Every good holidays deserves a good slasher movie inspired by it but 4th of July low key has one of the most entertaining ones of all. If you never watched Uncle Sam, well- strap in!
UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU- TO DIE!
Movie starts with fantastic death of a Sergent in a downed helicopter who despite being burned to crisps still manages to kill two soldiers and mutters “don’t be afraid, it’s only friendly fire” before finally dropping dead.
Turns out the Sergeant is young Billy’s uncle Sam Harper. And they are sending his body to the family just in time for Independence Day. You can tell this is not going to end well right away.
On his wake a retired officer played by Isaac Hayes hows up- blaming himself for Sam’s death- ’cause he was the one who inspired him to have a military career in the first place.
As the clock strikes twelve Sam mysteriously comes alive looking like a zombie that he is (in fact I would say his make-up is quite similar to Lustig’s own Maniac Cop).
In the meantime a perverse, costumed Uncle Sam on stilts is perving on the local blond who just came from under shower. unfortunately for him she notices him and he tries to run away-almost causing a car crash. His troubles don’t stop there. Noticing someone is following him he rushes and hits his head on the three and falls. Sam (in a full military garb) catches up with him with giant hedge trimmer in hand. He also takes his mask and that’s when fun really begins.
That night local teens decide that burning an American flag over Sam’s grave in the eve of July 4th is a good idea. I mean as much as Sam was bloodthirsty maniac while he was still alive- but man, they are asking for it.
He buries one of them alive (in a marked grave), other one- he hangs like a flag. Third one goes for the axe but gets axed himself.
Then when the celebration reaches it’s apex he uses fireworks to blow up the Congressman and then when deputy tries to stop him, he impales him with an American flag. Man, he may be a murdering maniac but he knows how to make a show!
Blind boy tells Jody that he’s uncle came back from the dead and is the one responsible. Surprisingly he accepts that and the go to Sam’s old mentor Jed (Hayes) for help. They set a trap for him bun firearms doesn’t seem to phase him. So, Jody takes him by a hand- and into a freaking explosion!
Sam then finally received his honorary volley- from the Jed’s cannon and both Sam and the house go up in flames.
Next day Sally is happy to see Jody no longer plays war with his toys, so I guess he learned his lesson?
As I had already stated in my previous review (It’s Alive), we broke our promise given to ourselves that we wouldn’t watch any other movie directed by Larry Cohen. Well, this movie made us to spit on our promise. And to lick it afterwards. Really, it is not surprise, When you consider that we are suckers for trailers for 1980s trash movies, low budget giant monsters and David Carradine.
Oh I just cleaned this
The first minutes of the movie reveal to us that director was not intending to hide anything. We see a window cleaner hanging out from the Empire State Building, doing his work and stalking some woman inside. Suddenly, a huge bird shows up from nowhere and rips his head off, leaving the rest of the body spraying blood on freshly cleaned window. At the bottom detectives Shepard (played by David Carradine) and Powell (played by Richard Roundtree) is trying to resolve a mystery of missing head. He doesn’t seem very much interested in it so movie takes us to a hotel room where police finds out a body of skinned man laying in bed. They conclude it was some sort of ritual in question. Or perhaps prices of hotel room are skinning people alive. Anyway, we get to see
dramatization of skinning after which scene jumps to a big slice of pork in restaurant. Or is it a pork? Obvious mobsters are holding a meeting in there. A nervous looking wheel-man Jimmy (played by Michael Moriarty) is trying to strike a deal with mobsters for their next robbery. Meanwhile the bird has been putting the snatch on various people from New York’s rooftops. One of them is hot young chick who were getting her tan completely naked in the moment when the bird snatched her. Blood starts dripping from the sky on unsuspecting passengers and mass panic breaks out.
The robbery went wrong and now Jimmy is running around trying to escape the mobsters who want to knock him off. He climbs into the decrepit tower atop the Chrysler Building, stands shivering in the wind, and chuckles proudly to himself, “Hah. I’m almost afraid of almost everything but I’m not afraid of heights.” Then he stumbles on the nest and the cadavers strewn around it, a nightmarish sight. When he hobbles back to his trashy apartment his girlfriend mentions something about making bacon and eggs. “No eggs,” moans Jimmy, “I don’t ever want to see another egg ever.” Meanwhile, the bird snatches another victim. This time it was a construction worker who was trying to find his stolen lunch. Well, his days of eating are over. The only thing left of poor man is his leg which fell down on the street causing a mass panic to break out again.
