Capital Celluloid 2012 - Day 132: Fri May 11

A Night of Troma-tainment: Class of Nuke 'Em High (Haines/Kaufman, 1986); Father's Day (Brooks/Gillespie 2011) and The Toxic Avenger (Herz/Kaufman, 1984) Prince Charles Cinema, 6.30pm

Troma Entertainment is an American independent film production and distribution company founded by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz in 1974. Kaufman will be on hand to introduce the triple-bill.


Here is an introduction to the Troma films output from Wikipedia which will give you a flavour of what to expect: Troma films are B-moviess known for their surrealistic or automatistic nature, along with their use of shocking imagery; some would categorize them as "shock exploitation films". They typically contain overt sexuality, nudity, and intentionally sadistic, gory, and blatant graphic violence, so much that the term "Troma film" has become synonymous with these characteristics. Troma reuses the same props, actors, and scenes repeatedly, sometimes to save money. At a certain point, however, this became another hallmark of Troma. Examples include a severed leg, a penis monster, and the flipping and exploding car filmed for the movie Sgt. Kabukiman, NYPD, which is used in place of any other car that needs to crash and explode.


Time Out review of The Toxic Avenger:
'Melvin, weedy gofer at the Tromaville Health Club, is bullied by the clientele until he hurls himself into a handy drum of toxic waste and emerges as a disfigured seven-foot, mop-wielding superhero. Despite 'borrowing' from sources as diverse as Frankensteinand The Producer, it all falls apart after an hour, chunks of the preceding entertainment reappearing as random montages, while for the climax the whole of some New Jersey town turns out to grin at the camera as toxic Melvin eviscerates the 300lb mayor.'
Here is the trailer.

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