A Vietnam veteran goes on a crime spree and starts torturing and killing men he served in the army with.A Vietnam veteran goes on a crime spree and starts torturing and killing men he served in the army with.A Vietnam veteran goes on a crime spree and starts torturing and killing men he served in the army with.
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Did you know
- TriviaThe original title for this film was "Echo of a Massacre."
- Quotes
Gene Kline: But then again, everybody's gotta pay.
Featured review
Grim and raw post-war Psycho Drama
Disgusting memories of a massacre where many innocents died during the Vietnam war torture the mind of a man to an unhealthy extreme. One night, after flipping out from the disturbing flashbacks of the massacre, he decides to put an end to all his mental anguish once and for all by leaving his wife and home behind to pursue a quest to kill his old NAM buddies he deems guilty of the atrocity, and thus must die in the name of justice. He sends out letters to his unsuspecting friends, telling them that he's coming by just for a visit. When he meets each friend, everyone gets along fine at first but then everything transforms into one ugly and intense episode as he gets cold and distant in personality, resulting in impressive psycho rants and eventually death.
The psycho rants are really the main strength of the movie. When the guy would start going crazy, he'd have such a blank creepy stare on his face and didn't even blink at all! Suddenly he would just go on and on about grim memories or sometimes act like he really was back in the war again, showing no mercy to anyone. The harshest encounter in the movie is when he forces his friend's wife at gunpoint to tie up his friend, who was previously shot on the hand by him. As his friend was bleeding and couldn't move, he started to violently rape his wife in front of him. The raped wife was crying and yelling for help like mad. There was not much nudity but it was like seeing an actual terrifying rape. It reminded me of the rape scene in "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" where a woman gave such a disturbingly real performance during the abuse to the point that she needed psychological help in real life! Another noteworthy incident is with one guy getting drained of blood through a needle and tube. We don't see how the forced bleeding was set up, instead the lifeless body is just shown dripping blood while the psycho talks to it about why he did what he did in such a morbid and serious fashion. I really like the trippy music that would play during the nasty moments of the movie too.
This is a very simple low budget movie done to perfection because of the brutal concept, realistic dialog, and chilling performances. There are some messages and moral dilemmas that are very clever and subtle within the film. You grow to appreciate this film more when you think back at how it illustrates how different people try to cope with their guilt for whatever atrocities they are responsible for. Some try to forget as if nothing happened, some try to justify their atrocities by dehumanizing the victims as mere "gooks", some try to give back to the community, and some think killing is the solution for killing (the main psycho's view). Don't expect a Rambo, shoot' em up type action movie. I found this to be more of a serious psycho/horror drama with a gloomy mean-spirited atmosphere similar to classics such as "Repulsion", "Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer", "Combat Shock", "Axe", "I Spit on your Grave", and "Deathdream". Highly recommended for fans of gritty nihilistic cinema at its rawest.
The psycho rants are really the main strength of the movie. When the guy would start going crazy, he'd have such a blank creepy stare on his face and didn't even blink at all! Suddenly he would just go on and on about grim memories or sometimes act like he really was back in the war again, showing no mercy to anyone. The harshest encounter in the movie is when he forces his friend's wife at gunpoint to tie up his friend, who was previously shot on the hand by him. As his friend was bleeding and couldn't move, he started to violently rape his wife in front of him. The raped wife was crying and yelling for help like mad. There was not much nudity but it was like seeing an actual terrifying rape. It reminded me of the rape scene in "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" where a woman gave such a disturbingly real performance during the abuse to the point that she needed psychological help in real life! Another noteworthy incident is with one guy getting drained of blood through a needle and tube. We don't see how the forced bleeding was set up, instead the lifeless body is just shown dripping blood while the psycho talks to it about why he did what he did in such a morbid and serious fashion. I really like the trippy music that would play during the nasty moments of the movie too.
This is a very simple low budget movie done to perfection because of the brutal concept, realistic dialog, and chilling performances. There are some messages and moral dilemmas that are very clever and subtle within the film. You grow to appreciate this film more when you think back at how it illustrates how different people try to cope with their guilt for whatever atrocities they are responsible for. Some try to forget as if nothing happened, some try to justify their atrocities by dehumanizing the victims as mere "gooks", some try to give back to the community, and some think killing is the solution for killing (the main psycho's view). Don't expect a Rambo, shoot' em up type action movie. I found this to be more of a serious psycho/horror drama with a gloomy mean-spirited atmosphere similar to classics such as "Repulsion", "Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer", "Combat Shock", "Axe", "I Spit on your Grave", and "Deathdream". Highly recommended for fans of gritty nihilistic cinema at its rawest.
helpful•52
- joseangeles
- Jul 6, 2007
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- Also known as
- Echo of a Massacre
- Filming locations
- Perris Valley Paracenter - Perris, California, USA(parachute sequences)
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Top Gap
By what name was My Friends Need Killing (1976) officially released in Canada in English?
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