Michael (Jules Sceiro) and Antwan (Bob Glazier) are two Vietnam
veterans who have never found their way back into a normal life, having
never come to terms with the fact that after "defending their
country" they weren't welcomed as heroes but spat upon (even if
defending their country for them meant committing atrocities on the
innocent populace). With no job, their psyches being warped by war
experiences, and little to do all day long, they have built themselves a
torture chamber in Michael's basement where they frequently drag women off
to, to rape them, to break their will, to make them their slaves, and to
ultimately kill them - and they all capture it on home video cam. With
women, they have no particular type they go for, just as long as they're
young and pretty, they take everything from young mother (Kelly HElen
Thompson) to student (Audrey Hayes) to whore (Rue Goregrinder). Now
Antwan has always been a derelic, and he knows it, but Michael actually
has a wife (Cyndi Crotts) who loves him despite all of his shortcomings,
and she is an art professor at the local college, too, not some stupid
bimbo, but when she finds out what Michael and Antwan are doing in the
basement, and especially with an arrogant student of hers (Audrey Hayes)
... she takes a butcherknife herself and slaughters her in the vilest of
ways, claiming it to be art though and dismissing Michael and Antwan's
handiwork so far. When Michael and Antwan next kidnap a hooker (Rue
Goregrinder) though, a girl who has seen everything, they might have taken
a bigger bite than they could chew on - up to a point, literally even ... Amerikan
Holokaust is a movie that certainly isn't for everybody, it's vile and
raw, explicit in its violence, mean-spirited, features male and female
nudity, degradation, cannibalism, shit- and puke-eating (fake of course,
but still ...) and quite a few other things that might offend or make you
want to throw up - so the film demands quite a strong stomach and an open
mind. But if you can see beyond the surface, this is not at all an
uninteresting movie, as it puts the atrocities shown into a broader,
sociopolitical context with the underlying message that war might turn men
into beasts (something not everybody likes to hear), and it actually
manages to tell an interesting story from finish to end without stumbling
over its gross setpieces. So I still say, this is not a film for
everyone, but it's not a film just for gorehounds (who sure as hell will
love this) either. If this has gotten you at all interested,
you can get Amerikan Holokaust here: http://www.thesleazebox.com/DVD-AH.html
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