He red, white and blew 'em away.
"I thought ghosts were supposed to come out in the dark, not in broad daylight on the Fourth of July!"
— Jed Crowley
Uncle Sam is a 1997 Slasher Movie, created by the duo of Larry Cohen and William Lustig.
During the Gulf War, sadistic mercenary door gunner Master Sergeant Sam Harper (David Fralick) was killed along with his crew when their helicopter was shot down by friendly fire over Kuwait. Due to the seclusion of the impact site, Sam's charred corpse went undiscovered for three years, but when it was found, he randomly sprung to life and murdered two fellow soldiers, a sergeant and a major, before falling inert. After the double homicide was presumably blamed on enemy forces, Sam's body was collected and shipped to his hometown of Twin Rivers, where it was left in the possession of his family; his wife Louise, who is currently dating local Deputy Phil Burke, (Matthew Flint) and sister Sally (Leslie Neale), whose son, an awkward and extremely patriotic boy named Jody (Christopher Ogden), idolized Sam, unaware of his violent and troubled past.
As Sam's family and friends —of which includes his mentor, former sergeant Jed Crowley (Isaac Hayes), who regrets filling Sam's head with stories of the glories of war, pay their reluctant respects to the dead man, the town prepares for its Fourth of July celebration, which local and extremely corrupt congressman Alvin Cummings (Robert Forster) will be attending, in an attempt to salvage his public image. Unfortunately for Twin Rivers, Sam comes out of hibernation when the clock strikes midnight on July 3rd, kills a perverted man for his Uncle Sam costume, and sets about murdering all those he views as unpatriotic, including but not limited to flag burners, draft dodgers, tax evaders, stoners and slimy politicians. When Sam ultimately crashes the town's Fourth of July celebration, Jody and Jed, and a crippled boy named Barry Cronin with an inexplicable connection to Sam must work together to send the psycho soldier back to Hell.
This film provides examples of the following tropes:
- Actor Allusion: Once again, Robert Forster's character dies by getting blown up by an American soldier. Also this is Forster's second Lustig horror film where his character dies by first having his mouth stuffed with a gag then get burned to death.
- Affably Evil: Slimy Corrupt Politician Alvin Cummings is quite a charming Laughably Evil Smug Snake in public appearances with his Catchphrase "Glasses or no glasses," when asking his aide if he should wear his sunglasses or not for the press.
- Agony of the Feet: After accidentally knocking a picture of Sam onto the floor, Jody steps on the glass.
- The Alcoholic: It is mentioned that Sam had a drinking problem. Clete's father also has it.
- Alien Blood: Sam's blood is black.
- All Part of the Show: Presumably what was going through the minds of the audience, considering how little reaction there is to Congressman Cummings being made apart of the fireworks display (at least until he blows up).
- Amoral Attorney: Ralph, who is proud how he manages to screw the opposition over in his cases.
- Artificial Limbs: Jed's wooden right leg.
- Asshole Victim: Almost all the victims are given one or two (unpatriotic) Kick the Dog moments.
- Auto Erotica: A couple are briefly seen making out in an abandoned car.
- Ax-Crazy: Sam, even before he became undead. Even if he hadn't enlisted and been killed, he probably would've become a Serial Killer, a mercenary, a Terrorist Without A Cause of the Western Terrorists variety or something anyway.
- Believing Their Own Lies: It's very likely that Sam bought into his own line of bullshit about being a patriot. Long before that, he enjoyed hurting other people, and only joined the army as an excuse to kill.
- Big Brother Bully: Sam made his sister Sally's life hell since she was six years old. He's also heavily implied to have molested her; it's to the extent that Sally openly admits she was happy when Sam got married and moved out, because then he'd have someone else to victimize.
- Black-and-White Morality: How Jody sees the world, until he's told how big a monster Sam was.
- Black Dude Dies First: Averted. Jed survives the whole movie, and in fact, he's the one who kills Sam for good.
- Body Horror: When Sam's face is fully revealed at the end, he looks like a horrible, decayed swamp monster, not a charred corpse.
- Bound and Gagged: Congressman Cummings is bound, gagged, and tied down to become a human fireworks display.
- Broken Pedestal: Jody stops idolizing his uncle Sam after his aunt and mother tell him what he was really like.
- Brother–Sister Incest: It's heavily implied that Sam started sexually abused Sally when they were children, and continued doing so until he moved out.
