Monster Crap Inductee: Uncle Sam (1997)

Monster Crap Inductee: Uncle Sam
He Wants You To Die…..Of Laughter

1997

Well, it is the time to celebrate our nation’s independence. Oh I know it was on July Fourth, but I was too busy with a lot of other stuff and better late than never. But anyway, on Independence Day there are a lot of icons with American history. Abraham Lincoln and George Washington are examples of those icons. But one of the biggest icons is an imaginary character named Uncle Sam. Now what is Uncle Sam’s main objective?

To Get You To Join The Army.

Now let me just say that I know these posters from the world wars these days. I don’t know if there are any for the current wars, but if there were any….I am sure that MoveOn.org would complete crap on it so badly that even those who agree with being against the current administration would cringe on site. But like all imaginary icons in life, horror movie filmmakers have to make a killer based off it. And since it is July, it is a perfect time to induct Uncle Sam.

We begin this movie with a jeep coming up to the crash site of one of our helicopters. You know, with all that dirt on the ground…..I wonder where we are?

Since this movie is so kind to me, I would like to ask what date this is all going on.

The guy with the gruff voice asks one of the local army men about the plane. The local guy tells him that the sandstorm must have covered up the copter just after it crashed. We also get news that nobody survived the crash as they were all burned beyond recognition. The guy with the gruff voice tells one of his underlings to go into the copter and see if he can ID any of the bodies. Of course, we then find out that this helicopter crash was caused by friendly fire. For those of you who don’t know, friendly fire is when someone from one side accidentally attacks someone from the same side. The major says that this happens in war, but since this is supposed to be Desert Storm, did the Iraqis have any helicopters at the time because last I checked they didn’t. Why would I bring this up? Well, because I am wondering how in the hell did we fire at a helicopter and not know it was one of ours. Seriously, in some situations, if you see a helicopter, try not to fire at it. Anyway, the underling identifies one of the bodies as Sam Harper from his dog tag. Well, just as soon as he identifies the burned body, that body somehow comes to life, grabs the guy and breaks his neck. He then grabs the guy’s gun and shoots the guy with the gruff voice. After that, the burned body who is Sam Harper says this:

Sam: Don’t Be Afraid, It’s Only Friendly Fire.

Sam then for some unknown reason goes back to being dead and we get one of the strangest opening credits for a horror movie ever with John Phillip Sousa’s “The Stars And Stripes Forever”. This is something that needs to be seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx3iJDEKJRw

Now doesn’t that make you feel like seeing someone get slashed? Now in Twin Rivers, USA…..

Now I know there is that omission, but maybe we can at least get the actual date with the year this time.

Anyway, we see a kid named Jody Baker sleeping in his bed with a picture of his Uncle Sam Harper saluting and we see Sam was gracious enough to sign it. Oh yeah, and we get stock footage of some kid being part of a parade for military soldiers. Anyway, the kid accidentally knocks the picture over in his sleep. This wakes him up and when he tries to close his window, he steps on some broken glass which any person can tell you, it hurts. So the kid goes to his mother’s room and wakes her up. Jody then tells his mom about the cut and about a dream he had about Uncle Sam. He said in the dream that Uncle Sam wasn’t dead and they were marching in the Fourth of July parade while everyone was cheering him. Of course the mother downplays his like for Uncle Sam by saying Uncle Sam never paid much attention to anyone but himself. Jody then makes the conclusion that his mother didn’t like him a lot, but of course Mom lies and says that of course she did because he was her brother. I’m sorry, but my mom has a sister among other siblings and she didn’t like her much. So the whole crap that she likes him because he was her brother doesn’t fly. Of course the kid makes the same argument that she doesn’t talk about his father much either and she says that he is completely different. How, may I ask, is that completely different? Anyway, they wish each other good night and we move onto somewhere else in the city of Twin Rivers which is located in a state that they fail to mention.

He asks her why he can’t come in and she tells him that he is supposed to be on duty. Yeah, you have a city to protect, don’t you? He then asks who is going to know, but my answer is the criminals doing criminal-like things and not seeing the cops coming. She wishes him good night and leaves the car. As the car drives off, Louise is greeted by a guy named Sgt. Twinning, who tells her that they found the body of her husband Sam. She then cries, but I guess not too much since she has been sleeping with other people behind his back. Meanwhile, at a place above the deli, we see Isaac Hayes.

