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When people describe a film as having “a singular vision”, they normally mean something like the perfection of The Godfather, the scale of Heaven’s Gate, or the symbolism of 2001: A Space Oddity. They normally don’t mean “so bugnuts crazy, that it’s the only example of its genre ever likely to exist”, but Lance Mungia’s 1998 independent work Six String Samurai can only be described as such, because if there exists another post-apocalyptic samurai rock ‘n’ roll road movie homage of the book the Wizard of Oz, then I sure as hell don’t know about it – and trust me, I’ve looked!. Having seen it, you’ll understand why it’s a both a pity and a grace that this is the case, because it does what it sets out to do with so much style and swagger, and you’ll be convinced that no other attempt could ever get it so right.
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Six String Samurai (1998) Buddy Holly, Nuclear Mutants, and Fancy Swords
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The early 80s: a time in American culture filled with explorations of questionable fashions, clashes of socio-political identities, gargantuan cocaine habits, and an unending urge to somehow bring the simplicity/mythical mono-culture of the 50s back to life. Along with an assortment of rock and roll revivals, and the machinations of The Moral Majority, this meant that the time was right for comic movies to enter the prime time with DC legend Superman crashing into the box office with two smash hits: Superman, The Movie and Superman II, The Sequel. So happy were the film producers Ilya Salkind & Alexander Salkind with the money made from the franchise, that they took a scrapped subplot from a rejected Superman III, The Flop script and decided to make Supergirl!!
If there is one thing zombie movie fans love, it’s watching the living being eaten alive to sate the hellish appetites of the undead hordes and their own, carnal sensibilities. If there is a second thing they like, it’s often having an interesting backstory behind the film and bit of vintage to its creation. This is possibly it’s due to the production tribulations and copyright problems of the touchstone work of the genre, The Night Of The Living Dead (NOTLD), or maybe it’s because, until recently, aficionados were considered the creepy cousins to more wholesome things like Vampires, Werewolves, and serial killers and needed something else to talk about between themselves once the delicate and nuanced plot variations of “and then they ate everyone!” have been chewed over. Whatever it is, 1988’s Flesh Eater (AKA Zombie Nosh and Revenge Of The Living Zombies) wears it’s rather curious pedigree on it’s chest, like the proud winner of Six Degrees of George A Romeo, due to being Produced, Directed, Written by, Edited, and Staring The Bill Hinzman!
Trash or Treasure 