 Whoa, hold on a second here. Looks like we got another patreon request by Mark Miller. For what? Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam? Yeah. Better just keep hitting me with this stick. Welcome to another episode of Frightfully Forgotten's Trash or Treasure. I'm the trash. I'm the treasure and this one is a patreon request by Mark Miller for 1996's Uncle Sam. Tried to get you to rent the movie by having a hologram cover on it, you know. Jack Frost had that. Uncle Sam was one of them. This movie is directed by William Lustig and he's done some actually great horror movies in the past. Well, Maniac is a CD classic. Yeah, he also did Maniac Cop's one through three. This movie is written by Larry Cullen who is again, he's like a schlock master. He's written the It's Alive movies. Isaac Hayes is in this. Y'all in the duke. A number one. So the movie starts off in Kuwait. There's a downed helicopter. This general guy is trying to force this other guy, this private or whatever, to go and search out the downed helicopter. I got the raspberry voice. Yeah. I'm gonna go get a sergeant. This kid goes up to the helicopter to see if there's any survivors, grabs him and shoots him. And it turns out on his dog tags his name is Sam. He's all burnt up and dead looking. Yeah, Sam's body ends up getting transported back to the United States back to Sam's family. The nephew, Jody, he looks up to Sam big time like he's obsessed with the war. Yeah, he's all playing with those toys. So they bring the casket to the family's house. Why did they bring it to the house? That's what a funeral home is for. They bring the casket into the living room, 4th of July, coming up. Sam's tombstone's already in place for the funeral. Neo Nazi guys start going in like defacing the tombstones, putting swastikas on it. You see Uncle Sam start to wake up in the casket. How he knows that this is going on. He walks out of his casket, wanders off. He wandered off! And there's this other guy dressed as Uncle Sam with his stiltz on for some reason. He's like going to go pee on this woman getting dressed. He kind of gets startled and walks away. He's like walking through town with his stiltz on. What the fuck? Who does that? He sees that someone's following him and he's trying to go all fast in those stiltz and everything. Just take him off and run. Uncle Sam kills other Uncle Sam and takes the costume and puts it on. Uncle Sam starts killing all these people that are in his way for the 4th of July. And he's on his way to like the 4th of July celebrations during the day. He's going to really wreak havoc at the celebration. So that brings us to the treasure of this movie. How about we start with Uncle Sam? Uncle Sam's outfit. He's actually pretty creepy. I kind of like the Uncle Sam outfit when he puts it on. Yeah, the mask is cool. Yeah, the mask is kind of creepy and when you see him kind of peering through the windows it looks neat. Isaac Hayes being this movie is a big treasure because he is great and he's actually really good in his role as Jed. He's kind of a down and out war hero who's lost a leg and he really adds credibility to this movie. Practical effects for the movie. Not bad. It's done really well. It's effective. And another treasure is it really does make you feel like you're part of these 4th of July festivities. Potatoes, saturates and really helps the overall feel of the movie. And that brings us to the trash of Uncle Sam and we have a laundry list. The first thing we need to address is the lack of explanation in this movie. You know, I know for you too, we don't like a lot of explanation in the movie. When you get too bogged down into that it ruins the movie. Yeah, over explanation could be a pain in the ass. Yeah, but this movie needs it and it doesn't have it. Why is Uncle Sam alive in that helicopter for one thing? He's burnt up and dead. He's been there for like 3 years apparently in this helicopter. They find his corpse and he suddenly just comes to life. Why? Kills the guy and dies again and then gets carted over to the US in the casket. Yeah, and then he comes back to life again. Again? Like why? Was there some sort of black magic ritual type thing? Is he just sleeping? And he gets disturbed like... Another piece of trash in this movie is the pacing is fucking horrible. It starts off pretty good. I was laughing, he was funny. Kills the guy in the helicopter. Okay, that's good. And then it takes you to the family and it's like, Oh my God, it's so boring. When is Uncle Sam gonna show up? And then he shows up and he's in the casket. Wake up already and start killing. Yeah. Like fuck. And when he does start killing, you don't see anything. The kills themselves blow. Yeah. It should be so fun. But