Uncle Sam (1996) KILL COUNT

movie footage used in the kill count is owned entirely by the copyright holders deadmeat makes no claim of ownership and simply uses the footage for purposes of education commentary and criticism under fair use please support filmmakers in the art of filmmaking by watching uncle sam in its entirety on home media or streaming services where available welcome to the kill count where we tally up the victims in all our favorite horror movies i'm james aegenice and yes i'm wearing this shirt for a third kill count because today we're looking at uncle sam released in 1996 or 1997 the internet doesn't seem to know if you're like me you probably expected a movie with a murderous uncle sam to be a mindless slasher with a perfunctory pro-america message behind it but uncle sam is not that the script written by larry cohen of the it's alive and maniac cop series tries to deliver a message about the difference between being a good soldier and being a good killer but it gets bogged down in an effort to touch on pretty much everything else related to the military too corrupt officers ptsd the morality of draft dodging you name it it's here then shit gets really weird and before you know it you've got isaac hayes and a telepathic blind kid shooting cannonballs at a zombie soldier but let's back up a bit because before that thrilling conclusion there are a fair number of kills to seize let's get to them the movie begins in kuwait a country we used to fight in it was like 10 countries ago there's been a helicopter accident in the desert so this major with a sadamish mustache shows up to direct the situation with a voice that sounds part in that helicopter see if you can id anybody by their tags sergeant silly face takes a look at the crash and finds two dead bodies in there that we can go ahead and kick off our count with apparently this chopper was shot down by friendly fire and even though the mage is all like hey shit happens that's not good enough for master sergeant sam harper whose body they find in the front seat of the chopper kassam opens his eyes reaches out and twists the other sergeant's head around in an excellent lightning strike kill to keep the count going sam takes the sergeant's firearm and shoots through the guy's body to hit the mager at least twice maybe more in a very subordinate kill someone's looking to get court-martialed but sam don't care he's full of spite about the accident don't be afraid it's only friendly fire and then he dies question mark i mean he does but he'll be back as a zombie but still let's throw him on the count anyway keep that shit going cue the title card hell yeah these opening credits i love patriotic imagery backed by john philip souza seriously though this old footage of times square and other historical stuff is actually pretty cool plus i like ike then we jump to the town of twin rivers in the state of usa looks like america's birthday is only three days away and i still don't know what to get it this little wienery kid jody jostles around in bed for a while before he knocks over a framed picture of his uncle sam harper the murderous chap from the chopper jody steps on the broken glass and cuts his foot and that uh does something to sam's corpse there's some weird stephen king-like magic going on in this movie just wait till we get to barry while jody gets his foot patched up from his mom sally he tells her he dreamt about his uncle sam and judging by the kids infatuation with the guy it was probably a wet one meanwhile sam's wife louise gets home from a date with deputy phils and sam's been gone for three years and she assumes he must be dead at this point at least as dead as the romance in this car sorry deputy she's exercising her right to leave you with some blue balls waiting on her porch is creepy sergeant twining played by bo hopkins who tells her that her husband is dead and that he'll stay in town long enough to help with all the funeral arrangements the next morning after jody drools all into his bowl of cereal luis tells sally about her visit from sergeant twining they both seem to have a complicated reaction to the news bordering on relief cause it sounds like sam was a real asshole who had them both terrified of him maybe he just wanted to terrorize one of them but couldn't tell them apart i know i'm having a hard time here jody meanwhile still thinks his uncle is a hero and is such a sam fan that in school later that day he just forces a goddamn show-and-tell session with all of sam's medals it makes his teacher mr crandall a little uncomfortable probably because he was a vietnam protester who left the country rather than fight what he thought was an unjust war it was a very difficult thing to do jody those who left the country felt it was a lesser evil and blindly following orders they knew were wrong jody and his camo pants think that sounds like pinko talk and he swears to himself that he's gonna grow up and join the army and i'll do whatever the president says to do because he knows better oh okay uh sure yeah i mean i guess that's chain of command it just sounds a little scary when you hear it like that he repeats that