Maniac Soldier from Director of Maniac Cop

How could we resist a flick with lenticular box art and a tag line that says Uncle Sam Wants You . . . Dead. From A-Pix Entertainment, the geniuses responsible for this winter's Jack Frost - He's Chillin' . . . and Killin', comes this bizarre anti-war, pro-murder spectacle.

The Sam in question here is a sadistic bastard who goes to fight the Gulf War. Killed in a helicoptor crash, Sam's remains are returned to his hometown. On the Fourth of July, a trio of asshole kids burns a flag on Sam's grave. He rises from the dead to exact revenge on the anti-patriotic kids, the draft-dodging schoolteacher, and anybody else that happens to get in his way.

Sam the zombie takes a costume from a stilt-walking, parade-bound Uncle Sam character. He spends the rest of the film in his red, white, and blue tux, slaughtering folks right after muttering clever lines like "Don't worry. It's friendly fire." We haven't even scratched the surface of this strange little puppy. In addition to the uncle Sam killer, you've got extreme potato sack racing, gratuitous bikini scenes, the blind, scar-faced kid who was the victim of an eliptically-referred-to "tragic fireworks accident. And let's not forget the psychotic, war-mongering kid, the exploded Senator (Jackie Brown's Robert Forrester), P.J. Soles, William Smith, and The Duke of New York, Isaac Hayes, as the one-legged war hero.

To tell the truth, we were expecting Uncle Sam to be an utter piece of junk. But that's the true strength of the film. Deceptively able direction by William (Maniac, Relentless) Lustig is supplemented by a cynical, wacky script by illustrious turd-polisher Larry (Q, Hell up in Harlem) Cohen. Cohen has proven time and time again that he can take the most ludicrous, generic concept and inject it with both new life and a healthy dose of originality.

It ain't no Citizen Kane, but Uncle Sam is much better than you think it is. Unusual, unpredictable, and morally skewed at its center.