'COMBAT SHOCK' aka AMERICAN NIGHTMARES (Tromasterpiece #4) landed not once, but TWICE on Mondo Digital's Best DVDs of 2009.  But it didn't stop there…

Over at PopMatters, Tromasterpiece took two of the top 10 spots on their best-of list — one for 'COMBAT SHOCK' and the other for THE LAST HORROR FILM, featuring the late Joe Spinell.

2009 saw some of the finest releases in Troma's long history, and 2010 looks even bigger with Troma's first Blu-ray title due in February.  If you haven't had a chance to see 'COMBAT SHOCK' or THE LAST HORROR FILM, what are you waiting for?  Order them now!

“Combat Shock” has clearly been influenced by “Taxi Driver,” but there is no mournful Bernard Herrmann score to romanticize Frankie’s quest and no sensuous slow-motion shots of the city’s mean streets to aestheticize his degraded environment. As one commenter observes in the accompanying making-of documentary, “this film smells” — but not in a metaphorical sense. The entire world of “Combat Shock” seems to have aged beyond its sell-by date, an olfactory metaphor that Mr. Giovinazzo drives home with an unforgettable image involving a carton of spoiled milk.

Read the review…

Legendary grindhouse sleaze-festival Combat Shock will do things to you. Unpleasant things. For nominal protagonist Frankie, time served in the Vietnam War brings back memories, Combat Shock brings back memories for me, too, though I've never served in the military. Maybe those memories will help us process this outlandishly bleak, tragic exercise in low-budget nihilism – so dedicated to its convictions it'll pretty much burn up your television with bile. Read the review…

As bleak and desperate a film as anything else out there and far more grim than you can probably imagine, Combat Shock (or, if you prefer, American Nightmares in its director's cut) is an incredibly depressing slice of life. Shot on a miniscule budget with an amateur cast, the film lets its authentically seedy locations stink up the film with the aroma of piss and garbage. It's a gritty, dirty, ugly film that hits you like a brick but it's also incredibly well made and remarkably effective, particularly when you consider that the film, at its core, is really little more than a man walking across town for ninety minutes. That said, it's the voyage and not the destination. Read the review…

JoBlo says…

"The definition of a gritty, independent movie [...] dirty, mean and unapologetic [...] sometimes unwatchable for all the right reasons."

Mondo Digital writes…

"A down-in-the-dirt, thoroughly depressing and uncompromising work, Combat Shock demands that its audience accept the film on its own terms!"

Trash Film Guru proclaims…

"The Year's Best DVD Offering, Bar None!"

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