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.

Right from the start it is apparent that the film is very cheaply made. The initial Vietnam scenes were filmed in New Jersey, but it doesn't look like Vietnam at all and looks very amateur, but it is strangled by it's minute budget. Having said that it is a worthy attempt. The film features the director's brother Ricky Giovinazzo as Frankie, a Vietnam veteran returning home to find a very bleak and depressing New Jersey, where he wanders around aimlessly almost throughout the entire film. He lives in a squalid flat with his wife and deformed baby (which looks like a cross between E.T and the baby from Eraserhead, though not nearly as believable). That is all there really is to describe, just a confused and desperate guy who is on the edge and eventually has to explode, which he does in the film's shocking ending.

"I can never tell where one torture ends and the other begins."

Extremely depressing parable of human misery, poverty, and drug addiction on the rotted, deteriorating streets of Staten Island where we follow a day in the life of a deeply troubled Vietnam vet who may or may not have slaughtered an entire village during that conflict and how such horrifying memories torment him. The urban squalor and his own life's difficulties(..finding a job, being evicted, dealing with a pushy, constantly bitching wife, a hungry handicapped infant, owing money to drug- pushers) resemble the nightmarish terrors of his past in the war. His descent into madness will more than likely leave you truly unsettled and repulsed, it's not a pretty picture at all. Ricky Giovinazzo, as the vet who roams throughout the decaying filthy streets, is unforgettable in the lead. Director Buddy Giovinazzo paints a very distressing, uncompromising portrait of an urban hell where the undesirables wander in an aimless, squalid existence thanks to a country that has abandoned them. The final ten or so minutes, once Ricky G uses a stolen gun that had fallen from a woman's purse he had lifted(..she had stolen it from a dead junkie), will probably, unless you have an incredible tolerance for disturbing behavior, stun even the most hardened viewer into silence. The added Vietnam war footage(..proposed by Team Troma producers Kaufman and Herz)actually enhances the film, I think.

A definite word of warning, the film's final minutes contain brutal acts of truly destructive violence of an unpleasant nature. Besides the final scene, there's a very troubling sequence where a sick junkie, unable to find specific drug paraphernalia, opens a sore on his arm with an extended coat hanger so he can pour heroine into his system for a fix. The film features Ricky G meeting such people as a young girl being used by a pimp as a hooker(..this scumbag is the type who orders them around, often resorting to slapping among other acts of violence to keep his girls in line), and a drug-pusher with two thugs who abuse junkies for kicks(..what happens to these foul miscreants will probably be met with applause).The grit, grime, graffiti and garbage of the unflattering Staten Island locations chosen for the film leave a lasting impression of hopelessness and dispair. The diseased baby(..a victim of Ricky G's effects from Agent Orange)is truly a haunting creation(..it's whining especially grating) and the squibs used when the gun violence erupts(..not to mention the bloody carnage of torn apart corpses in the Vietnam scenes)are quite impressive considering the very miniscule budget.