Anyway, he plays a guy named Jed Crowley who was in the same unit as Sam and he of course got the news of Sam’s death as well. Hey, as long as he isn’t Alistair Crowley, I am alright. Anyway, Jed airs out some regrets about how he was the only one allowed to come home, but there is a very good reason for this as you will find out later on. Meanwhile, we see Jody reading a comic book that he made and I guess it is idolizing his uncle Sam. His comic book reading while eating cereal is interrupted by a knock at the door. Louise enters and tells Jody’s mother, whose name is Sally, that Sam’s body was recovered. Then Louise kind of seems glad that Sam is dead since she mentioned that she dreaded that the guy was going to tell her that Sam was still alive. We also see once again that Sally hated Sam as well and we also find out the guy who she has been seeing behind Sam’s back is Phil. We get some more talk about how Sam was a jerk and on the stairs; we see that Jody has been listening. In his room, Jody takes a box that contained all of Sam’s medals that was given to him by Louise.

At class we see that Jody wants to show his classmates the medals that his uncle received. The teacher, named Mr. Crandall, is very nice and understanding of the whole situation. When asked about his past, we find out that Mr. Crandall was a draft dodger who did not believe in the Vietnam War. Now, normally I don’t have much sympathy for many draft dodgers because most of the ones that I have known are proud that they did something illegal. However, Mr. Crandall seemed be feeling very guilty about doing what he did that you might feel sorry for the guy. When Jody tells Mr. Crandall that Sam always called those people were cowards, which make Mr. Crandall depressed and tells Jody to sit down. Oh yeah, and guess who plays Mr. Crandall?

The Guy Who Impersonates George W. Bush These Days.

As the kid sits back down, he silently mentions that he plans on going to the army to be just like Sam.

We transition back to the house where Sam’s casket is being kept at. Now I did not know that the casket would be placed in someone’s house. Jody comes home and says that he wants to put all Sam’s medals inside, but Sgt. Twinning, who is there for some reason, tells the kid to keep them. We get some more dialogue where we can tell that the actor, who plays Jody, isn’t that very good. While the kid doesn’t get to see what is inside the casket, we do in a pointless segue to the next scene. That scene would be Sgt. Twinning, who seemed all caring before hand showing his true colors as we see that he loves his job because he gets to make a move on the grieving widow.

Back at the house, we get a knock at the door and it’s the person who Sally is seeing (his name is Ralph).

He comes in and brags about how he was able to successfully cheat the I.R.S. out of some taxes. I know some people would like this guy, but he acts like a complete jerk. In his room, Jody is playing with his army men and GI Joes (Destro is one of the bad guys that he plays with) and names that Destro figure Ralph, who he proclaims is dead. But in the middle of the night, Jody tries to sneak downstairs and put the medals in Sam’s casket, but fails as he is not able to open the casket. But he leaves it unlocked before going back to his room.

At the funeral, Jed meets Jody and they talk about Sam and Jed also reveals that his leg is missing and he has steel peg instead.

Jody makes the mistake of saying that he plans on going into the military to be a hero like his uncle, which does not make Jed happy. Jed tells Jody to get those ideas out of your head as things weren’t like they used to be when we knew who we were fighting against. After realizing that he isn’t going to change Jody’s mind, Jed says that he may have put some ideas of glory in Sam’s head. He then says that Sam liked killing and says that there are no heroes, only lunatics who don’t die. Back in the house, Ralph is still acting like a jerk while talking about how the soldiers are dying for nothing and Jody finally decides to call him out on it. That makes his mother very unhappy and she decides to ground him by not letting him go to the Forth of July parade. In his room, Jody reads a note from Sam that says he is allowed to go after anyone who bad mouths this country and that those who don’t respect the American way of life deserve to have their butts kicked. After he reads that note, we move to a cemetery where some punk ass kids decide to desecrate someone’s grave with a Nazi swastika and burn the American flag. All of this disrespect for the country proves to be too much and Sam comes back to life.

I would say how I reacted to Sam waking up, but I will let Dr. Frankenstein do it instead

It's Alive.....It's Alive.....IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!!

Anyway, Sam gets out of his casket and goes to Jody’s room. He takes Jody’s medals and instead of putting them on his uniform, he puts them on his skin.

Meanwhile, we see a woman in a towel getting changed in her room and yes, we do see boobies and ass. Anyway, there is the guy who is supposed to be Uncle Sam at the parade in stilts looking to see some naked boobies as well.

He gets caught and runs away. Unfortunately, he sees some guy following him and trips. Now with stilts, there is no possible way you are getting back up on your own so he is a perfect target to be killed by Sam. Sam takes the outfit, cuts the pants down to size and becomes Uncle Sam.

