Slasher films and holidays go together like chocolate and peanut butter. It gives the makers of such films two easy starting points in their creation. On the one hand holidays have built in name recognition. “There’s a movie called Happy Birthday to Me! Why I have birthdays! I must go see it!” On the other, it gives them an easy to explain back story and motivation for the slasher. His mother was killed on Christmas by a dude in a Santa suit so he must now don a Santa suit and kill folks. Of course, by now, most of the good holidays have been used ad naseum. So, what’s a poor film maker to do?
This brings us to Uncle Sam, the first horror movie, not involving aliens or Tom Cruises, to take place on the 4th of July.
Our film begins in Kuwait, where random army guys find a chopper shot down by friendly fire. In the chopper is a guy lucky enough to be named Sam and have a nephew. He is also a rather spry dead guy who shoots the guys who find him. I’m guessing the army sent more guys out and those guys weren’t at all put off by the first set of guys being shot, because…
Next we head to Small Town, USA a few days before the 4th of July. Sam’s nephew has a room full of military related stuff, because he rather liked his uncle, Sam. The kid may or may not be having a bad dream and knocks over a photo of Sam and promptly steps on the glass. The kid’s blood has better self- control than an alien-infected guy’s in Antarctica.
A brief interlude about the kid: It’s said that Disney has a cloning facility where they make perfect clones to star on their T.V. shows and sing terrible songs and generally just part tweens from their cash. I imagine it as a sterile state of the art facility with a really nice cafeteria. There is also a dilapidated factory on the seamier side of town that grows fairly hideous B-movie kids. This kid and the kid from Troll 2 look to have been grown in the same vat. End of interlude.
So anyways, the kid really loved his uncle and wants to be like him. It a not-so-shocking twist later is turns out that Sam was –spoiler alert- an abusive asshole. Yeah, I know, shocking. He takes Sam’s medals to school for a bit of impromptu show and tell. His teacher, a former conscientious objector, gets called a coward and somehow doesn’t smack the kid. The teacher, it should be noted, is played by Timothy Bottoms. Bottoms was on the short lived show “That’s My Bush” where he was George W. Bush. Yeah, “suck it future draft dodging former president,” says the film makers in an oddly psychic moment.
A military guy delivers Sam’s body straight to his sister-in-law’s house and puts the coffin right there in the living room. No one seems to be terribly sad about the death or in any hurry to arrange a funeral. I guess the coffin really ties the room together. The kid loosens 1 of the locks on the coffin. Not all, mind you. Just one. But it proves to be enough to allow Sam to exit later. So that’s alright.
Sam is resurrected by some asshole teens who practice their constitutionally protected right to burn an American flag right over his freshly dug grave replete with a tombstone. So, I suppose, the widow did make some hasty arrangements while nothing was happening, which in this movie could have been at any time.
Meanwhile, across town, a guy on stilts and in an Uncle Sam outfit decides to do what comes naturally; stares at tits on the second story of a house. Well, either that doesn’t sit well with zombie Sam or he just needs the outfit. He kills him and steals his outfit. Staring at tits is as American as apple pie and baseball. I'm sure the Founding Fathers, if not for the 20 layers of clothes that women wore and general lack of porn, loved tits as well and would have stared at them if given a chance.
This leads me to my next major issue. Slasher villains have to follow certain rules. This is what defines them. Sam ostensibly kills people for being unpatriotic. As the film goes on he tends to lose his focus and kills people for dating his widow or cutting ribs poorly.
The big July 4th celebration begins. Sam stalks around killing a kid who sings the National Anthem poorly, a shady politician and several other people like the above mentioned girl who seems less than enthused about preparing ribs.
A burned, blind, crippled kid is introduced. He looks suspiciously like the kid who is the ½ in 2 and ½ Men after a particularly vicious burn from Charlie Sheen. What does he do in the movie other than demonstrate the dangers of fireworks? Nothing. His parents are played by P. J. Soles and Thom McFadden. Oh look! People from Halloween and 976-Evil are in this! Get a camera.
Burned kid get talked to and creepily touched by Sam. Why? The burned kid and the creepy kid are friends. How does Sam know this? No idea. It probably doesn’t matter. Burned kid tells creepy kid that his uncle is skulking about. So the kids seek the aid of Isaac Hayes to kill Sam. Isaac Hayes and Sam have some sort of past. We learn this by a quickly glimpsed present given to Hayes, a pair of balls in a rather nice case with a note suggesting that Hayes lacks balls. Hayes and the kids find Sam and kill him with a cannon of all things.
The kid decides that maybe the military isn’t for him, because they produce evil zombie killers or something, and throws away his toys at the end. The movie can’t even be bothered to sequel bait.
Should you watch this? Probably not. But it will make you feel as if you are getting your $15 per month’s worth out of Netflix.
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