- Chekhov's Gun: Along with Jed's cannon, there's also the spray paint cans Sam knocks Rick out with, and the meat cleaver he uses to kill Jesse.
- Comforting the Widow: Sergeant Twining enjoys informing soldiers' families of their deaths since it gives him a chance to do this.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Clete's is lynched on a flagpole, and congressman Cummings is killed with fireworks.
- Death by Irony: Ralph is shot in the head while dressed as Abraham Lincoln.
- Death by Mocking: Moral? Don't mock America... at least within earshot of a homicidal ghoul.
- Decapitation Presentation: Sam leaves Jesse's severed head in a grill to be found by the barbecue girl.
- Dedication: "For Lucio".
- Developing Doomed Characters: They even admit in the commentary that things take a bit too long to get going.
- Disappeared Dad: Sally is apparently divorced. The reason for this is revealed to be because she was raped by Sam when she was a child, and as such, found it difficult to trust men.
- Disproportionate Retribution: All over the place, really, but what really stands out as this are the deaths of Mr. Crandall (a draft-dodger who fled the country during the Vietnam War), Ralph (who expressed disgust with the Gulf War), and the barbecue girl (who left the barbecue to smoke a joint).
- Domestic Abuse: Sam would frequently beat his wife, Louise, to the extent she was actually in fear for her life.
- Don't Go in the Woods: Jesse gets lost in them during the sack race, and meets Sam, who kills him for intentionally butchering the national anthem earlier.
- Dream Sequence: Jody has a black and white dream in which he and Sam are marching in a Fourth of July parade.
- Eagleland: America is a Type 2, as personified mostly in the Crapsack World town of Twin Rivers, due to Sam's bodycount being mostly Asshole Victims who are completely corrupt Americans, the fact Sam died by being killed by his own men in a friendly fire and the Ax-Crazy Sociopathic Soldier Sam himself being an American soldier.
- Evil Sounds Raspy: The undead Sam speaks in a soft, disturbing raspy voice.
- Eye Awaken: Sam does this inside his coffin when senses his grave being desecrated.
- Fainting: Mrs. Cronin's reaction to Sam massacring the Fourth of July celebration.
- Fanservice Extra: Willie spies on a woman wearing a towel, and both he and the audience get an eyeful of both sides of her when she drops it.
- For the Evulz: Sam always enjoyed hurting other people. His patriotism is, if not just an excuse he uses to kill, a case of Believing Their Own Lies.
- Going Postal: "Way you shoot, you should get a job at the post office!"
- Gorn: It's a slasher movie — comes with the territory.
- Groin Attack: There were plenty of rumors that said Jed didn't just lose a leg to a landmine. According to Jed, those rumors are just that: rumors.
- Handicapped Badass: Jed lost a leg in the Korean War, and can still single-handedly operate a muzzle-loading cannon.
- Hilarious Outtakes: The Stinger shows the actor playing Willie trip while using his stilts.
- Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: Takes place during the 4th of July.
- Immune to Bullets: Bullets don't do much to faze Sam. The same can't be said of cannons.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Phil is run through with a flagpole.
- Improvised Weapon: The aforementioned flagpole, most prominently.
- Kick the Dog: The vandals burn flags and spraypaint the graves of dead soldiers. In the cemetery.
- Kill It with Fire: Congressman Cummings is impaled with fireworks, and burns when they're ignited. Sam is roasted by two blasts from a cannon.
- Licking the Blade: Sam licks his cleaver after cutting Jesse's head off.
- Menacing Stroll: In true slasher fashion, Sam isn't particularly fast.
- Men Are the Expendable Gender: There's only one female victim, although it's implied that Sam meant to kill at least two more.
- Mooning: After purposely singing the anthem poorly onstage, Jesse moons the audience, with his underpants still on unlike most examples.
- Morality Pet: Sam may or may not have actually loved Jody, although what his relationship with Jody amounts to is filling his head with lies about the "American Way" that he doesn't even believe in, and at the end, he was prepared to either kill Jody, or let him die with him.
- More Dakka: After a simple handgun proves ineffective against Sam, the characters upgrade to a cannon.
- Neck Snap: Sam breaks the sergeant's neck.
- No Name Given: For some victims like the sergeant, the major, the barbecue girl and the mayor.
- Noodle Incident: The fireworks-related accident that disfigured, blinded and crippled Barry.
- Nothing Is Scarier: We don't see how Sam kills Willie with the garden shearsnote , only hear it.
- Offscreen Teleportation: When Sam is stalking Jesse. It's done in such an absurd way that it has to be parodying this trope.