Someone please pass me a bacon
Shepard is investigating the skinning job in local museum. The curator (played by Larkin Ford) explains to him that it is sacrificing ritual of ancient Aztecs to their God which is some kind of flying serpent named Quetzalcoatl. So Shepard takes some books, puts two and two together, figures out what’s up and shows his boss a sketch of the beast. The boss says something like, “A fifty-foot wingspan! Wow. With wings like that you could fly in from New Jersey. Everybody knows New York’s a good place to eat.” (All of this is played perfectly straight) Meanwhile, at the other side of city, the mobsters finally trap Moriarty and he promises to lead them to the money they’re after. He takes them to the Chrysler Building and sends them up into the dome where they are gobbled down by Quetzalcoatl. “HAH!”, Moriarty shrieks as he scurries away — “EAT ‘EM! EAT ‘EM!”. But couple of mobsters weren’t enough to satiate beast’s hunger. It feels munches for it’s favorite food – a naked idiots who are swimming on rooftops. So it went to the nearest building and grabbed couple of them for a road.
Is it a bird? A snake?
Jimmy marches into the police station and says he knows where the bird has it’s digs. All he is asking in return is immunity from prosecuting, exclusive rights on all photographs of the bird and, of course, one million dollars. That’s a spicy meatball! detective suggests they go into his office because there are too many reporters around. “Bring ’em in,” says Moriarty. “Bring in the cameras and the newspapers! Bring RUPERT down here!” I must say again that Moriarty does a beautiful job of creating this character. He acts stupid, with his gaping mouth, but he has a seedy kind of intelligence too, the sort of intelligence a frightened but greedy child might have. After bit of negotiating and attempted police brutality city agrees to Jimmy’s terms so he leads the cops to the secret nest where Shepard shoots the egg full of holes. And everything is filmed by movies camera. There follows an argument over whether Jimmy should get his reward. He claims he’s showed them the location, which is what he promised to do, but the police argue that just getting the egg isn’t the same as getting the bird. Seriously, where is the bird?
The bird is soaring magnificently over the city picking up on it’s next meal. Meanwhile, Cops are following the real culprit – Curator. He is ready to sacrifice himself for Q (since the blood for sacrificing must be given willingly). Powell interrupts ritual and chases cultists to the top of the building (where, for some reason, is located Statue of Liberty). That was a big mistake since the moment Powell stepped onto rooftop he got grabbed by Q and dropped down to street in hilariously animated scene. Needing another sacrificial lamb. Shepard saw entire encounter and gathered the squad who managed to shoot down the bird but not without casualties, in a scene which resembles the final scene from King Kong. Also, you should check up onto this masterpiece of animation and stop-motion in the video below.
Needing another sacrificial lamb summoner of the Q (who’s name I don’t know; he just appeared from nowhere at the end of the movie) breaks into Jimmy’s apartment trying to convince him to give willingly his body, soul and blood for the glory of Quetzalcoatl. Shepard busts in and kills the villain in a manner of the worst movie death we all know from one Turkish movie Karate Girl. It took 5 shots to kill the villain and he died 3 times. It seemed that the all loose ends were wrapped but final scene reveals to us that one egg…SURVIVED! Now we know where producers of Godzilla got their idea from.
Conclusion: The movie refuses to take itself seriously. I think sometimes the script tries to get solemn but it can’t help chuckling at itself. After all it’s about this big bird or reptile, an Aztec God, who has built a nest and laid an egg in the dome of New York’s Chrysler Building. One of the producers was being interviewed and the reporter remarked that the movie was nothing but schlock with a perfect method performance by Moriarty right in the middle of it. The producer beamed and said proudly “The schlock was my idea.” The less said about effects the better. Apart of Michael Moriarty no other character was even close to convincing. If you’re carrying around inside your head a schema of Michael Moriarty as Ben Stone, assistant DA on “Law and Order,” the grim, determined, rigidly moral prosecutor, this movie will shake you up. I won’t go on with badmouthing. After all, it gave us fair amount of fun and laughter. So, my humble opinion is that you should watch this movie if you want some cheap pass time.
The idea that society looks at the deformed and ugly as inhuman only fit for death, while the parents see a child of theirs with a right to live regardless of how it was born, is not naive and hollow at all. It gives us several aspects. “Oh no, another society criticism”, I hear you say. But I liked the idea. The problem with this movie is that it was not properly developed and was given to director Larry Cohen who did half-ass job here.
Beginning takes us straight to the point. Not much of a introduction. A woman Lenore (played by Sharon Farrell) is in the hospital, giving a birth to a baby. Not to a regular baby, as we might have already presumed, but to a mutated monstrosity with gigantic head who went on killing spree the moment after it popped out of it’s mother oven (you will notice that I am using “it” as an expression for a baby). Not-so-proud father Frank (played by John Ryan) busts in where he finds the entire delivery room staff slaughtered and his son is missing. Frank holds the hospital responsible for, what he said, abduction of his son (though he previously had to convince doctor that it is human). Of course, doctors are suspecting Lenore being exposed to radioactivity during her pregnancy. Yeah, when you don’t know who, blame it on radioactivity. It has as much sense as zombiefing ray shot from outer space. Anyway Frank, doctors and Lt. Perkins (played by James Dixon) had agreed to keep this quiet in order to avoid unnecessary publicity. But too bad that news reporters wouldn’t agree to them. Those vultures somehow got hold onto the info and, while driving home after the stressful day, poor Frank heard on the radio his name and name of his wife being accused of creating a monstrosity which killed the entire hospital. They announced their names just like that! At this point I think I hate all of the characters in this movie. Meanwhile, IT is still somewhere at large.
