Genre: Comedy, Action
Director: Michael Herz, Samuel Weil (Lloyd Kaufman)
Starring: Carolyn Beauchamp, Sean Bowen, Michael Ryder, Patrick Weathers, Jessica Dublin, Ara Romanoff
The Movie
War! Huh! Yeah! What is it good for? Absolutely NOTHIN'! Except Troma flicks!
The minute you see the word "Troma" in the title, you should know what you're in for. If you're unfamiliar with Troma, they're a studio that specializes in low budget exploitation with a cheeky and borderline (read: very) offensive sense of humor that has been evolved straight from softcore nudie flicks. So, if you're watching a movie called "Troma's War," what you're imagining in your head is almost exactly what it is.
This flick tells the story of an airplane that crashes on an island. The survivors of the crash are distraught with their situation, but find that things are about to go even more south when they discover they're sharing the island with a group of bloodthirsty terrorists who are planning a raid on America. The survivors find that they need to get primal, gear up for battle, and declare their own war on terror.
Imagine Troma going for a Red Dawn flavor, and Troma's War won't be far off. Intended to be a parody of Reagan era military glamorization at the ass end of the Cold War. I was very young at the time, so I'm not really sure how effective it is at being a satire, but what I will say is that it's "Troma" sense of humor tends to undermine its attempt at cleverness. It's hard to take its observations seriously when it's parody is a bit too absurdly animated, such as the terrorists using AIDS infected soldiers in an attempt to infect the American population, who are so absurdly portrayed that I think they transcend offensiveness. In this film, AIDS is portrayed as giving you puss filled boils and pimples all over your body, turning people into disgusting beasts, and every character with the disease is a conniving evildoer. I almost felt horrible about such a blatantly irrational portrayal of the disease until I realized that maybe what the film is trying to do is make fun of the way people with AIDS were demonized during the time period as subhuman monsters.
Troma's War is filled with stuff exactly like this, as its execution is just confusing enough to make it feel like it's adding to the propaganda rather than making fun of it. It's tone is attempting to be offending for the sake of offending, and if you have a message you're trying to get across, that's a tricky delivery system. The modern version of that is your average episode of South Park, which does stumble at times trying to figure out what it's trying to say as it throws edgy humor at the screen. Troma's War is that experience on acid. Take that for what you will.
The Drive-In
There's a legend in the house! Troma producer and director Lloyd Kaufman is here to talk about his Tromatic experience in the film industry, and I am all here for it. Kaufman's always been an animated and colorful guy, and he speaks about his filmmaking with enthusiasm. Here he discusses Troma's War, which Joe Bob calls "the most violent anti-war movie ever made" and one of the most misunderstood movies ever made (Darcy says "No.").
Joe Bob's interview with Kaufman is interesting, because I can't help but feel like ol' Lloyd is something of an unreliable narrator of sorts. I'm sure most of the big stuff he states is true, though his claims that Troma's War is used as an army training film or that a terrorist giving away his position helped create irritable bowel syndrome awareness seem a little bit of a stretch. Kaufman's a funny guy, but he can play it as stone faced as the best of them. For example, Joe Bob asks him about a story about Kaufman that he told during Blood Sucking Freaks, where Kaufman re-edited the film for an R-rating then put the cut footage back in and released the unrated cut with the MPAA rating, only to have Kaufman deny that's what happened then explain it the exact way that Joe Bob described, leaving us to wonder if he misunderstood Joe Bob's question or is just driving us around in circles on purpose to keep us confused.
Even Kaufman's wife, Pat, is in on the fun, as she's brought in to help keep Lloyd in line and keep the story straight. She also has some details to spill on Troma's War, which she was pregnant during and claims "The director's wife is treated the worst on set." Together they share some juicy gossip about on-set strikes, one about the depiction of AIDS in the movie and one about the cast wanting fried chicken, and according to them the fried chicken one was more intense. The history of Troma is touched upon, as Joe Bob and Lloyd discuss the sex comedies that lead into the Toxic Avenger, which revolutionized the company (but changed Kaufman's life in no way). Lloyd also discusses his mysterious partner, Michael Herz, as well as his directorial pseudonym, Samuel Weil, which he uses to get past the Screen Director's Guild.
Troma's an interesting subject, and Troma's War is just about as interesting a film to discuss it during (the film has almost 300 on the bodycount list). Joe Bob invites Kaufman to come and discuss whatever Troma film they may have on the show in the future, and we look forward to that day. Whatever you can say about Troma, it's not boring!
Joe Bob Rating
⭐⭐1/2
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