Hey folks, Harry here... TROMA films represent the uncensored ID of drunk rambling fanboys with useless erections and their crust covered fuck dolls with duct tape fixes and wheezing air seeping sounds. I love TROMA films... The Retarded Avenger is perhaps the single greatest superhero in the history of the medium... alongside HERBIE - THE FAT FURY that is. But I digress wantonly, so here's Nordling, who along with his buddy Rav (of the Anal Stigmata) enjoyed a night of Troma Action and Laughter! Way to go Boyzzzz...
Nordling here.
This is about as far from RETURN OF THE KING or THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST as you can get. I'm a neophyte to Troma movies. I've seen TOXIC AVENGER, and a few years back when I was a budding film fan I saw a touching and moving film about the way we treat our mentally ill in this country called FAT GUY GOES NUTZOID! It's not about calling a Troma film a "bad" movie. Troma films are beyond such semantics. They are a window into American life, a life full of titty, spectacular gore, hackneyed plot lines, and nonexistent budgets.
The studio is run by a man named Lloyd Kaufman, who is either a certified genius or the Hollywood equivalent of a snake oil salesman. "As long as they come from the heart," Kaufman says, and "they go by that great script writer William Shakespeare's adage 'To thine own self be true,'" Troma will release pretty much anything. Of course Shakespeare never wrote anything about biker revenge seeking mamas, or prehensile monster penises, or toxic waste exposed superheroes, but if he had been around now, who knows, maybe he might have. Or not. Who's to say?
Troma is in a lot of ways like Roger Corman, in that through their films, we have seen the work of such people as James Gunn (writer of TROMEO AND JULIET, SCOOBY DOO, and the upcoming DAWN OF THE DEAD), Eli Roth (who appears in both CITIZEN TOXIE and TALES FROM THE CRAPPER and is the director of CABIN FEVER), Trey Parker and Matt Stone (creators of CANNIBAL THE MUSICAL as well as SOUTH PARK), Oliver Stone (BATTLE OF LOVE'S RETURN) and Billy Bob Thornton (CHOPPER CHICKS IN ZOMBIETOWN). Troma was also, apparently, the first studio to bring Miyazaki to the states, by releasing MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO.
Here in Houston the Alamo Drafthouse theater is running a retrospective of Troma's 30 years, including TOXIC AVENGER, CANNIBAL THE MUSICAL, RABID GRANNIES, and others. I normally wouldn't have attended anything like this, frankly. I love fun bad movies as much as anyone, but unless they're shown at BNAT or I'm at a friend's house and they're insisting on me seeing some incredibly crappy movie, I don't go out of my way to see them. So it was nice that Rav told me he had tickets to this event tonight and asked if I wanted to go.
I was not prepared for the sheer brilliance of CITIZEN TOXIE. It's also incredibly awful, but how many movies can you see with exploding heads, monster penises, Corey Feldman, a fight between two fetuses in the womb, Ron Jeremy playing the mayor of Tromaville, black Nazis, hot lesbian crack whore pregnant white trash action, and smack dab in the middle, a wonderful CITIZEN KANE homage? No one else but Troma could bring you this.
"Basically CITIZEN TOXIE came about because people wrote in wanting to see a fight between Toxie and Sgt. Kabukiman, NYPD," said Mr. Kaufman. "But Kabukiman is a good guy, so we had to create this alternate universe where Kabukiman became Evil Kabukiman so they could fight." Now who needs more reason than that to make a movie?
Basically the Troma fans gathered to meet their idol and to participate in a focus group to see TALES FROM THE CRAPPER, an unfinished film done digitally and made from the Dogpile 95 ethic (see www.troma.com if you want to know what that is, but it REAMS what Dogme 95 is all about), a movie that was "rewritten after it was photographed", and a "major abortion", as described by Mr. Kaufman. It's basically two stories in one film, connected by Lloyd talking about what it takes to make a successful Troma film, and supplemented by the most ingenious idea for a movie yet - BonerVision, which is basically a smaller screen in the movie with bouncing titty. The two stories both star Julie Strain, who's work I am not familiar with. (I'm sure many AICN readers are, however.) Looking at her IMDB listing she seems to be something of an auteur, who acts, directs, writes, and produces her own movies. She's also got a nice rack, but I digress.
The first story of the film, called "Julie Strain and The Case of the Melon Heavy Man Eater" was a gritty crime story about a zealous cop who tracks down a serial killer that stalks strippers. The killer also happens to be an alien from outer space. Who also strips. And there is the inevitable naked stripper/alien fight, which culminates in a sex session involving Strain and a giant cricket penis. Said cricket penis gives Ms. Strain the power to defeat the alien, and we all live happily ever after, knowing that the strippers of L.A. are safe from alien devouring and penetration. It reads better than it plays, I assure you.
However, the second story, "Tuition of the Terror Twat" transcended mere "bad" and leapt into "gloriously awful." It seemed to be about lesbian vampires stalking broke ass college students, but then it passed the realm of bad cinema into genius. Where else could you hear audio commentary from Oilver Stone (at least they claimed it was Oliver Stone) talking about the sheer beauty of lesbianism as the three vampires made out with each other? Or see Eli Roth scream like a girl? Or watch the rock band New Found Glory get consumed by a Vietnamese lesbian vampire? Or hear Trey Parker tell the worst, grossest shaggy dog story possible? Or see Ted Raimi impaled in the ass by a rubber chicken? And did I mention the lesbian vampires?
I'm glad Troma movies are here. I'll definitely be seeing more of them, now. In the end, you can have your COLD MOUNTAINs, your BIG FISH, your LORD OF THE RINGS. They all had to start somewhere, and all roads, whether they want to admit it or not, lead to Troma. Or at least go past the front yard. You can't deny that for every great film we see their roots go straight into bad cinema. I'd rather see a movie that knows their limitations than see a movie that doesn't know how bad it is. At least Lloyd Kaufman knows what he's shooting for. If more filmmakers were as on target as Mr. Kaufman is, we'd have a lot better movies out there. To thine own self be true, indeed. Even if thine own self prefers titty and seeing someone's face peeled off. Thank God for Lloyd Kaufman.
Nordling, out.