After this Frank’s life is becoming a living hell. He got fired at his public relations job, media is all over him, and let’s face it, his firstborn kid is ugly as hell. And his newborn kid is piling up the corpses. After ripping the throat of some random unlucky guy it forced it’s entry into the milkman truck. And killed him. Frank had it enough of this, so he had agreed to sign his approval for absolute destruction of this thing, as doctor had suggested.
A police manages to locate the infant at nearby elementary school. Frank finds out about that so he joins them. He seems not as much interested in destroying the monster as into clearing his own name. There he held a speech in which he denounced his kid, not admitting it as his own flesh and blood (despite the fact that it the most certainly is). Offended by this speech, infant goes into another killing frenzy, slaughtering several police officers and escaping into the woods. Police had opened full fire but with no luck. They are just powerless against the demonic baby.
Burn, baby, burn
Back at home Frank faces another problem. Someone has drunk his milk! And we are not talking about few glasses. Several bottles are empty! Now who might that be? Was it his now deranged and ever-horny wife Lenore, who bugs him all the time about having sex with her? Or was it his firstborn son Chris (played by Daniel Holzman), who has been left for safekeeping at the relative? Also Frank finds Chris’ room trashed. He phoned him but Chris had said that he wasn’t coming back home that day. Then, under the excuse of going to bed, Chris sneaks out and starts running. Hm how strange. It turns out that Lenore and Chris were hiding monster in the basement, without Frank knowing it. Frank decides to deal by himself with his prodigal son. He shoots the baby but it escaped again and killed their relative Charley (played by William Wellman Jr) who were following Chris. Also, we got here continuity problem. You see, it was early evening when Chris started running back to home. Later scenes show us that he is still running through the deep night. Eventually, he arrived home early in the morning with the first sunrise. So, by the looks of it, it seems that little 11 years old Chris was fully running for the entire night without a pause. I know adrenaline mixed with fear can give you some superhuman feats, but come on!
Breastfeeding time
Police had arrived couple of moments later. It was obvious they wasn’t eager to stay. Actually they shit their pants. But there is a job to be done. So the big chase occurs resulting in cornering the infant in sewer. Like a real professionals police gave a rifle to civilian Frank in order to finish the job. I guess it is the only fair that Frank cleans up the mess he made. Frank finds his son wounded and, in that moment, fatherly instincts aroused inside him. He couldn’t kill the little monster so he tried to save him. He ended up surrounded by police squadron ready to kill. And what he had done? He played the oldest trick in the book! A moment before police started shooting he throws a baby into Doctor’s (played by Shamus Locke) arm hold, leaving him to deal with the rain of bullets and little monster who is ripping his throat. Classic! At the very end Lt. Perkins receives a call about another such infant has been born in Seattle, which leaves plenty of room for a sequel. And it actually has been made. Not one, but two – “It’s Alive 2: It Lives Again” and “It’s Alive 3:Island of the Alive”
Conclusion: As I have already stated in prologue, the main idea does drink the water. There’s no doubt that the film was made on a cheap budget. But it is not the main problem here. Main problem is director Larry Cohen. Sure, the budget was low, and he tried to cover it by hinting at the monster baby without elaborating in great detail what it looks like. But many other aspects remained undeveloped. For example, there is only a brief glance at researching scientists who wish to study the child, and the pharmaceutical company who created certain pills Lenore was taking during her pregnancy. That part of the story died with above mentioned rain of bullets so viewers remained short for explanation. Also there is a great number of continuity goofs. As for the acting I really couldn’t identify myself with nor believe to most of the characters, except maybe for John Ryan who’s performance in a role of agonizing parent who didn’t ask for the problems forced on him really hit the spot, while Sharon Farell was switching between overacting and underacting most of the time. And I must not forget to mention now famous make up artist Rick Baker who had done pretty decent job here, considering a cheap budget and the fact that this was his debut. Even if we promised to ourselves that we wouldn’t watch any other movie directed by this god wretched man, unfortunately we are such idiots that we ought to break this promise for sure (which actually happened the following week when we watched Q: The Winged Serpent). What can I say, we are suckers for ’80s trailers and low budget monsters.
P.S. We actually learned something from this movie. Don’t look with hate at and don’t be mean to the one who is socially unacceptable just because he is different than others in any way because…
Worsemovies 