Uncle Sam Explained In a Nutshell

Uncle Sam is about a Desert Storm vet named Sam Harper that was killed by friendly fire. Once his body arrives home, his zombie corpse arises on the 4th of July to kill the unpatriotic people in the town.

The Uncle Sam Movie Trailer

The Uncle Sam Movie Review Breakdown

Tagline: Uncle Sam wants you… DEAD!
Who is in it? Pretty Much Nobody.
Genre: Horror – Comedy
Was it Scary? No
Would this movie be for every horror fan? Not even close. Maybe the die hard ‘Holiday Horror’ fans.
Should you see it? No.
Run Time: 89 minutes
Rating: R

The Verdict

Oh, my, god you guys. This movie was bad. Not just bad, really really bad. Of course it’s bad, it’s holiday horror! I mean c’mon its a dead soldier named Sam Harper that turns into a super zombie to kill people that trash talk America. Not only that, but the guy dresses up like Uncle Sam to do it. We now have a zombie Uncle Sam killing people for doing things like saying the Star Spangle Banner song sucks. This was an aw-inspiring example of what horror will do to try to be original. Now that we have that out the way we can focus on the lighter side of this movie because lets face it, it IS a horror comedy.

The movie begins with some soldiers going to the scene of a helicopter crash. The soldiers inside the helicopter were killed by friendly fire. When a guy checks the pilot’s dog tags he gets his neck broken and shot with a high powered hand gun which also kills his C.O. standing behind him. Before he shoots he says “don’t worry it’s just friendly fire!”. From this point on I will blow through what you could consider to be highlights of the movie. The only real ‘highlight’ I saw was the closing credits to be honest. They ship the body home and some idiot kids are in the graveyard burning a flag over his open grave. The zombie corpse arises to kill some people at that time.

Most of the killings are symbolic in nature and usually patriotic. For instance he kills one of the flag burners by hanging him up a flagpole, and he later impales a cop with the pole of the flag and it waves in the wind. A long story short the movie ends with an amputee Viet Nam vet shooting him with a canon. The movie ends with a kid burning his army toys and turning to smile at his mom. The movie was so bad I need a shower.

 

Official Nutshell-Movies Explanation

Uncle Sam (1997): A Desert Storm vet killed by friendly fire returns from the grave to kill unpatriotic people in his hometown on July 4th.

Fun Facts about Uncle Sam

• The ending is a reference to the ending of Lucio Fulci’s Paura nella città dei morti viventi (1980). The Lucio Fulci dedication before the end credits confirms this.
• Dedicated to “Lucio” (Fulci, the Italian horror director).
• A lenticular 3-D poster was produced for Uncle Sam. Reportedly, only 10 of the 3-D posters were issued. The images shows four versions of Uncle Sam changing from an old man into a ghoul.
• Prior to filming the end of the movie where Uncle Sam is shot by a cannon, the film makers didn’t notify local homeowners of the large explosion they were going to be setting off at 2:00 AM. When the explosion was set off many concerned neighbors called local police and the explosion could be heard throughout the city. As a result, the City of La Verne decided to reject all future requests for movies to be filmed in La Verne.

Uncle Sam was indeed a red-blooded pure American nightmare, to watch.