The horrors of war come home in Buddy Giovinazzo’s low budget opus Combat Shock. Not a feel good movie by any means, it’s a down and dirty, hot and sweaty view of a Vietnam vet’s slow unraveling in the grimy slums of New York City. The economy is terrible and unemployment is at an all time high and, with a family to support, the sanity of the Vet slowly begins to erode.

Owing equal debt to both “Eraserhead” and “Taxi Driver,” Combat Shock will most likely either be viewed by viewers as gritty and powerful or horrible and crappy. The movie falls somewhere in the middle, with Giovinazzo hoping to totally disgust you while moving you to empathy when you see all the struggles that Frankie Dunlan, the put-upon Vet, has to deal with.

The hopelessness that Frankie feels continues to grow as we come to see that his friend is a hopeless junkie, his father has disowned him and loan sharks are perusing Frankie for money that he doesn’t have. With all this against him, and the constant Vietnam flashbacks, the tension mounts in a fast way until there is no way a happy ending is going to be in anyone’s future.

This film is one of the most cynical and depressing movies you will ever see and what makes it the most amazing is that it was Giovinazzo’s debut feature. Shot on a shoe string budget of about $40,000 around Long Island and New York City, the movie has become some what of a cult hit, even when it was released under the original title of “American Nightmare.” The production team wore many hats during the course of the film and the credits show just how much each person had to do.

You’re not going to like Combat Shock. Having something that makes you squirm, flinch and look away isn’t usually something you want to experience on a constant basis. Make no mistake, the movie is powerful but I doubt many people will claim to have it as their favorite movie that they watch all the time. It’s an emotional, gripping movie with many scenes that come across as so raw and visceral that it feels like the emotional equivalent of a physical push. The scene where a junkie desperately pries his vein open with a hanger and pours his fix into his bleeding arm is one to make anyone except the most jaded, experienced horror fan flinch.

The movie is much too anti-mainstream to have ever escaped the flea pit cinemas of NYC, but thanks to Troma, the movie has had a DVD release of Giovinazzo’s preferred Director’s Cut. Ignore the usual Troma self promotion and Lloyd Kauffman’s ultra annoying mugging for the camera during the terribly unfunny intros on the disk which is the complete polar opposite of the feel of the movie.

An even bigger crime than Troma’s grade school antics is that Giovinazzo hasn’t become a better known filmmaker, the likes of which the online community usually embraces and fawns over. If Combat Shock was made about 15 or 20 years later Giovinazzo would probably be on his second or third picture deal with a nervous major studio, hating all the limitations forced upon him. Giovinazzo has been working in German television for the last decade or so which is a shame because in interviews in magazines, such as Deep Red, he had great plans for future projects. The mid to late 80’s was a time that could have benefitted from his input as well as other aspiring genre directors such as Nathan Schiff and Jim Van Bebber. Who knows what the careers of these people could be like today if audiences today were more responsive to their movies. Unfortunately, the celluloid world apparently wasn’t ready for such bold visionary directors who had a desire to create rough, new movies that shook audiences to their very core. Ultimately, it’s our loss.