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Poster for Combat Shock
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Combat Shock

Director: Buddy Giovinazzo Run Time: 95 min. Format: 35mm Rating: NR Release Year: 1986

Starring: Mitch Maglio, Rick Giovinazzo, Veronica Stork

THE DEUCE takes you to the Liberty Theatre circa 1986, for COMBAT SHOCK, Buddy Giovinazzo’s harrowing debut masterwork for shlockfactory production studio Troma.

Plus: Liberty Theatre lore, prizes and surprises, drink special at the after-party, and music by DJ BONES! Hosted and presented by Jeff, Andy, and Joe! Includes a Q & A by Special Makeup Effects Artist Ed Varuolo!

Your not looking for a job, you’re waiting for the world to end…” says Veronica Stork’s Cathy Dunlan to Vietnam vet husband Frankie (played by Rick Giovinazzo) who’s PTSD makes Taxi Driver‘s Travis Bickle look like Mickey Mouse. Fifteen years after the war, broken Frankie lives in poverty with his wife and Agent Orange-mutated infant child (played by a $140 puppet), amongst junkies, criminals, and child prostitutes. He’s at his wit’s end to find work until his brutal, uncompromising final act of mercy.

Considered by studio head (and Executive Producer) Lloyd Kaufman to be one of Troma’s true masterpieces, Director Buddy Giovinazzo’s (brother of Rick) debut feature is a terrifying, heartbreaking depiction of Reagan-era urban blight and modern day shell-shocked misery. War is Hell, but so is Staten Island, in the movie about which Videohound said, “you won’t find a more depressing film outside an art-house cinema.”

Trailer