Just the Ticket #184: Uncle Sam
a.k.a. The Ticketmaster
Independence Day is on a Friday this year, and I've been devoting the majority of my review months to the films of Maniac Cop director William Lustig, so as you can probably figure out from the thumbnail, I'm reviewing the 1996 holiday slasher, Uncle Sam.
It's not the first "killer dresses in holiday mascot costume and uses silly, thematically appropriate means to depopulate small-town America" movie (from the 70s to the early 90s, just about every holiday—especially Christmas and Halloween—got at least one), and with low-budget fare like Thankskilling and Bunnyman, revival-era mysteries like Valentine, and the fairly recent Grindhouse trailer adaptation, Thanksgiving, it certainly wasn't the last.
But it was definitely one of them.
In the small town of Twin Rivers, USA (so you know it's a fake town and feel manufactured fear that such an incident could happen anywhere in America), Sally Baker and her war-obsessed son Jody (like, he reads war comics, his toys are almost exclusively tanks, legally distinct G.I. Joe facsimiles, and fighter planes, and he wants to be a soldier like his war hero uncle, whose name is the title) are getting ready for the big 4th of July parade that seems to comprise the entire livelihood and personality of Twin Rivers because it's a fake town in a 90s direct-to-video slasher that feels like it's from the 80s. Unfortunately (or fortunately, from Sally's point of view because of that domestic violence PSA feeling I mentioned earlier), their lives are upended when news of Uncle Sam's (David Fralick) friendly fire death in Kuwait reopens old wounds and changes their dynamic as a family. Things get worse between them (and more Lustigian for the audience) when Sam's remains are returned home.
It's revealed pretty early, and with a heavy but restrained hand, that Sam was a "torture small animals and my wife and my sister to learn what sounds they make" kind of guy who enlisted so that he could kill people on the government's dime and get away with it. It's even subtly suggested that the friendly fire incident was just his unit trying to take him out because they knew how evil he was.
But through a combination of acts of desecration, the mass aura of unpatriotic assholes (yes, it's Critters logic again) on Independence Day, and "somehow because a slasher movie needs to happen," Sam rises from his casket, steals a costume from a pervert he kills, and infiltrates the patriotic festivities to dispatch the uncouth and unpatriotic in increasingly sensational ways. So basically, Uncle Sam is just the Maniac Cop with a worse defined means of resurrection, better defined motives, slightly more personality, and a costume choice so on the nose that it should have been a "Who's On First?"-alike comedy routine ("Who's the killer?" "Uncle Sam!" "No, dummy; who's the killer in the costume‽" "Uncle Sam!" etc.).
Abusive parental figures, reanimated "hero" servicemen on a killing spree who get blown up at the end of the movie, Robert Forster playing an overconfident prick who gets pyrotechnic'd to death,...? Yeah, Uncle Sam is definitely a William Lustig film. Well, that last one was technically an Alan Smithee film, but you know what I mean.
Anyway, after enough bodies and parts thereof pile up that the town officials can no longer [insert Jaws beach closure joke here] on Independence Day (plus the mayor kind of exploded while everyone stood around and watched), it's up to Jody, Chef from South Park, and a burned, blinded, wheelchair-bound boy (who may or may not have psychic powers because he survived an offscreen fireworks accident the year before that seems infinitely more interesting to learn about than the actual plot that Uncle Sam ended up with) to lead the undead killer somewhere that he can easily be burned to death and exploded.
Fortunately, instead of the expected, "there's no way he could have survived that; we couldn't find a body" ending, Jody learns that his uncle was an abusive, murderous psychopath and swears off all things war-related because war is murder or something. But because the child actors in this only have a "creepy" setting, it kind of looks like he's just going through the motions and might end up like Sam anyway? Cue bizarre, shattered glass transition effect and an impromptu poetry slam by actor William Smith (vocally, he's like a discount Burgess Meredith or Robert Loggia, and he plays the Major in the opening scene in Kuwait) as the credits roll.
I initially wanted to rate this movie higher because of the messaging the film tried to have and how fun and absurd some of the kills were. But Uncle Sam the movie only makes the barest effort at nuanced social commentary before deciding it's easier to be a hammer that sees its audience as nails. Its mix of phoned in character acting and one-note child acting creates confusing moments of tension and plot elements that barely hold significance. And it's so derivative that one could picture Lustig's go-to screenwriter, Larry Cohen, copying together parts of his previous scripts and changing minor details to make something "new."
Points for the Fulci tribute (is that going to be a thing now‽ Movies that pay tribute to horror legends? I still have anime to catch up on!), Sam's hilarious suiting-up sequence, and the fun kills, but that's about it.
C-
Come back tomorrow to pick up what Time Drops because I'm laying out some plans, and please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about, help out my ad revenue as you read so I can afford some quality earplugs to block out the next three days of warfare-like sound effects that are sure to fill the air over this small town I tolerate living in, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my independently created content.
Ticketmaster,
Out.
Comments
Post a Comment