Combat Shocks: The Vietnam War in Exploitation Cinema

Discussing titles as varied as Captain Milkshake (1970), The Losers (1970), Forced Entry (1972), The Exterminator (1980), The Last Hunter (1980), How Sleep The Brave (1982), and Combat Shock (1984), this book critically examines both American and European exploitation cinema's handling of Vietnam War themes, while also evaluating marketing techniques that absorbed the war's distinct iconography into familiar promotional conventions of confrontation, action, excitement, and spectacle.

The Vietnam War mobilised some of Hollywood's premier creative talent, both behind and in front of the camera, in films such as The Deer Hunter (1978), Coming Home (1978), Apocalypse Now (1979), Platoon (1986), Full Metal Jacket (1987), and Casualties of War (1989). Consequently, these titles have embodied the official history of American cinema's engagement with the conflict, with critical attention heaped upon films that often utilised vast budgets, international stars, and venerated auteur filmmakers. However, the conflict also had a significant impact on filmmakers working in the cultural and economic margins, whose motives and intentions often deviated from the ambition of mainstream cinema to reconcile critical acclaim with popular success.

Neil Jackson argues that there is great value in the study of oft-dismissed or forgotten exploitation films that frequently ventured down pathways avoided by major studios to negotiate the complexities of a catastrophic military intervention that was still gestating in the national consciousness. His analysis expands and illuminates the Vietnam movie canon, exploring the unorthodox strategies of filmmakers capitalising on a conflict whose divisiveness inspired new opportunities and variations upon shock tactics familiar in exploitation films since the 1930s.