Invasion of the Flesh Hunters (1981)

"Cannibal Apocalypse" is a tedious, pointless waste of time that offers no apocalypse and barely any cannibalism.In fact it is barely even a horror movie: there's only one scene late in the movie that registers as a possible source of tension and the violence is actually really minimal.The movie is something about a group of Vietnam vets getting a disease that makes them cannibals. The character played by John Saxon is a vet who may be going psycho himself. There is an interminable sequence early in the movie where one of these crazy veterans - named Charles Bukowski(?) - is holed up in a store he tried to rob shooting at police. So the disease makes you eat people, but also try to rob stores?The movie has this oddly distancing feeling to it. Saxon being the hero who may also be about to join the bad guys should be a source of dramatic tension, but is not explored. The movie is more like long, tedious shots of a city with the odd violent moment thrown in.

While on a mission to rescue two servicemen captured by the Viet Cong, "Captain Norman Hopper" (John Saxon) is bitten by one of these men when he attempts to pull him from the pit. Afterward both of the men are committed to a psychiatric hospital while Captain Hopper is allowed to return to civilian life. Unfortunately, it doesn't end there as one of the men named "Charlie Bukowski" (Giovanni Lombardo Radice) is temporarily released and not long afterward suddenly goes berserk which results in the deaths of at least two people. Then upon being returned to the psychiatric hospital he and the other serviceman by the name of "Tom Thompson" (Tony King) manage to escape along with a nurse named "Helen" (May Heatherly) who was bitten by one of them and shares the same craving for human flesh as they do. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this turned out to be a fairly decent type of "zombie film" even though it didn't necessarily fit the technical parameters for that particular sub-genre. The acting was decent and the plot moved along quite well. In any case, for what it's worth I liked the movie and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

Part zombie, part cannibal, part gore equals full of crap. Come on...it just doesn't work. Commando Norman Hopper(John Saxon)rescues a couple of Vietnam POWs who contracted a rare disease that compels them to consume human flesh. One of the soldiers, Charlie Bukowski(John Morghen)bites Hopper in the rescue. War hero Hopper will be plagued with cannibal instincts fighting their way to the surface. Bukowski escapes from a veteran's psychiatric hospital and immediately goes into relapse and a gory rampage begins. A gun battle with police will comprise the meat (no pun intended)of the movie. An overload of ridiculous profanity doesn't succeed in shocking anyone...just laughable. Special effects are just as hilarious. Also in the cast: Elizabeth Turner, Wallace Wilkinson, Tony King and May Heatherly.

Two Vietnam vets contracted a form of "rabies" that has caused a mental disturbance for causing violence and the unending hunger for human flesh. It seems that when they bite someone else, that "virus" causes the one bitten to have the same symptoms, because the soldiers' commanding officer Captain John Saxon(bitten by Radice) is developing the craving after taking a small bite out of an alluring female teen neighbor.I'll just be honest..I know this flick has it's fans, but I thought it was crap. I enjoyed it for all the wrong reasons;I seriously giggled non stop at the crude vulgar dialogue nearly every character speaks, especially the police detective. There are some ridiculously over-the-top gore scenes which nearly had me rolling in the floor like when a demented Giovanni Lombardo Radice is sawing away at a gas station attendant's torso as he hits bone or when a certain character trying to flee police in the sewer(..guess who?)gets a complete hole blown through where his stomach once was..replete with a camera shot through the hole as police come around the corner to see their handiwork as a glide up the body shows the dazed face of the now-dead character. Both shock sequences are pretty impressive, though. And, Radice really "gets into character", saddled with some hilarious rubbish dialogue and his co-hort Tony King REALLY has a field day with his deranged Vietnam crazy who just loves leaving violent carnage in his wake. Liz Turner is John Saxon's concerned..yet also terrified..wife who worries about her husband's well-being and mental state. The conclusion is grim, to say the least.If you rent the DVD from netflix, I highly recommend watching the documentary with interviews by Saxon, director Antonio Margheriti, and ESPECIALLY Radice whose very candid and quite funny. Saxon says he didn't know that this film would feature flesh eating and Radice denounces his later film with Umberto Lenzi, "Cannibal ferox." Director Antonio Margheriti did what he could, I guess, with the material he's stuck with. Radice says that he didn't take the material too seriously, which is probably good.