Fiction

UNCLE SAM

William Lustig
USA 1997
89 min
V'10

Three years after her husband Sam went missing in combat, the military inform his wife that he was killed by friendly fire in Kuwait. Sam’s body is returned home and placed in the family home as July 4th celebrations near. From his coffin, Sam’s body returns to life whereupon he reclaims his medals and walks out into the town. As July 4th begins, Sam, disguised in a carnival Uncle Sam costume, stalks the town, killing those who disrespect the flag, rob the government and have dodged the draft.
One of the great pleasures of Larry Cohen’s scripts is that they have unusual sympathies, a quirky wit and a subversive bite. Here you can see Cohen setting up deserving suspects for the wrath of the flag-saluting undead soldier – Timothy Bottoms as a Vietnam draft dodger, the corporate lawyer who boasts about avoiding paying tax for his clients, the flag defacers, the dope-smoking teen layabouts. William Lustig serves up some entertaining dispatches – bodies impaled on flagpoles, Robert Forster’s self-important politician set alight on a fireworks stand. With a film that so willingly sinks its teeth into the issue of American flag-waving and military pride, it is no surprise that Uncle Sam experienced a number of problems in receiving domestic distribution. (Richard Scheib)

Credits
  • Christopher Ogden - Jody Baker
  • Isaac Hayes - Jed Crowley
  • Anne Tremko - Louise Harper
  • David «Shark» Fralick - Sam Harper
  • Leslie Neale - Sally Baker
  • Matthew Flint - Phil Burke
  • Zachary Lemore - Barry Cronin
  • Timothy Bottoms - Crandall
  • Robert Foster - Cummings
  • Larry Cohen
  • James Lebovitz
  • Doug Reed
  • Bob Murawski
  • Mark Governor
  • Charlotte Malmöf
  • Amy Wetherbee
A-Pix Entertainment
Blue Underground
35 mm
col
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