We go back to the graveyard where the three punk ass kids are throwing beer cans at the grave that is meant to be Sam Harper’s. One kid lands his beer can in the whole which causes some celebration for those kids. The one kid who got it in decides that while the other two are leaving, he is going to take a piss on the grave. Uncle Sam appears and sprays the kid with a spray can they left behind after spraying that swastika on the one tombstone.

He gets KOed and wakes up in that same grave he was peeing on. He wakes up to find that his leg has been broken so bad you can see the bone and sees Uncle Sam bury him alive.

Of course another one of the puke ass kids worries and decides to look for the guy they left behind. Well, things don’t end well for him.

Onto the next scene where Mr. Crandall is getting everyone ready for the parade and sees that the kid who is supposed to be George Washington does have an axe with him. The kid said that he may have left it in the classroom. Mr. Crandall decides to go look for the hatchet and of course he finds it, but…..

He Gets It Driven Into His Head

Somewhere else, we see Jed operating the old cannon which fires. For people’s sakes…no one better be near tat cannonball. The parade starts as Jody is still in his room. He goes to look for his uncle’s medals and finds that they are missing. He thinks his mom took them so he decides to sneak out of his room. We then see the parade as we go to another family who has a kid in a wheelchair. The parents don’t care about the kid and are using him as a prop so that the other families can feel sorry for them. Oh and we see that the kid was brutally scarred.

At the park, Jody tries to talk to the kid in the wheelchair who we find is named Barry, but his mother becomes a real jerk and wheels him away. The mayor comes up on stage and says that we are going to hear the national anthem played by Jessie, who we see is one of the punk ass kids from the night before. He makes a mockery of the national anthem and gets booted off the stage while the mayor sings it instead. Meanwhile while his parents are looking away, Barry gets met by Uncle Sam.

BAD TOUCH!!! BAD TOUCH!!!!

Uncle Sam tells the kid that he make a lot of people feel his pain. He then walks off as his parents come back. When his parents come back, Barry asks who was that guy and their parents say that was Uncle Sam and says that whoever is in that costume, he does very well.

A limo pulls up and we get Congressman Cummings, who we know is a dirty politician who got caught in some kind of scandal. Jed comments that he can’t believe that crook is showing his face here where Ralph (who is Abe Lincoln) makes the remark that we all can’t be war heroes. Jed does make the remark that Ralph supposedly finds Jesse’s butchering of the Star Spangle Banner amusing. Of course, Ralph the jerk gives the kid a break and makes fun of our own national anthem (it’s a lousy song and nobody can remember the words) as well as Francis Scott Key, saying he was a one hit wonder. Hmm….you know that might have been interesting if Francis Scott Key was actually a singer or composer, but he wasn’t. Instead Francis Scott Key was an attorney, author, and poet. In fact, the Star Spangled Banner was originally a poem that became a song so this guy can kiss my ass and cannot die fast enough. Of course, when Jed leaves, he confronts Uncle Sam…and tells the guy that he is okay.

We go to the smoker where some girl is cutting some meat with a cleaver. Of course, this girl decides to leave her post and go smoke some weed. She gets caught by Phil, who makes her a deal: Get back to helping with the smoker and maybe we will let this incident go. She goes back to the smoker, but finds that her cleaver is missing.

On the sack race, we see that Jesse is one of the participants and tries to knock other people over to win. His attempts at cheating earn him a fall off the path. He is then stocked by Uncle Sam who has the meat cleaver and you know what he does?

Of course, we then get an image that was on my sig for one month.

At another place, we see that Louise and Phil are together and Uncle Sam notices this. Why did I bring this up? Well, because I have a feeling somehow this is going to end badly. At the shooting target booth, Uncle Sam decides to steal the rifle. Sally goes over to Ralph who is sitting on a chair and Sally finds out that Ralph got a bullet to the head.

Yeah, seriously…..I wanted to see the whole incident of him being killed. I didn’t just want to see him just be dead. While the police are taking Ralph’s body away, Sally asks why anyone would try to hurt Ralph. You know, I am pretty sane and I think that I would want to hurt Ralph. The guy was a jerk. The congressman tries to get out of doing his speech, but the mayor says that it is going to still happen as people have been looking forward to this day for an entire year. The congressman’s aide convinces him to stay by saying that this is his chance to get some good PR by talking about crime while someone has died.

Back in the barn, Jody gets told to go home, but he says that if Sam was around, he would have caught the killer and broken both of his arms. Louise and Sally then explain to Jody the bad things that Sam did to them. Well, they kind of mention the bad things by saying they were scared of him and that Sam was a bad person. At first, Jody doesn’t believe this, but he comes around when his mother kind of hints at the fact that Sam may have done some sexual harassment towards her. Can you say incest?