pledge to join the service to sergeant twining when he gets home where his uncle sam's body has been delivered for you know funeral stuff on his way out twiney takes the opportunity to get just a tad too handsy with sally and later that night in his apocalypse now themed hotel room we hear him on the phone confirming that he's a nasty boy i ain't gonna get a little piece of that action before i leave here shit he even says that the main reason he took this job is so he could get a bunch of widow trim dude's a total sleazebag unlike the other sergeant in town local jed crowley who's played by isaac hayes and is introduced with the best first line ever too many rolls and jelly donuts whereas twining is suffering from creeper itis jed's got a legit case of survivor's guild since he was the only one from his squad to make it home alive god how come it was me you let come home sally has her bow ralph over for dinner and lack of kisses ralph's also depicted as a skis since he's a lawyer celebrating a recent courtroom victory wherein he defended some tax shelters you mean you cheated them i'm just smarter than they are jody that's all this may be the only movie i've ever seen with a message of hey make sure you pay the irs your fair share that night jody wears an amazing fucking dinosaur shirt that's all i wanted to say i don't really need to talk about the scene but i did need to mention that dinosaur shirt the next day jed comes over to the closed casket wake and apologizes for encouraging sam to join the army he strikes up a combo with jody about his wooden leg that he got after a landmine messed him up in korea but assures the little kid that hey don't worry the dicks still work aight all those other parts made it back just fine jody mentions that he wants to join the service and jed fucking loses it yelling about how things ain't like the old nazi fighting days when we knew who and what we were fighting for jody collapsed back with a patriotic fervor arguing that everyone's gotta die someday and the army needs people to fight so fuck it you know jed's like shit kid you're a real piece of work and they talk about how heroism doesn't just mean killing people that night when the clock strikes 4th of july o'clock slimy sam awakens inside his coffin apparently summoned by this trio of teens who are just checking everything off on the list of ways to be offensive let's see you got a spray painted swastika a celebration of the texas v johnson decision and some pretty straightforward gravesite desecration it's enough to get sam up and running to defend america's honor but not before sneaking into jody's room and grabbing all of his medals to pin to his burnt leathery flesh wouldn't want to be walking around looking like a fresh recruit zombie soldier you know his medals leave him looking much more respectable than this peeping sam some perv named willy who's using his stilt legs to deliver the movie's requisite gratuitous nudity after this unlikely act of voyeurism willy makes a second story getaway until he winds up in a park being stalked down by master sergeant sam harper willie ends up running into a tree and falling onto his back where he doesn't even try to put up a fight or move as sam comes after him with a pair of garden shears i hope you got a knife the death happens off-screen as does the corpse looting since sam steals willy's clothes and uses the bloody shears to make some alterations his newly tailored attire provides a snazzy outfit to wear to the cemetery where one of those vandals is straggling back from his friends to take a piss sam literally pops up to spray the kid rick in the face getting him so mad he can only see red rick passes out and wakes up inside sam's open grave covered in red white and blue paint and also suffering from a compound fracture in his leg in a very patient kill sam buries rick to death by shoveling dirt on him slowly but sedulously until nothing but his hand is above ground he finishes the kill with another weird one-liner good night one of rick's friends some guy named cleat is that a typo comes back to see why rick's lizard draining is taking so long and fails to notice sam with his passive perception so he winds up with a flagpole halyard around his neck which yes is a term i learned writing the script cause learning is fun sam feels a bit naughty so he runs cleat up the flagpole and sees who salutes but no one ever does instead cleet's neck breaks and he goes on the kill count i guess sam thought it was a sin for him to live so well the next day it's time for the 4th of july parade and mr crandall's flustered that his very sassy george washington can't find his hatchet when he goes back into the classroom to get it he finds it lodged right in his fucking forehead courtesy of master sergeant sam harper try dodging that you goddamn hippie jed kicks off the festivities with a real live cannon which like where did that cannonball go the subsequent parade is a real big small town celebration full of local pageantry and ursine anti-arson activists halloween's pj souls pops into the movie as madge cronin alongside her husband mac who's played by tom mcfadden lisa's dad in