Uncle Sam (1996)

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Uncle Sam (1996) * 1/2 (out of 4) William Lustig directed horror film comes from a screenplay by Larry Cohen. Sam Harper (David Fralick) is killed in the Gult War and after his body returns to his home he comes back to life to kill anyone who goes against America. His young nephew looks up to his uncle but he's not quite aware of his past or what he's presently doing. UNCLE SAM is a real disappointment and I think the majority of the blame goes towards the screenplay because for the life of me I couldn't understand what the writer was going for here. On one hand you're thinking this is just a good, old-fashioned "if you're against America then we're going to destroy you" patriotic movie and had it gone for this and really played up the flag waving it could have been interesting. Just as you think that's the type of movie you're watching you then get this entire backstory about Sam being a complete and utter jerk who was very abusive to his family and it seems no one who really knew him cares about him. So, if this guy is such a monster is the viewer supposed to hate him? The screenplay makes you hate him yet it then asks you to like him as he goes on this killing rampage. The entire film is just all over the map. It's clear that Cohen can write a terrific screenplay but there are times where his work just seems rushed and out of focus and this is such a time. Fans will get to see several familiar faces here including William Smith, Bo Hopkins, Isaac Hayes, Timothy Bottoms, P.J. Soles and Robert Forster. Lustig does what he can with the material and I'd give him credit because he really does capture the spirit and feel of an 80's slasher movie. Those expecting non-stop gore will probably be disappointed as there's really not too much of it. With that said, UNCLE SAM could have been an interesting film but sadly the screenplay just doesn't come together.

With a 3-D Cover and a tag line like " I Want you…DEAD! How could you not love every single thing about this movie. I love cheap horror flicks and this one is right up there, but beyond that it also has a "message". I think this movie's script may have originally been about a soldier who dies, who was a real asshole in life, and most of the people who knew him aren't really sad that he's dead. Except of course for the young nephew that respected his uncle like he WAS G.I. Joe. I can only presume that the original script continued to explore this, however it seems no one wanted to make that movie so somewhere along the line the production team said, "screw it" and scrapped everything after the first half hour or so and turned it into a horror film. It actually kind of reminds me of a porn with a plot. No one really cares about the plot, but having one makes the movie cheesier and therefore far better than the director ever intended.http://heystupid.wordpress.com/category/stupid-movies/

I was working for a video store when this movie came out. I remember it well because of its holographic cover. At the time I wasn't very familiar with William Lustig (except his Maniac Cop movies) but I was familiar with Larry Cohen whom is the writer for this movie. So I rented it then. Years later I looked back on this movie with some fond memories. So, I just bought it through "Blue Underground" and this is what I think of the movie now, 9 years later.The premise is pretty simple as a man named Sam Harper is over seas when he is killed by friendly fire in Kuwait. The army ships his body back to the states for his family to give him his respectful burial. It turns out though, that Sam Harper was not a liked man. He "wanted people to be afraid of him". This doesn't mean anything to an impressionable kid who happens to be Sam's nephew. The kid wants to grow up to be just like Sam. But that's besides the point. Sam, for some unknown reason, is able to return from the dead. Upon his return, he decides to kill any who is anti-patriotic, which includes loser teenagers, crooked politicians, people who cheat on their taxes, etc.The plot to the movie is somewhat funny. Obviously written by Cohen because it has his trademark style. The problem with the movie is the first half of the film is rather slow. I understand the need for character development but other then the Issac Hayes character, I could have cared less for the rest of the cast. Issac Hayes was cool because he seems to be the voice of reason for this bloodthirsty little nephew of Sam's. There were some characters that I couldn't wait to see get killed, though. The flag burning teenagers was quite a pleasure to see get theirs. Or the stupid, crooked politician was good also.All in all, this wasn't bad. I feel that after watching it, it was missing something. Maybe more gore, maybe more story, or maybe both. Look for the ending of the movie as it was made in respect to Lucio Fulci's "The Gates of Hell". 6/10

Uncle Sam represents the only non-Maniac Cop collaboration between Larry Cohen and William Lustig, which is a shame. Aside from just making a derivative psycho killer film, it seems obvious that writer Larry Cohen wanted Uncle Sam to have some brains too, which is shown by the attempt to inject a message into the proceedings. Larry Cohen is definitely a huge talent when it comes to entertaining horror movies - films like The Stuff, It's Alive and, of course, Maniac Cop are camp classics if you ask me; but he really should stick to entertainment, as this screenplay is a mess and the 'message' is so jumbled up that I have little idea what exactly it's preaching. The plot follows a young boy who believes that his uncle, who is coincidentally called Sam, is a hero. Uncle Sam was a patriotic, lunatic soldier killed by friendly fire whilst fighting for his country. His body is brought to his sister's place, coincidentally around the time of the Fourth of July celebrations. It's not long before his fellow Americans are abusing their privileges, and Uncle Sam decides to get up and do something about it.It's hard to take a movie about a war veteran zombie seriously, and this is something that Cohen should have taken into account when putting pen to paper. The clear message on show is that war is bad, and there appears to be a backhanded comment about the way America handles people who don't submit to their 'way of life'. However, American politicians can rest easy because the central figure here is murdering people pretty much at random; which saps any weight out of the theme. In my opinion, Cohen should have decided what it is he wanted to write; a slasher, or a film with substance. However, even as a horror film, Uncle Sam falls short. We've got some nice gore scenes on display, but much of the running time is spent on building up the plot with the kid and his admiration for Uncle Sam, and to say the least; it isn't very interesting. The film is very slow to start, with practically nothing happening in the first half of the film. Good sequences are few and far between, but I've got to say I liked the one that saw a stilt-wearing pervert prying into a girl's bedroom and the one that saw someone falling down a hill in a sack race. Neither of those grab you? This film won't either. Uncle Sam fails on every level.