Uncle Sam (1996)

Time to be honest with you the readers. I thought that I had already covered this one for the website, but it turns out that I haven’t. With the 4^th of July just past I figured it was about time that I talk a bit about Uncle Sam, the most patriotic of slasher flicks.

A young boy named Jody idolizes his dead uncle for his military service. Of course, his uncle was named Sam, so the title works in a couple of ways. Year after being killed in the Gulf War his body is found and returned home. The chopper that Sam piloted was shot down by friendly fire, which may be why he comes back to life. Not sure about that. But the important thing is that Sam climbs out of his coffin and decides to punish those unpatriotic locals by killing them. But then he also starts randomly killing people too. Who the heck really cares since this is about his zombie looking butt dressing up as Uncle Sam and going on a killing spree. Eventually Jody sees the truth and with the help of a veteran, played by Isaac Hayes, he puts an end to things.

This is a solidly made and fun flick. The story is paced evenly with enough kills spaced out to keep things rolling along. The characters are decent despite the script being a bit weak. They never explain the how and why of Sam’s return which might have made the movie all the more entertaining. I get that this is about a zombified killer and isn’t based in reality, but I like my horror flicks to have rules I can predict. Though the filmmakers make the brilliant decision of filling the cast out with some awesome character actors that I think make up for the deficiencies in the plot.

I’ve already mentioned Isaac Hayes, who has a decent role. But we also get the likes of William Smith, Bo Hopkins, Timothy Bottoms, P.J. Soles, and the amazing Robert Forster in small parts. Though each of them is given something fun to do whether it is dropping some great lines or getting a cool death scene. I’m not too surprised since this is directed by William Lustig from a script by Larry Cohen. Just read thru the names I mentioned. These actors, writers, and director are responsible for some of my favorite movies. Though if I’m going to be completely honest, and I always am, this is also a bit disappointing. While I dig it this could have been a top-notch horror flick if they had spent just a bit more time polishing the script.

The kills are rather tame, but fun. There is a snapped neck, a face on a grill, some handgun action, some cannon action, and some garden shear action. Though my favorite kills are the patriotic themed death by flagpole thru the chest and the fireworks explosion! The movie tends to pull away from the good stuff so don’t set your expectations too high. But then this was the mid to late nineties, so the days of in-your-face gore hadn’t returned yet.

Uncle Sam is a frustrating flick. It could have been an excellent last hurrah from some killer actors and one of the best director/writer duos of the eighties. Instead, it comes off more as a neutered not quite as good as what came before horror movie that sadly fits in with most of what that decade of meh (aka. the nineties) gave us. There is some fun here but also many missed opportunities. If you haven’t seen this one then give it a chance, just manage your expectations.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Throwback Thursday - The Stuff R.I.P. Larry Cohen

 note: This was from an article that I wrote for Grindhouse Purgatory a few years ago. It was not long after Larry Cohen passing away and I wanted to cover one of his movies for the report. 

The Blu-Ray Report: The Stuff

by John Shatzer 

I’m back with another Blu-Ray report. With the recent passing of Larry Cohen, I decided to pick the copy of The Stuff out of my to watch pile and take a look. I knew I wanted to do a Cohen flick but found my choices limited. I have many of his movies on DVD, but a decent Blu-Ray release can be hard to find. Many are just recycled DVD content on a new format. That is certainly not something that I wanted to cover here. But then I remembered The Stuff and I hadn’t seen it in years so that made my decision much easier.

As always, I’ll first talk about the movie in case you haven’t seen it before, and then chat about the special features. By the end you should be able to decide if it is worth upgrading from your earlier release to the fancy new Blu-Ray. Along the way I’ll try to compare it to the media that I already had in my collection. In the past people have emailed me about different releases and while I do my best to find out what was already out there sometimes I miss things. If you should disagree with my article, please feel free to email me and let me know. I always leave my contact information at the end of these.

