I first saw this shockumentary back in the VHS rental days along with all the other FACES OF DEATH, TRACES OF DEATH etc., etc.-type videos and those all kinda blend together in my foggy memory. Just yesterday I got the opportunity to see the Japanese cut of this, which is also sometimes known under the snazzy exploitation title of VIOLENCE USA, and hear the director(Sheldon Renan) give his thoughts on making the film and what it all means to him. While this one does get lumped in with all the other shock videos that came out in the 80s I think it delves a bit deeper and hearkens back more philosophically to the mondo-movies that came out in the 60s and 70s with the main glaring exception that in this case all of the footage is actually real and mostly culled from news sources or security cameras. There is, at least in this Japanese version, a strong anti-gun bias and it all ends in a big hippie love-fest with John Lennon that kinda made me want to shoot my brains out but besides this it's a pretty compelling look at what living in a large multi-racial, easily media-manipulated western country is like when anger(or as in many cases here just insanity and/or stupidity) leads to violent outbursts. I do need to re-watch the USA cut to see all the differences besides some strange feel-good stuff with a dog playing with a Frisbee, footage of the grand canyon and a less grim-sounding Japanese narrator.
Mexican poster!:
The perfect punk song that shows up in the film!:
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