Phil comes in and tells everyone that they found another body, but the head is missing. That brings us back to the girl at the smoker. She opens the smoker and finds the exact head. When she screams, she gets her own head shoved into it.

The mayor comes up and says while we may have had a tragedy, the show will go on. He then goes to introduce Congressman Cummings, but wait…..he is missing. Well, we find out what happens to him with the fireworks begin.

And the fireworks begin, which kills the congressman. Phil tries to make the save, but the explosion knocks him down the hill and he gets impaled with an American flag by Uncle Sam.

Of course, the parents of Barry decide to leave him behind as the mother needs to be in the car. Jody decides to help Barry and in this scene, Barry tells Jody that his Uncle Sam is the killer. They tell Jed who the killer is and at first he doesn’t believe them, but then he remembers his run-in with him. They go to the casket and they see….

Sgt. Twinning's Body

They then figure out that Sam is going after Louise next. Sally shows up and is told to just get Louise some protection. Jody and Barry decide to follow Jed with the opinion that Sam thinks the two are on his side and won’t hurt them. They find Louise scared out of her mind and Jed asks for the telephone. She says it is in the kitchen, but when Jed gets there, we find the mask is already in the kitchen. Jed then goes face to face with Sam, who has now taken the mask off.

Sam tells Jed that he made him into this, but Jed disagrees and says that he never fought for his country; he killed for the love of killing. Back in the living room, Jed is thrown from the kitchen with such force that the wall breaks. Sam enters through another door and asks her if she still loves him. She responds by firing a gun, which doesn’t do a bit of good. Jody tells the two to get out so Jed can get the cannon. Sam tells Jody that he came back for him and that he is the reason that he is here. Jody said that he wanted to be like him, but Sam says that he would have to be dead first and asks if he is volunteering. Jody is asking Sam why he is killing Americans. Sam just replies that they are the same type of people who left him to die in the desert. Jody tells Sam that he wants everyone to see them together. Sam agrees to this and holds Jody’s hand. They exit the door, Jody gets out of the way and Jed fires the cannon at Sam.

Sam goes out in a blaze of glory. It’s over….

Not Yet......

Well, one more cannon shot….

At the end of this film, we see Jody burning all his army toys while his mother smiles.

Nowadays that would not be a good idea as he could fetch a good price for those toys on eBay so I don’t see the same thing happening today. Anyway, the film is over, but we get some guy reciting a poem while the credits appear.

This movie was a straight-to-video movie so it didn’t hit theaters at all. I first noticed this movie several years ago with its VHS cover, which was like Jack Frost in that it had a holographic cover. The cover turned Uncle Sam from the Uncle Sam we all know of into a demonic Uncle Sam. There is also a holographic poster which fetches a good price on eBay. This movie was also the reunion of director William Lustig with writer Larry Cohen as they both did the successful Maniac Cop series. Sad that this reunion wasn’t for a better movie, but then again….Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence was really a piece of crap that will be inducted one day as well. This film was dedicated to Lucio Fulci, the famous Italian horror director who did Zombie. Oh, I’m sure he appreciates being dedicated to by this movie.

The movie filming did have some issues and caused a major problem. You see, the movie was filmed in the town of La Verne, California. The place go a house that they could blow up, but the studio nor anyone told the neighbors that there would be an explosion or that it would take place at 3 AM. When the explosion went off, people literally thought the explosion was legit and called the local cops. Needless to say, no one was very happy to find out that it was just part of a movie and thus, the town of La Verne doesn’t allow anyone permission to film in their town ever again.

Okay, let’s get to my thoughts. This film sucks and sucks hard. How in the hell do you have this pro-American feel to the whole movie and then at the end, have an anti-American feel. The dialogue is atrocious and it makes you understand why none of these people besides Isaac Hayes are well known. This was a cheap exploitation flick that was made in a time where cheap exploitation flicks do not work. This film would have been fine for a late 70s to early 80s feel, but not 1997. But to be fair, this film makes me absolutely laugh when I see it.

Anyway, now that we got that out of the way, I just got a package from a friend of mine who told me that this film will see the Iron Chef America host in a bad light. Well, I like Iron Chef America and I don’t mind the host so why would I see him negatively????

*unwraps the gift*

Awww...Crap

* I feel the need to mention this because I talked in this induction as if Isaac Hayes was still alive. Well when I originally did this induction, he was still alive. It was only two weeks afterwards that he had died. Really took me a few days after his death to remember that he was in Uncle Sam. When I originally posted the next induction, it should be noted that I made mention of this fact.