Let me give a brief synopsis of the movie. Things kick off with some men at work. One of them finds some odd white stuff bubbling up from the ground and immediately decides to taste it! Not something that I would do but to each their own. He finds that it tastes great and shares it with his friend. The scene shifts to sometime later where a cabal of ice cream moguls have hired a corporate spy, Mo Rutherford, to discover the secret formula of this crazy new dessert product The Stuff. While we know it is bubbling from the ground that is apparently a big secret. After some shenanigans Mo dives in to investigate.

Without giving too much away and spending too much time rehashing the plot we are introduced to a few other characters including a precocious kid, a love interest for Mo, a cookie mogul, and the leader of a local militia group which comes to the rescue. Yeah you heard that last part right. The ‘80s were a different time man… They all end up trying to warn the country that The Stuff is not good for you. I mean what kind of movie would we have if it was?

Larry Cohen was a master at making something out of nothing and he does it here again. The plot is very thin and forces the viewer to jump thru some serious hoops. The mental gymnastics include Mo stealing a kid away from his family without them calling the cops and a crazy militia oddball getting on the radio and telling everyone that the Stuff will kill them, and everyone immediately believes him! As a child of the ‘80s I can assure you we weren’t that gullible. I don’t consider these issues to be deal breakers as they add to the charm of the movie. Though I can imagine it annoying the heck out of some viewers, so I thought I’d mention it.  

What Cohen does to help gloss over story issues is fill the movie up with interesting set pieces to distract you from the plot holes. We get a weird bit with a dog and one of the men who pushed the Stuff thru government testing. Then there are a couple random scenes with “Chocolate Chip” Charlie doing martial arts. The character is played by Garrett Morris and brings a lot of silly energy to the screen. It seems like every scene he is in has a punchline or a reason to pay attention to it. Overall the editing is tight and keeps the action coming at you rapidly. I suppose what I’m getting at is that you are so distracted with the movie that it isn’t until afterwards that you question what was going on. That takes a lot of skill to pull off and Cohen was a master.

Since The Stuff is basically a creature feature we have to talk about the special effects work. This isn’t the sort of movie that will have a lot of kills or gory bits. But we do get a giant gooey monster that slips in and out of people thru all their orifices. When it leaves you get a creepy hollowed out husk that we see a lot of on screen. This is done with some practical latex work and looks awesome. There is a scene near the end when an unexpected person “stuffs” out that is always a blast to watch. Mixed in with the practical effects are some green screen shots that honestly don’t hold up well. Some of them are quite bad actually. But overall for a low budget movie from the ‘80s I can’t complain too much about the work.

The Stuff isn’t anywhere near the best work that Cohen did. I’d say something like Q the Winged Serpent or Black Caesar are far better movies. But it does serve as a fun bit of monster movie goodness from a director/writer that always delivered the goods. If you haven’t seen the movie, I’d recommend you check it out.

So what of special features do we get? Here is where I was sort of surprised. Normally these Arrow releases are filled with all sorts of goodies. The Stuff Blu-Ray is awfully thin with a single documentary Can’t Get Enough of the Stuff: Making Larry Cohen’s Classic Creature Feature being the only new item on the disc. Though being 52 minutes long gave me some hope that there were some goodies to be had. Sadly, that wasn’t the case. We do get Cohen talking about the idea behind the movie and his take on consumerism. That was sort of interesting but much of the time is spent talking about his career in general. I was disappointed.

There are a few tidbits from Steve Neill, one of the effects guys, about creating some of the special effects including the great gag with Garrett Morris’ head in what might be the best scene of the movie. Also lead actress Andrea Marcovicci talks about working with Michael Moriarty and how he and Cohen kept changing the dialogue. The lack of interviews with Moriarty, Garrett Morris, and Paul Sorvino left me wanting more. Between this and the constant referencing of his entire career rather than The Stuff makes this a less than stellar extra. If you are interested in Cohen, you should check out the excellent documentary King Cohen.

Other than the trailer the only extra on the disc is a trailer commentary from director Darren Bousman. I think this is part of the Trailers from Hell series and is maybe 90 seconds long. Nothing really much to it.

