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Good start, but then it gets ruined

Absolutely the worst movie.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Some parts of FLESHBURN are very good and it sure could have been a very good movie. Instead, however, the film is just pretty poorly executed and stupid much of the time. Too bad.The film begins with a guy breaking out of a hospital for the criminally insane. Obviously bad things will ensue. The maniac is apparently in the mental hospital because years earlier he took a group of folks into the desert and allowed them to die due to exposure--a slow, lingering death. Now, his plan is to find all the people he feels are responsible for putting him in the booby hatch and exacting revenge--and killing him just like that first group of people; So far, all this is a very good setup for a film. However, it has two major strikes against it. Instead of the villain simply being an American-Indian who knows the land and how to survive, he's some sort of American-Indian who dabbles in WITCHCRAFT (whatever the heck that's supposed to mean). He has some goofy psychic or magical power that allows him to occasionally do things like catch and train a hawk to attack on of the four people stranded in the desert!! Gimme a break. And, the more serious problem is that although the people are exposed to the elements in the desert, they seem amazingly healthy even after many days there. With very, very little food and water, they all seem to have miraculously avoided any sunburn!! And, what's worse, a couple of them are running about with no shirt on--and yet their skin isn't even pink!! The inconsistent elements of their dire circumstances and their actual condition makes no sense at all and is just sloppy. Just as sloppy is the gun scene at the end--again and again, the guy who takes on the killer gets the upper hand but never finishes the job. If I were taken into the desert to die, if I ever got a chance to kill my tormentor, I'd not hesitate for a microsecond. duh.Overall, this is a wonderful example of a decent idea for a movie that was totally botched because the film makers were apparently squirrels.

In 1975, Navajo Indian Calvin Duggai (Sonny Landham) deliberately abandoned five men to die in the desert because of an argument involving tribal rivalry and the powers of Indian witchcraft. Four psychiatrists testified that Duggai was not capable of distinguishing right from wrong and recommended he be institutionalized. Years later at the "State Hospital For the Mentally Insane," Calvin suffers from 'Nam flashbacks, escapes through the air shafts and kills a friendly hunter who picks him up hitchhiking. He then decides to get back at the four shrinks who helped put him away. One by one, he kidnaps them, ties them up, throws them into the back of a truck and drives miles out into the middle of the desert and drops them off. There they must face the extreme heat, dehydration, starvation, snakes, scorpions, birds, etc… and Calvin, who is off in the shadows with a high-powered scope rifle watching their every move AND using his powers of witchcraft to strike out at them. Thankfully, one of the victims (Steve Kanaly, from the TV show "Dallas") gave up head-shrinking years ago for a job as a park ranger and helps everyone survive by digging holes to sleep in, hunting rabbits and using cacti for food and water. He also has to make peace with the jealous husband (Robert Chimento) of his former lover (Karen Carlson). Macon McCalman (who had a small role in DEAD & BURIED) is the fourth doctor, an overweight, bald, homosexual with a broken leg who reacts to the stress by becoming a born-again Christian! (Not quite as funny as the "I'm a lesbian but I guess I'll stop it" line from EVIL COME, EVIL GO, but still...) Though watchable for the most part, it's by no means a great film and the annoying non-ending will leave a bad taste in your mouth. It was based on the novel 'Fear is a Handful of Dust' by Brian Garfield.

I saw Fleshburn on video. The picture on the video cover suggests that the film is some kind of post-apocalyptic B-movie, but in actual fact it's nothing of the sort. As it happens, Fleshburn is based on a novel by Brian (Death Wish) Garfield, and is an outdoor thriller akin to Deliverance, The Most Dangerous Game and Open Season (1974).Navajo Indian and ex-Vietnam vet Clavin Duggai (Sonny Landham) has spent several years in a mental institution, having left a bunch of Indians to die in the desert over an argument about witchcraft (!) He escapes from the institution and sets about finding and kidnapping the four psychiatrists who recommended that he be sent there in the first place. First on his list is unhappily married couple Shirley (Karen Carlson) and Jay (Robert Chimento), followed by resourceful Sam (Steve Kanaly) and homosexual Earl (Macon McCalman). Having rounded up his victims, Duggai drives them off into the middle of the desert, where he abandons them. From a safe distance he watches as his four victims weaken physically and mentally in the unforgiving desert environment.Fleshburn falls between two stools. It isn't quite fully-blown trash, nor yet is it a serious psychological study. Landham as the despicable Duggai isn't much of an actor, though his weak performance is counter-balanced by Kanaly's excellent work as the most gutsy of the victims (wonder why he was never a bigger star?) The film is interesting throughout, if never truly engrossing, and director George Gage manages to tell his story competently. The ending tries to be clever - a compromise rather than a confrontation - but it feels oddly unsatisfactory. All in all, Fleshburn is a passable film, never quite as good as it wants to be yet never so bad that it taxes one's patience.

Fleshburn is a violent revenge story starring minor action hero Sonny Landham. The story really doesn't really break any new ground in terms of its structure, but it does incorporate a strange, spiritual element in its central conflict, and uses a Native American villain in a non-typical, not-so-stereotyped way. The action in the film is intense, as it emphasises the psychological trauma of those involved in the peril of being stranded out in the desert by the Landham character, as opposed to a lot of gunplay or explosions. Fleshburn is something a bit off the beaten track, for those who want a look at a different action-type film.