Fleshburn (1984)

Fleshburn is a low budget 1984 action movie trying desperately to capitalize off the then recent success of Rambo. The backstory is this, Jim Brody was a native American Vietnam vet who had trouble adjusting to society after getting back from the war, sound familiar, he left several 'war buddies' alone in the desert to starve after they were dismissive of his spiritual beliefs, for this he was committed to a psychiatric institution on the advice of  four doctors. The movie opens up nine years after these events, Brody manages to escape from the asylum and hunt down the four doctors, he then takes them out into the desert with next to no supplies, breaks the legs of one, and leaves them to slowly die, all the while keeping an eye on the group from a safe distance, and performing various rituals with the intent to bring the group harm.

I don't even mention the name of the actors involved because no one is going to know who they are, this is exploitation fair and being shot mostly in the desert with a cast of five people it must have been very cheap to make. This is a bad movie really, still I was honestly surprised that it worked as well as it did. It had everything going against it, no budget, no name actors, blatantly derivative in inspiration, but for what it is it does a decent job. It's watchable, kind of enjoyable once you get acclimated to it, those involved have little to work with but they're doing the best that they can to try to elevate this thing. Like the characters slowly being worn down by the sun that makes their "fleshburn" the determination of this film to actually exist, and keep going kind of wears the viewer down. You know its not good, but a combination of pity and admiration creates a routing interest. My brain says no, my sense of taste says no, but my heart weakly says yes. If you're in the right mood, maybe its late enough at night, maybe the cables out, maybe its stuck in the DVD player, you just might like, Fleshburn. **