Well, over on the Facebook group I said that this weeks movie was the "First in six weeks of Cannibal movies", and it almost isn't... Don't get me wrong, it centres around people who eat other people; but when I think "Cannibal Movie" I think of tribespeople in the middle of nowhere in grass skirts, chowing down of hapless westerners (like the dude on the cover of "Cannibal Holocaust" ) - The 'Canibals' on this movie are New-Yorkers, infected with a virus that causes the desire to eat human flesh.
Which brings us to the second thing that makes the movie hard to classify; "infected with a virus that causes the desire to eat human flesh" sound like a zombie movie, but the infected here retain thier personalities in there entirety, save for said people-munchies, so I suppose its a 'non-zombie cannibal virus outbreak movie', which has to be a pretty small sub-genre (if you can think of another example, or a better genre title, let me know in the comments!1).
Classification problems out of the way, what of the movie itself? meh, not bad, not great either. One thing that bugged the hell out of me was the inconstancies in the time it took the virus to take hold. Our "patent zeros" (or is that "patents zero"?) are Nam vets Sgts. Bukowski and Hoffman who, when we meat them, have been trapped down a hole by the Vietcong. When Cpt. Norman Hopper (John Saxon, Nancy's Dad from A Nightmare On Elm Street) they are already fully under the influence - as witnessed when one of Hopper's men sets a Vietnamese woman on fire and throw her chard, but living, body within reach of the pit, but one of them bites Norman and it's FIVE YEARS before the urge starts to strike him, for the rest of the cast who get bitten (and survive) the cannibalistic seems to kick in anything from instantly, to a few hours after the bite.
As I indicated above, the bulk of the movie takes place 5 years after the POWs were rescued from the pit, starting on the day one of them is released from psychiatric care, seemingly the little woman-eating episode was put down to emotional damage, and the virus remains unknown.
Upon release Bukowski decides the first thing a traumatised war-vet should do upon release from a psychiatric institution is go to see a war move - but it isn't the action on screen that sets him off - it's the flesh of the ludicrously amorous couple in the seat in front of him, it's not long before he's breaking his buddy Hoffman out of the institute, and their old captain is joining them as they capture, infect and carve up everyone from nurses to gang members in a badly explained plan to get back to Vietnam and finish the job(?).
The Gore is quite good, especially in a scene where a victim is carved into manageable chunks with some kind of power tool borrowed from a garage, but I recommend you see the UK cut version - you won't miss any of the fake gore, but you will miss the unforgivable (unfaked) shot where a live rat is hit with a flame-thrower and runs burning to water.
A very average time-killer, the most interesting thing about it is that during the Video Nasty raids, hapless police seized copies of "Apocalypse Now" believing it to be this movie; but Quinten Tarrentino is a fan, so what do I know?
Body Count: 29 (many in war scenes)
Animal Body Count: 2
Boob Count: 2 pairs
1 - See how I acted like we actually have any readers there?!
Please use the comments bellow only to comment on this post - to write your own review, please comment on the "Reader Reviews" post for this movie.
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