nightmare too their son barry was blinded at last year's celebration due to a fireworks mishap and mama cronin is hoping to make everyone feel totally guilty by wheeling barry around cheer up barry at least you get to listen to this goofy band the abe lincoln story jesse the third 90s fuck boy from the cemetery steps on stage to help kick off the evening with the rendition of the star-spangled banner but after a promising start he winds up roseanning the whole damn thing [Music] what's up he finished his office performance with a half moon which pisses off uncle sam maybe he'd respect you more if he went full bear ass how many times we gotta tell you jesse no half measures while the mayor recovers with a proper recital of the anthem barry gets his face felt on by uncle sam some weird kind of connection forms between them and honestly uncle sam there's not enough movie left to start doing shit like this you know me i don't think i do anymore while uncle sam wanders through the crowd glad handing all the good little patriots local congressman alvin cummings played by robert forster shows up in an effort to rehabilitate his image after a recent financial scandal maybe he was using taxpayer funds to bail out attractive flight attendants caught smuggling drugs or maybe he's just there for these flintstone-sized dinosaur ribs that this barbecue chick is hacking up with true culinary finesse after she sneaks off to smoke a dupe she comes back to cook some more ribs on weed only to find her cleaver missing that can't be good news for these saucy little spuds who are starting a potato sack race it's an extended sequence with a bland rock backing and during it jesse really puts the sack in sack race by running around and knocking into all the other competitors holy shit he even kicks them while they're down what a little turd weasel thankfully he gets his comeuppance after tripping down a hill and taking a serious no hands tumble good stunt work there on his way through a lemongrove to get back to the race he runs into sam who apparently also has the ability to teleport no seriously check it out this is some jason takes manhattan level teleportation bam and after appearing right in front of jesse he takes the stolen cleaver and freaking hacks the dude's head off hell yeah mad all that 90s hair up with blood i guess despite all his cheating jesse won't be getting ahead in that race after all after spying on his wife widow on widow sam steals a rifle from a carnival game and apparently uses it to murder ralph who sally finds sitting atop a parade float taking his abe lincoln role just a bit too seriously six semper tyrannus motherfuckers deputy phil checks out the body while sally noms on popcorn and jody talks shit about the dead saying he wasn't even a patriot and deserved what he got at dusk in a random barn jody's family gets into another conversation about the late uncle sam when the women express concern about how much the young boy idolizes him louise tells jody that sam abused her so much she was in fear for her life and despite jody's initial reluctance to square away this cognitive dissonance he comes around after his mom lays down this heavy shit i know it's an awful thing to say but i was so happy the day that he got married and moved out of the house because then he'd have another victim instead of me oh damn man this movie gets strangely deep in between all the sack races and barbecuing speaking of barbecues the grill girl is our next victim after she opens up her meat smoker to find jessie's head getting cooked well done she's killed off screen when sam grabs her and makes her head join jessie's on the grill the mayor takes after his amity island idol and encourages folks to just carry on with their fourth of july festivities despite the recent deaths he goes to introduce the fireworks only for the spotlight to fall on congressman cummings strapped against some wooden lattices with a handful of sparklers sticking out of his suit at the fireworks control panel is uncle sam who starts flipping switches and lighting these bad boys off the crowd has a weirdly uneven reaction to the sight until sam hits the final switch and kills off cummings for good with a giant explosion that finally gets them concerned the blast ends up blowing deputy phil backwards down a hill at the bottom of which sam is waiting for him with the stars and stripes not the stars and bars that's the confederate flag and i'm real sorry for making that mistake in purge election year phil falls straight onto the flagpole and gets impaled through the back for a pretty solid and decently gory kill even had some guts coming out there not bad uncle sam after barry's parents run out of the movie he tells jody not to worry about the killer running around because somehow through the power of touch or whatever he knows that it's jody's uncle sam my uncle sam but he's dead i never said he wasn't this movie's something else man jed finds the kids and tries to usher them out of this war zone and that's when they tell him their theory that the killer is jody's undead uncle jed doesn't like it i'm too old for this crap cut it out but after they go back to