they don't show most of them. You don't see anything. You're waiting the whole movie to see Uncle Sam kill somebody and you never actually see it. Yeah, like sometimes the aftermath is enough and like an atmospheric type. But this is a schlocky, fun slash or you're supposed to see the kills. You don't see anything. It's also a place hand in hand with the fact that there should be a lot more actual funny comedy in this movie. Yeah. And there isn't. Well, the kills should be part of the comedy. They should be, but they're not shown and they're not done properly. There should be good kills. Like when you see them like, ah, this is gonna be good. And then... Well, yeah. Where was it? What happened? Fireworks? That was awesome. Oh, I'm gonna see a head explode here. You don't see anything. You just see these fireworks go off and that's it. I know. Yeah, it's pretty shit. You see the head in the barbecue. I'm like, oh man, I want to see how the head got in the barbecue. I want to see Uncle Sam kind of just throw the head in. And there's too much of that goddamn kid. Oh, they're trying to build the character like, oh, let's do a lot of character building with this kid. Like, what does the kid add to the story? Nothing. Nothing. Oh, he loves his Uncle Sam. And you don't hear about his dad at all, but why does he love Uncle Sam so much? It doesn't even fucking matter. Just get to the goddamn killing. Nothing makes any sense. If suddenly Uncle Sam has this psychic link with this kid in this wheelchair, this blind kid in the wheelchair, he comes up to him and is like, I see what you see or whatever. Who is this kid? And then this kid starts seeing that murders as they're happening. He's like, oh, I know where he is. Like, where did this psychic link come from? I don't fucking get it. And who is this kid to have the link? Like, who the fuck are you? Fucking dialogue for this movie is atrocious. Like, man, they shit the bad big time. They didn't even try. No, it's written horribly. It's like a child wrote the fucking thing. Uncle Sam is all these stupid one-liners which are horrible. Like, he would have been a lot more effective if he didn't say a word. Like, not one word. He just went on a rampage. The acting. Yeah, the acting is atrocious, too. Besides Isaac Hayes is not bad, but that kid... The kid kind of spoils the whole movie. The aunt and the sister are pretty bad, too. Like, when they're crying. Reciting awful dialogue. So it's hard to judge the acting on such a shit script. Still. This movie feels like a long... Are you afraid of the dark episode? Yeah. It has that look. It doesn't push the boundaries as far as gore goes. Because, like, this is the kind of movie you want to see a lot of gore. It's like they dialed all that back. They played it safe. They played it super PG. And I guess just to get the rating or to... Maybe sell. Maybe because it's straight to video and, like, oh, a PG rating would make more rentals out of it or something. But no, that's not what we wanted to see in 1996 for a straight to video horror movie. We wanted to see something. We wanted to see something. And this movie gave us nothing. It didn't deliver on anything. There's way too much commentary in this movie, which for 1996 is quite rare, it seems. Now you're getting a lot of it, but back then, not so much. And it's too much. All this anti-war crap is crammed down your throat. All this militarism stuff. It's okay if it's subtle. Just get to the killing. Which we don't get to. Exactly. And the ending is so ridiculous, that fucking ending where they all blow up the whole house. Whole house? Yeah, like, what? From a cannonball? It's just metal. This metal cannonball blows up the whole fucking house. And then at the end, they're all just having a barbecue. Yeah, it's like, wasn't your house just fucking destroyed by a cannonball? It's like that psychic kid, he's all, yeah! He's like, well, sure, it's not your fucking house. It's blowing up. Isaac Hage is all preparing that cannon and everything. Let's go get him. Like, don't you know you're shooting at someone's fucking property here? I know, it's like, the people coming back and be like, Holy Christ! My house! It's in flames, it's in shambles. It doesn't exist? Yeah, I wouldn't be fucking happy about it. Uncle Sam, trash or treasure? Oh, fuck. Trash. A complete piece of steaming fucking horse shit. I feel like good schlocky whore. No! Like, this is not even close. Like, don't even get anywhere near this piece of shit. It's just a complete waste of time. I was looking at the clock the whole time. It's like, ah, oh man, like, when is this going to be over? It's a fucking waste of time. It's a piece of trash. And until next time, keep drinking and never watch Uncle Sam.