve just seen. 88 Films are one of the best such labels, sourcing quality prints of such cinematic ephemera, which include ‘slasher films’ for their ever expanding ‘Slasher Classics Collection’. Uncle Sam is one such unearthed ‘slasher’ gem.

Directed by William Lustig, who gave us such cult classics as Maniac, Maniac Cop 1, 2 and 3, Relentless and Vigilante, Uncle Sam is a lesser known ‘slasher’ film, and one which I’ve been meaning to check out for a couple of decades.

Kicking off with a prologue, set in Kuwait in June 96, whereby a group of flight investigators go to check out a downed – by friendly fire – military helicopter, only to be killed by a fried corpse that seems to have come back to life expressly to kill and quip.

The film then shifts forward in time to the wife and sister of the same killer airman, who are trying to move on with their lives. A military colonel breaks the news to the now widow, but she’s not overly upset since her killed-in-action husband, Sam, was both an abusive husband and brother. In fact, the only person who seems to be genuinely upset by the death of Sam is his young nephew, Jodie, who hero-worships him, seeing him as a heroic patriot.

Sam’s funeral is set for around July 4^th when a number of historical symbols come to the fore, including people dressed up as the national icon of Uncle Sam, who was previously used as a motivator to encourage younger people to join the armed forces and do the right thing for America. When Jodie unlocks the casket containing the body, it enables the decomposing corpse of Sam to rise up and begin righting wrongs, which mostly takes the form of punishing any sort of anti-patriotism. Cue some fun killings of a variety of people who have committed actions or have a mind-set that the now undead Sam believes to be unpatriotic.

Uncle Sam actually plays things more seriously that I thought it would. There are still some chuckles to be had, but it’s essentially a coming-of-age story for Josie, who goes from being his Uncle Sam’s biggest cheerleader to one of a small group of believers – including his uncle’s ex-army buddy and a disabled teen friend –  who band together to stop the killer in his decaying tracks. Josie’s mum and aunt are also important characters, although don’t have as much to do in the film’s final act as the boys.

Christopher Ogden (who plays Josie) is excellent as a teen who is learning about life and heroes, and Isaac Hayes is great as Sgt Jed Crowley, the one-legged war veteran who ends up helping Chris to bring down his psychopathic uncle.

While the deaths aren’t particularly frightening or gory for a slasher film, it’s nicely paced and holds one’s attention through its main protagonists being a likeable and relatable bunch. Plus, this being a Bill Lustig film, there are some impressively dangerous stunts on show here, including a full body burn that’s still awesome all these years later.

In a nutshell, fans of Nineties American horror films and Slashers in general will enjoy the movie.

88 Films have done a great job on the presentation of the film as it looks great and the sound is very clear too. There are a number of special features on the disc including;

Audio commentary with director William Lustig, writer Larry Cohen and producer George C. Braunstein – This is a solid commentary revealing some interesting facts about how the story came about, the shoot itself and the actors. Lustig reveals that if he redid the film nowadays he would pick up the pacing a bit. Apparently, they managed to blow out all the windows in the street of the location because the final explosion used too much explosive!

Audio commentary with director William Lustig and Isaac Hayes – A more relaxed commentary, which features even more factoids about the film including having wind machines that created too many issues during the opening scene, which was Lustig’s homage to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Hayes is good fun too, admitting that he often fell asleep on set between takes.

Fire Stunts with Audio Commentary (9.48 mins) – The stunt co-ordinator, Spiro Razatos, takes us through the setting up and execution of the full body burn stunt, which concludes the film; really interesting stuff.

Trailer (1.34 mins) – A decent, fun trailer with the tagline – ‘Uncle Sam wants you…Dead’.

Deleted scene (53 secs) – This is a scene at the dead soldier’s home where an army chap is explaining what happened to Sam’s face.

Gag reel (40 secs) – Mostly actors seen ‘stiffing’ and giggling

Poster and stills gallery – Not many posters, but about 4.5 minutes worth of stills. We get to see more boobs and plenty of newspaper clippings relating to the explosion that damaged the town where the film was shot.