jody's house to double check the casket they find some supporting evidence for the theory when instead of sam the body inside is creepy sergeant twining dead of what looks to be a slit throat damn was hoping for something more on screen for this creeper but what are you gonna do now that jet is on board with the whole undead soldier theory he and the kids head to louise's house where they find her striking a real nice norman bates pose after she calms down jed upgrades her weapon to a ranged attack and goes to use her phone in the kitchen jed discovers the uncle sam mask before he's outright confronted by the burnt up undead sam harper who blames jed for his current condition jed says no f that ish sam just killed for the sake of killing instead of for the sake of his country he tells him to go on and get but sam responds by throwing jud through the living room partition and yet another solid stun that's maybe the best thing this movie has going for after sam walks into the living room and takes a few shots from louise she and jed run off to go get the town cannon while jody stays behind to fake sympathy for sam jed quickly hitches the cannon to his made in america ford truck and brings it back to luis's house where what barry was just chilling by himself on the sidewalk this whole time what the fuck adults sam tells jody that he's back from the dead to recruit the little lad for i don't know zombie soldier shit i guess but in order to join him jody will have to be dead first are you volunteering jody knows that volunteer work looks great on college applications so he takes sam's hand and goes to step outside onto the porch with him it's all part of a ruse but jody still chooses some very weird phrasing for his fake proclamations can you all see us we belong together barry's precocious insistence jed lights the cannon fuse and jody gets the hell out of the way the cannon lands right in front of sam with a huge fiery explosion that knocks jody down but of course it doesn't actually finish off uncle sam cause here he comes out of the flames in a pretty good fire stunt that features one of those creepy looking fire suit masks but everyone knows that chef has two balls so jed loads another one into the cannon to put an end to this extended fire stop with another lighting of the fuse he fires a second cannonball that lands a direct hit on uncle sam sending him flying back into the house which inexplicably freaking explodes yo what was louise doing in that house of hers cooking up a whole bunch of meth whatever brought this explosion about all i know is that barry is fucking pumped about it oh right the movie ends with jody burning all of his war toys because like fuck the ozone layer before turning back towards the camera in a very unnecessary slow motion shot that turns into an even more unnecessary shattering glass effect who was making these decisions can this mess of a movie be salvaged by a decent body count let's find out and get to the numbers oh whoo that was loud 16 people died in uncle sam including uncle sam himself twice the victims consisted of 15 guys and only a single girl giving us a pie chart that's even more imbalanced than usual with a run time of 89 minutes we wound up with a kill on average about every five and a half minutes i'll give the golden chainsaw for coolest kill to deputy phil burke there were a couple other contenders but phil wins out because he was killed with an american flag it just feels like my duty to give it to him dull machete for less kill goes to ralph whose body is discovered with a pinpoint sized fake bullet wound in the side of his head yo lincoln got shot in the back of the head movie and that's it uncle sam came out in 1996 and was directed by william lustig who also directed those maniac cop movies as well as the earlier film maniac i hope you all have a happy 4th of july and i'll be back on friday with a brand new franchise until then i'm james aegenice this has been the kill cow hey thanks a lot for watching this kill count i want to thank a couple of patrons like sam gossie and aaron mounts happy 4th of july everyone i hope you celebrate it safely on friday we start a brand new kill count series that will go on for four weeks after that is another small series that'll last three weeks and then it'll be august 24th which is halloween time i mean halloween like kill count time it won't actually be the halloween holiday that's october 31st alright shall be good people

Channel: Dead Meat

Views: 8,400,839

Rating: 4.9120827 out of 5

Keywords: uncle sam, DMKC, james a. janisse, isaac hayes, friendly fire, pj soles, william lustig, tom mcfadden, soldier, larry cohen, films, america, slasher, 4th of july, horror, pine commander boogie, fourth of july, david fralick, kill count, scary, independence day, dodging, jaj, patriots, robert forster, movies, american, hero, soldiers, holiday, dead meat, william smith, bo hopkins, kills, draft, body count

Id: dUMgYDlMOJw

Length: 15min 55sec (955 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 01 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/negrote1000]

Where does he get all these weird movies?

Edit: typo