Combat Shock (1986) dir. Buddy Giovinazzo, 2000 A.D. Productions/Troma Entertainment
As you may have guessed I'm not going in strictly chronological order. We've seen comedy, horror, and action. Why not something that combines genres?
Frankie Dunlan (Rick Giovinazzo) has not been having a good time lately. Every night he has the same dream (mostly stock footage of Vietnam), his wife is pregnant, he's been out of work for four months, and their children is a freakish mutant, mostly due to Frankie's exposure to Agent Orange.
A junkie passes out after tearing open his arm to pour his drugs directly into the wounds. A passing woman happens by and steals his gun and all his bullets. Pay attention, this will come up again.
Things grow steadily worse for our boy Frankie. At the unemployment office Frankie is being told that there are no jobs, plus Frankie has zero skills. A phone call to his father furthers his depression, as it seems that his dad is convinced his son died in Saigon years ago. Plus he's broke and surely soon to die of a heart attack.
Desperate, Frankie happens upon the woman from before and steals her purse. Sure he feels bad about it, although the punks that rush him are less interested in justice and more what they can steal. All they find are some extra bullets...and then the rest of the bullets as Frankie shoots them dead.
Things get worse from there.
Yeah, not a happy film by any means. Almost pretentious, and if better polished this might have been held up next to the slate of Vietnam flicks that flooded the 80's. Grimy and with an ending that explodes in the most shocking display of violence I've seen in a while.
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