Cannibal Apocalypse

Vietnam veterans come home carrying an infection that turns them into flesh-eaters, and the film treats the cannibalism as a literal disease spreading through a paranoid America. Antonio Margheriti directs John Saxon as a vet trying to hold himself together as the hunger takes hold.

It is more restrained and more coherent than the jungle cannibal films, closer to a zombie-outbreak picture with a genuine subtext about trauma coming home. The flamethrower-in-the-sewer finale delivers.

An unusually thoughtful entry in a genre not known for it.