Fleshburn (1984)
Article 5829 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-10-2020
Directed by George Gage
Featuring Steve Kanaly, Karen Carlson, Macon McCalman
Country: USA
What it is: drama thriller

A native American escapes from a mental institution to wreak revenge on the four people who placed them there. He leaves them in the desert to fend for themselves.

It’s easy to see how this one could be mistaken for horror; after all, it has an evocative title, it appears on a collection called HORRIBLE HORRORS, and the plot elements include madness and native American mysticism. Nevertheless, those fantastic touches remain side issues to the story, and the movie simply doesn’t play like a horror movie but as a revenge drama with more talk than action. So I’m not really surprised it has a lowly 4.3 rating on IMDB; horror fans will probably feel cheated, and action fans will find it dull. But as a drama about four people trying to survive in a seemingly hopeless situation, I found it engaging enough to hold my attention throughout. The biggest problem I had was that I did get tired of the yelling and whining on occasion, though I do find it easy to believe that being caught in an impossible situation would not necessarily bring out the best in people. In the end I found it entertaining enough, though I wouldn’t call it a classic.