Norman Hopper (TENEBRAE’s John Saxon) is a Vietnam veteran haunted by recurring nightmares of his service. One such flashback recalls a harrowing rescue effort lead by Hopper to liberate POWs at a Vietcong camp. Happening upon a squalid pit, he finds two crazed POWs, including his small-town buddy Charlie Bukowski (MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY’s John Morghen). However, Norman soon finds that Charlie is a changed man and has a ghastly lust for human flesh. Reeling in horror, Norman is soon bit by Charlie. Fast forward to the present, where Norman appears to be living a normal life with his wife Jane. His suburban serenity is soon disrupted when he receives a call from Charlie, fresh out of a psychiatric ward. Charlie still seems to be fighting personal demons along with his curious virus from the war. Soon Norman finds to his horror that he too has a hankering for human flesh and despite his best efforts he reunites with Charlie. Old habits prove to die hard as soon both men put on the feedbag for human flesh.

Less an exploitative cannibal/gore opus (although it certainly works well enough as that too) than a surprisingly profound meditation on the emotional toll America’s most unpopular war took on its vets, CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE never fails to sustain interest. Saxon plays his role with his trademark restraint and Morghen effectively holds up his end by playing his lunatic lowlife role that gained him infamy in so many "video nasties." For once, Morghen’s manic performance has some worthy resonance here; his over-the-top presence convinces the viewer of his role as a man still fighting a very real war.

Providing more interest than the inevitable gore is the thoughtful metaphors director Antonio Margheriti (billed as "Anthony M. Dawson on the Japanese and US releases) fuses into the film. Morghen’s character, Charlie (also a US codename for the Vietcong), can be seen as a lightning rod for anti-war sentiments. Like so many other vets of the era, Charlie returned home to a hostile homeland and had to fend for himself, tending to his volatile emotional scars largely by himself. In the film it seems that every US institution has a bone to pick with Charlie, from the workers in his institution to the police. At the time of filming in 1980, anti-war sentiments were still very much grooved into the American psyche, and Charlie is the unfortunate target for such aggression.

The cannibal "virus" itself also carries an intriguing metaphor: the virus is a sort of physical reaction to mental trauma. The virus is a tragic keepsake for the vets and may very well be a symptom of deeply felt scars, a modified post-traumatic stress disorder, if you will. Interestingly, Norman’s virus lies dormant until he receives the phone-call from Charlie, which inevitably brings back painful memories of the war. Margheriti suggests here that such tremendous mental trauma is a sort of catalyst for the virus. This thesis is further supplanted with a rather obtuse but no less effective bit of foreshadowing. Immediately prior to the phone call, Norman flies a model airplane with his neighbor’s son. Once informed of the call, Norman leaves the tot with the plane, which soon crashes much to the horror of the boy. The film then jumps to a close-up of intense battle photographs from Norman’s service in Vietnam. Through these two seemingly disparate occurrences, Margheriti not only hints at the enormity of the call, but also the impending resurgence of Norman’s terrifying memories.

Aside from such intellectual fortifications, the film operates quite well as a uniquely constructed horror/action hybrid. CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE is certainly worthy of its "nasty" status: there is a fair amount of chunky gore (most notably the rotary sawing of a man’s leg and the infamous shotgun death of Charlie), politically incorrect diatribes (courtesy of the gruff police chief) and even a smattering of sleaze. Alexander Blunksteiner’s score will make many nasty fans feel right at home with its hokey mix of synth and soft rock (attentive viewers may notice the recycling of a cue from LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE during the climatic sewer chase). Then, of course, the film has at least a dozen re-titlings (including the nearly bloodless Vestron Video US release entitled INVASION OF THE FLESH HUNTERS) in keeping with the nasty tradition. Then, of course, there are some real howlers in the dubbed dialogue (although it sounds as if Saxon did his own voice-over). One such unintentionally hilarious morsel occurs after Norman has bitten a teenage girl. She runs in horror, only to greet him later and admit "I had fun…no one ever bit me like that before"!

The greatest feature of the film, however, is its insistence to entertain, whether by smoking barrels or spewing arteries. The unorthodox "cannibals and guns" premise allows for some exciting action sequences (especially the shoot-out between Charlie and the police in a flea market) and the final chase between the cannibals and the authorities through a dank sewer is both effectively claustrophobic and thrilling. And the final confrontation between husband and wife (Norman and Jane) is genuinely upsetting and tragic. Only a superfluous final gag taints an otherwise excellent and thought-provoking film of the very real horrors of Vietnam.