- Off with His Head!:
- Sam severs Willie's head offscreen with a pair of garden shears.
- Sam beheads Jesse when he runs across him after falling down the hill in a potato sack race.
- Oh, Crap!: Jed's reaction when he spots Sam's discarded mask while trying to call for help.
- Patriotic Fervor: Subverted. Sam uses this as an excuse to kill, but in reality, he would have likely ended up acting out on his homicidal urges whether or not he enlisted in the army. If anything, this is more of a case of You Keep Telling Yourself That.
- Peek-a-Boo Corpse: Jesse's severed head being found in the barbecue.
- The Peeping Tom: Willie is caught peeping in a woman's window when she drops her towel.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "I hope you got an eyeful."note
- Pretty Little Headshots: Ralph's death. Justified, as Sam killed him with a BB gun.
- Punched Across the Room: Happens to Jed, courtesy of Sam for the line listed under Shut Up, Hannibal!.
- Rape as Backstory: Heavily implied, but never outright stated to be the case with Sally. She tells Jody about how Sam — her brother — would do things to her that "even at that age, [she] knew were wrong".
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Jed tries to get the idea that War Is Glorious out of Jody's head, and later helps him defeat Sam.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Sam has yellow ones in the film itself, but most artwork (like the above) depicts him with red.
- Resurrected Murderer: Sam Harper was a Sociopathic Soldier who joined the military just so he could kill more people For the Evulz and is implied to have raped his own sister when they were younger. After dying in combat, his corpse is placed in a coffin and delivered to his sister and her family. For reasons left unexplained, Sam rises from his coffin as a zombie at midnight on the Fourth of July, steals an Uncle Sam mascot costume, and proceeds to go on a killing spree, targeting anyone who disrespects America.
- Scream Discretion Shot: Willie and the barbecue girl's deaths.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Sam is trapped in a sealed coffin, although he gets out on the Fourth of July.
- Shear Menace: Sam kills Willie with a pair of garden shears.
- Shout-Out: Jed repeats the blind veteran's speech about being trapped under frozen bodies in a foxhole from Maniac Cop 2 almost exactly. The film "shattering" to black is also a reference to City of the Living Dead.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!:Sam: Take a good look at me, soldier. You... you made me into this.
Jed: No... you never fought for your country. You just killed for the love of killing! You're nothing! So just die! - Slashed Throat: Sergeant Twining is Killed Offscreen this way.
- Sociopathic Soldier: Sam only joined the military so he could get a free pass to kill people. He's not much better as a zombie.
- The Stoner: The girl manning the barbecue, who tries to sneak away to smoke cannabis, but is caught.
- Summer School Sucks: Somewhat downplayed example. Jody is still in school in early July; you can see "Summer Session" written on the classroom blackboard. However, it's not clear if he's there because he's fallen behind, or if he just wants to continue his studies uninterrupted.
- Terrible Trio: Jesse, Clete and Rick are a group of vandals who desecrate the graves of soldiers and burn flags. Jesse also sabotages the National Anthem onstage.
- Title Drop: Since the killer is named Sam, and he's the main character's uncle, and he's dressed as Uncle Sam, this of course happens a lot.
- Trashcan Bonfire: Jody uses one to dispose of his toys right before the credits.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Jody idolizes his uncle Sam, and refuses to listen to anything negative about him or about war in general, even repeating some of the more. He also repeatedly states that he wants to grow up to be like Sam, although he's unaware of the truth. Not helping is his completely emotionless demeanor throughout the film.
- Uncle Sam Wants You: ... Dead!
- Unnecessary Roughness: It's just a sack race, Jesse.
- Unwilling Suspension: Clete is hung from a flagpole.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: After snapping a sergeant's neck, Sam shoots the corpse several times, killing the nearby major due to the bullets ripping through it.
- Villain Opening Scene: Sam killing the sergeant and major who find his crashed helicopter in Kuwait.
- Wait Here: Barry is in a wheelchair and all...
- War Is Glorious: Jody sees it this way, thanks to the lies his crazed uncle fed him.
- War Is Hell: Jed tries to talks Jody out of his plans of joining the military by telling him how horrible war is.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: So, along with the sergeant and the major, did Sam kill the other soldiers who found him, or what?
- Presumably, he died from his injuries shortly after being found, and the remaining soldiers shipped his body home.
- When the Clock Strikes Twelve: Sam rises from his coffin at exactly midnight.
