Combat Shock

Certainly lacking in wise-cracking rubber monsters and outlandishly- dressed brain-dead punks, Combat Shock - a serious, if extremely low- budget drama/psychological horror by writer/director/producer Buddy Giovinazzo - proves that Troma Entertainment occasionally took their movies seriously. The shell-shocked Vietnam veteran story had been done many times before, and certainly a lot better, but never quite as unsettling. Far from a masterpiece, and riddled with terrible production values, Combat Shock nevertheless is a glowing statement as to just what scraping-the-piggy-bank film-making can sometimes offer.

After an event during the Vietnam War that left a village dismembered and massacred, Frankie Dunlan (Rick Giovinazzo - brother to Buddy), struggles to adapt to civilian life. Living in poverty, unable to find work, and saddled with a whining wife (Veronica Stork) and a deformed baby, he is about the have the worst day of his life. Owing money to a group of drug-dealing punks, led by Paco (Mitch Maglio), Frankie wanders the battered streets of his native New York, coming into contact with various low-lives and looking for any way to make a buck. Seemingly without hope, and terrified to go back to his starving family empty- handed, he resorts to an act of violence.

You could imagine running a finger along the negative of Combat Shock and immediately needing to wash your hands afterwards. The movie seems awash with grime, and the streets Frankie wanders down have an almost apocalyptic quality. This is utterly depressing stuff, nearly entirely devoid of laughs, where the types of people Frankie befriends are gun- wielding junkies or child prostitutes. It's sometimes laughably pessimistic, a journey into utter depravity, and combined with some extremely amateurish production values and an occasionally plodding narrative, can be a bit of a slog to get through at times.

Yet for all it's sloppy editing and wide-eyed, over-the-top thesping, it is at times extremely effective. The baby, horribly disfigured due to Frankie's exposure to Agent Orange, looks cheap, but the way it moves and sounds, combined with the dump that surrounds it, is just as disturbing as Eraserhead (1977). There is also a horrible moment when a junkie, unable to find a needle for his fix, opens his damaged arm with a coat hanger and pours heroin into his black, bleeding vein. Some will find it's relentless depravity too much to take, but there's a gritty honesty here, going deep into the dark heart of a post-Vietnam America, where traumatised Vets were hung out to dry by a country that had forgotten them.

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Gritty, disturbing nightmare movie about a pathetic Vietnam veteran living in poverty in New York City, who's slowly disintegrating mind finally snaps after one too many days of unemployment, loan sharks, a nagging wife, flashbacks and, worst of all, his constantly crying baby, monstrously deformed as a result of his exposure to Agent Orange. Relentlessly downbeat, and filled with horrific imagery of violence and drug abuse, this may be too much for many viewers to take. Borrows a bit from ERASERHEAD and TAXI DRIVER, but does so fairly well, with good performances, a seedy atmosphere and some imaginative directorial touches despite it's ultra low budget. Released on DVD by Troma for the first time in its uncut form, this is a movie truly worthy of rediscovery.

The film opens to a flashback of the Vietnam war and in particular, one soldier's plights of that war - it is a horrible intense sequence. As the movie progresses, we get to see what has happened to that solider. He is now living with a nagging wife and deformed baby son on the extreme poverty line in New York City. They haven't eaten for days and he wanders the streets, trying to look for work with no luck at all.

He suffers flashbacks and hallucinations throughout the film, where he is being tortured in 'Nam and then his supposed recovery in a hospital after. He is cut off from the world and desperate for money. We then meet one of his friends, a drug addict who is in equal dire straits. At one point, the addict uses a coat hanger to open his vein and pour in the drug whilst he bleeds - a truly horrifying moment.

This is very strong stuff. It has no budget but that somehow suits the story - it's totally gritty and real, no gloss whatsoever. It's probably the bleakest, most depressing film I've ever seen and all I can say is, if you're having a bad day or work or a bad day in general, just see what happens to this guy!

I got the excellent Troma DVD release which features the full uncut Director's version - the only one really worth seeing.

I don't know if I'd exactly recommend this; it's so hard going that it sure ain't entertainment, but it does have an appeal and is worth watching. However, if you're not used to zero-budget horror, avoid at all costs.

I think like most people, I stumbled onto this movie on YouTube and couldn't believe this flew under the radar. Needless to say, it looked like any other gritty B-movie/grindhouse leftover from the 70s, but there are a lot of things that make this film rather unique.

To begin with, let's talk about the setting. How in the world did this world exist? For historical sake, we all knew Reagan's America had a dirty underbelly, but dang. Every place in this film looks like it needs a serious cleaning, and one wall even begs "clean me." It seemed like they didn't have to do any dress setting. It would not surprise me. In truth, the setting is the real star of the film. You can't naturally reproduce this kind of world, which really immerses you in this place the main character named Frankie has to traverse. I felt like I could smell the rotting meat in one scene. I felt the discomfort of the people walking around the junk in only cheap, old Converses. I had this fear running through me that they might step on a nail or some glass. All I can say is you can feel the dirtiness and edginess.

The only complaint I have is a minor one, which was the acting. You can only ask so much but there was a lot of scenes where the acting was really natural and good. So while the unevenness is evident, it honestly never jarred me out of the flow of the film. This ain't Birdemic or some other intentionally bad film. And while the acting might not have been professional, the camera work certainly was. I was really impressed with how the film flowed. There weren't too many out of place shots or weird edits. Overall, a pretty decent film.

Now is this a perfect movie? Absolutely not. Is this a movie worth saying you have experienced? Yes! Go to YouTube and fins this movie.

Combat Shock (1984)

*** (out of 4)

Frankie Dunlan (Ricky Giovinazzo) returns home from Vietnam after some bizarre experiments were done on him and he's hit a string of bad luck. His wife is pregnant and also trying to take care of their deformed one-year-old son. Frankie has lost his job, all three are starving and the future doesn't look too bright but he heads out one day in search of something better.

Buddy Giovinazzo's COMBAT SHOCK is without question one of the most raw, depressing and bleak character studies ever created. The director stated that the film was meant to be something in between TAXI DRIVER and ERASERHEAD and that's the best way to describe it. The movie isn't the best made film that you'll ever see and it's certainly very raw in regards to various technical things but at the same time there's just something so wrong and so off about the subject matter that you can't help but be drawn into its nightmare.

The film certainly has a lot to say about mental illness as well as the troubles that faced vets when they returned home. The film is extremely bleak to say the least as there's not even a glimmer of comedy or even a brief smile to be bad. You certainly wouldn't want to show this film to anyone suffering from a depression because it would probably push them over the edge. The flashbacks to Vietnam are all that convincing and there are other technical problems with the film but at the same time this is a lot deeper and a lot more troubling than what most filmmakers would try on a $40,000 budget.

Giovinazzo does a very good job in the lead role as he's certainly believable as this broken man who really is at the very end of things. He certainly comes across as a real person and this helps give the film a more realistic approach to the dark material. The direction is spot on and this is certainly true during the incredibly disturbing final fifteen-minutes of the picture.