Sunday, July 30

What a Troma

By Drew Stepek

Do you remember a 1987 film about "beaches becoming battlefields" and "waves becoming war zones?" Remember a video box cover that had a chainsaw, a Nazi with a robotic arm on a surfboard and a half-naked woman about to get pummeled by fiberglass? Sure you do. The film was called Surf Nazis Must Die and it was the first Troma film that I ever saw. I was excited when I read about it in Fangoria Magazine and I expected it to be a Road Warrior-esque surfing film that exchanged 18-wheelers with surfboards.

I waited for about 2 weeks after its release for the single copy at my local video store to be in stock before I got my trembling hands on it. And what had I waited for and struggled to watch? Easily, the biggest piece of sh*t movie that I had ever seen in my life (I have yet to see Battlefield Earth). It wasn't really as post-apocalyptic as the box cover had claimed--unless you think of the New Jersey beaches as "futuristic." And the budget of Nazis was hmmmit makes you wonder about all the hype surrounding The Blair Witch Project; comparatively Blair Witch was an epic. Most importantly, none of the actors could speak, much less act, and it looked like it was shot on a video camera that had seen more time in the water than the film's Surf Nazis stars. It sucked so horribly in fact, that I loved it. To this day, Surf Nazis rises to the top of the heap as the most brilliantly misrepresented film that I have ever seen and it didn't even have a quote by Peter Travers on the poster claiming it to be "Scarier then the Exorcist."

Troma Films, created in 1974 by Lloyd Kaufman and his partner in grime Michael Herz, consistently delivers a product that collectively has the worst scripts, the most horrendous acting and the lowest budgets in the history of film. In defense of Troma though, they did a great job of providing us with absurd characters, great video box covers, snappy titles and some scenes so vulgar that eating and Troma aren't two great tastes that go great together. Even more impressive is the fact that Troma has survived longer than any other company in independent film history. You remember these classics don't you? Who could forget The Toxic Avenger, Redneck Zombies, Class of Nuke 'Em High and Tromeo and Juliet. Unfortunately, before I learned to actually read a video box cover in high school, I got suckered into renting every single one of these films--except of course for Tromeo and Juliet, which I willingly watched a few years ago. Fake vomit, trashy women, buckets of blood, multiple be-headings and people on fire; isn't that what American film should be about? A few years ago, Kaufman wrote an autobiographical account of his experiences creating Troma entitled, All I Needed to Know About Filmmaking I Learned from the Toxic Avenger. Troma's most recent films included Toxic Avenger 4: Citizen Toxie and Terror Firmer, which is based on Lloyd's 1998 book. Both films promise to have the same Troma ingredients that we have come to know and love--people on fire, phallic symbols that turn into monsters and flesh eating condoms.

Although EXPN caught up with Lloyd at E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo.) in Los Angeles--where he was being escorted around by the Toxic Avenger and Sgt. Kabukiman--everything we said included the word f*ck, so we decided to spare you the profane details.

Here is a comprehensive list of Troma's films, by date.

Battle of Love's Return, The (1971)
Beware: Children at Play (1989)
Blood Sucking Freaks (1978)
Bugged (1996)
Chillers (1987)
Chopper Chicks in Zombietown (1989)
Class of Nuke 'Em High (1986)
Class of Nuke 'Em High Part II: Subhumanoid Meltdown (1991)
Class of Nuke 'Em High 3: The Good, the Bad and the Subhumanoid (1994)
Combat Shock (1986)
Deadly Daphne's Revenge (1987)
Decampitated (1998)
Demented Death Farm Massacre (1986)
Ferocious Female Freedom Fighters (1982)
First Turn-On!!, The (1983)
Fortress of Amerikkka (1989)
Frostbiter: Wrath of the Wendigo (1996)
Hollywood Zap (1995)
Igor and the Lunatics (1985)
Jakarta (1988)
Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell, A (1991)
Pterodactyl Woman from Beverly Hills (1994)
Rabid Grannies (1989)
Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. (1990)
Squeeze Play (1980)
Student Confidential (1987)
Surf Nazis Must Die (1987)
Teenage Catgirls in Heat (1997)
Terror Firmer (1999) (V) They Call Me Macho Woman (1989)
Tomcat Angels (1991)
Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie, The (1989)
Toxic Avenger, Part II, The (1989)
Toxic Avenger, The (1985)
Troma's War (1988)
Tromeo and Juliet (1996)
Vegas in Space (1991)
Viewer Discretion Advised (1998)
Wizards of the Demon Sword (1991)