Thou Shall Not Kill, Except

Thou Shall Not Kill, Except
Director: Josh Becker
Stars: Robert Rickman, John Manfredi and Timothy Patrick Quill, Sam Rami

Vietnam Veterans take on a Manson like cult on a public campground.

My first exposure to this movie came to me when I was a kid. I had purchased a bargain VHS tape at Walmart for a couple of bucks. It was titled “This is Horror”; it was actually segments pasted together from the short lived series Stephen King’s World of Horror.

In it scenes of Horror movies were shown with dry commentary from an off camera voice, one of the segments was on Evil Dead. Sam Rami was interviewed and pieces of his film were shown. Strangely a clip from a low budget film starring Sam Rami was shown. I remembered exactly what was shown all those years ago even the dialog is stuck in my head verbatim.

I remembered it so well because the movie was being presented in a totally serious way. Even though, there was something humorous about the clip, I thought it was just another rare horror movie being presented for me to track down on VHS. I made a mental note to keep an eye out for it and eventually forgot about it.

Here we are 20 years later, and a friend of mine is having some cash flow issues. He gives me a great deal on some out of print DVD’s, one of them is Thou Shall Not Kill, Except.

As I sat down to watch this all I knew about the movie was what was presented on that old tape. My thoughts going into this was that it was a low budget horror movie starring Sam Rami. I was wrong on both accounts, it wasn’t really a horror movie and although Rami is in it he really isn’t featured in a starring role.

The movie starts in Vietnam, where a platoon leader decides against the judgment of his second in command to storm an enemy camp, carnage ensues but the second in command saves the day. Flash forward a couple of years and that solider is living a secluded life on the outskirts of town in the wilderness.

The rest of his old platoon are still on active duty, but are on leave and decided to pay their old war buddy a visit. Simultaneously a cult lead by Rami moves into the public campground close to the old soldiers place. Eventually the two group’s meet and a bloody battle between soldiers and cultist takes place.

I really enjoyed this movie despite my preconceived idea that it was a horror picture. There is gratuitous gore but it’s easily outweighed by the moronic comedy. Rami himself plays a small but important role as the Manson like cult leader. He’s obviously wearing a wig and is partial to doing jumping karate kicks.

A quirky film indeed, a little hard to classify but enjoyable none the less.