The saving grace and the only reason to upgrade to this Blu-Ray is the picture and sound. I’ve mentioned more than once that I’m not the kind of guy that obsesses on this sort of thing. Even I can notice how much better the movie looks and sounds. This might backfire with some of the effects work, but for the most part is a welcome change from the grainy copies that I’ve seen in the past.

This is where I tell you if I think it is worth upgrading. This is a hard question for me to ask because I realized I didn’t own a copy of The Stuff before I bought this release. I had seen and rented it dozens of times, but never picked up a DVD or even a VHS. I’m glad to have this in my collection and will be revisiting it in October when horror movie season rolls around. Though if I had an old copy I don’t know if I would have felt that this was worth the extra money. Again, it looks and sound amazing, but the lack of good special features kills much of the appeal for me. In the end I suppose if you are willing to drop 30 bucks for picture and sound then this is certainly worth your hard-earned cash. Otherwise I’d stick with what you’ve got.

Well that is it for me. As always please feel free to email me at gutmunchers@gmail.com with any questions or comments on this article. I shall see all of you again here on the pages of this fine magazine in six months where I will again try to steer you towards or away from upgrading your movie collection.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Q the Winged Serpent (1982)

With the passing of the great Larry Cohen I found myself in the mood to check out some of his movies. Q the Winged Serpent was always a personal favorite of mine, so I thought I’d start off with it. Not only is it an excellent example of Cohen’s style, but the cast is crazy good. 

The movie hits you right in the face with what you are about to watch. A window cleaner is working outside a woman’s office and leering at her in a semi creepy way. This goes on for a couple of minutes before he loses his head… literally! This is how we are introduced to a couple of New York City cops working that case, Shepard and Powell. They are played by David Carradine and Richard Roundtree. Caine from Kung Fu and freaking Shaft are our detectives! How great is that? Eventually they figure out there are two cases, one with a giant bird flying around killing people and another with a follower of the ancient Aztecs that is running around sacrificing people. Of course, they are related.

If those two cases weren’t enough story, we also get introduced to a sad sack smalltime criminal, Jimmy Quinn, played by Michael Moriarty. After a failed diamond heist, he finds himself running away and hiding, only to end up in the creature’s nest. He tries to parlay that knowledge into a big payday by holding the city hostage, sort of. He won’t tell them where to find it until he gets paid! The paths of our detectives and Jimmy all intersect and by the end credits everything works out, probably.

Best cops ever!

Cohen was a genius as both a writer and director. This could have been a mess of a movie with too many characters and stories vying for screen time. Instead we get a movie that is tossing action at you at a breakneck pace daring you to keep up. The narrative jumps between poor Jimmy trying to get something going for himself, to Shepard digging into the mysticism of the Aztecs to figure out what is eating the locals, to Powell being a no-nonsense cop tracking down a crazed murderer. Somehow the three are balanced in such a way that not only do they move along and resolve nicely, but they all connect for the audience by the time the end credits roll. I don’t know how he made this all work, but it does.

Since this is a monster movie, I have to talk a bit about the creature. They don’t shy away from showing it. It is brought to life on screen with a combination of stop motion animation and some rear projection. I’ve heard some people complaining that the monster looks cheesy, but I love the old school effects work and think it looks just fine. For as quickly as this was made and with the smallish budget, they did an awesome job. Plus, they shot the movie and then added the monster in later which is not how this is normally done and itself should have led to issues. Again, I have no idea how they managed to pull this off.

Love the creature effects work.

One last thing that I wanted to mention. Larry Cohen was famous for stealing shots, basically shooting in public without permission. Part of the fun of watching one of his movies is looking for those shots where random people on the streets react to what is going on. Cohen would hide the camera so hopefully no one would notice what they were doing which lead to these natural reactions. Here there are a couple bits where people are reacting to blood dripping on them from above as Q flies away with a victim. Watch the people around the actors and remember they aren’t in on the gag. It is awesome to watch.

Q the Winged Serpent is a great movie with an even better cast. If you dig monster movies, flicks shot in New York City in the seventies and eighties, or just want to check out a Larry Cohen movie this is the one for you. I highly recommend it.

© Copyright 2019 John Shatzer