Screamplay (1985)

Screamplay has got to be one of the most unique films I’ve ever seen. It is filmed like a washed-out, grainy black and white movie from the silent era mixed with sparse, geometric set design of German Expressionism and all pulled together by a murder mystery. I’m surprised more people don’t know about this film because it’s a very creative and mesmerizing effort from filmmaker (he co-wrote, directed, edited, did the visual effects, etc. for the whole film) and actor (he also plays the lead!) Rufus Butler Seder.

It has been released by Troma, the only studio that would pick up the film (originally, New Line expressed interest but pulled out when the film received a bad review from the Boston Film Festival). However, it is definitely not a “typical” Troma blood and boobs B-movie and I don’t think it was fairly marketed back during its release. So since then, the film has pretty much languished in obscurity…

I happened to chance upon it while browsing through Netflix and decided to give it a shot. The premise sounded pretty interesting:

“Aspiring screenwriter Edgar Allen (Rufus B. Seder) works as a janitor for room and board at the Welcome Apartments, a run-down building filled with freaky characters and bizarre plot twists that wriggle their way into Edgar’s horror movie script. Reality blurs with Edgar’s vivid imagination, driving him into a state of creative madness.”

So, I decided to give the film a whirl and had no idea how intriguing it would turn out to be…however, within the first few moments of seeing the simple sets and stark black and white film I was hooked. Screamplay has its faults and isn’t the best film out there, but its artistic merit more than makes up for its few problems.

Let me just say that I love the story (ok, that’s not a problem, but give me a minute…), written by Ed Greenberg and Seder! Basically, the writer’s creations on the page on coming to life and all the murders look like he perpetrated them. Great premise, right? Right. However, the interactions between characters feel a bit stilted and the dialogue doesn’t really grab you, causing the pace to drag at times. Even Seder admitted his film was “kinda boring” and that “When it gets to the point where the actors are acting, just sitting talking in a room, the scene pretty much goes dead” (from an excellent Movieline article on the film).

However, the film does have some very memorable lines (“You f*cked Karloff?!”), kooky, well-written characters and a storyline that speaks to every struggling creative talent in Hollyweird. In fact, anyone who has ever had any experience with the fickle entertainment industry can appreciate the many clever jabs the film makes at the expense of “the industry”.

The film’s biggest draw besides its fun storyline is its aesthetic. Filmed in washed-out black and white, with the appropriate scratches added to make it look even more vintage, the film reminded me of silent classics like Nosferatu or The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. In fact, the sparse, simple and inexpensive (they used Plexiglas to mimic a pool) sets, with their sharp corners and minimalist decoration, tended to echo German Expressionist films like Caligari. In short, the visuals of the film were entirely mesmerizing and Seder did an astounding job with the art direction (yup, another task he took on!).

Further cementing the comparison to silent films were the melodramatic performances from the oddball characters that included a sleazy landlord (played by underground film legend George Kuchar), an aging but lustful actress, a starlet, a prophetic ex-rock star and a couple of noir-like gumshoes tracking down the killer. I especially liked Seder’s performance of the manic screenwriter, who looks like he would fit perfectly with any of the silent film stars with his over-exaggerated facial expressions!

Though Screamplay won’t be a film everyone will enjoy, those that appreciate a good surrealist slasher with silent film-like aesthetics will no doubt fall in love with the underrated and little-know Screamplay. Go check it out!

Available on Amazon!

Blades (1989)

How did this little Troma movie pass under my radar for so many years? I mean, killer lawnmowers tend to attract attention but I don’t recall ever hearing about Blades, which, while it sounds like an ice skating movie is actually about a killer machine mowing down golfers at the Tall Grass Country Club.

When I stumbled upon this movie in my Netflix “watch instantly” queue, I just couldn’t pass it up! How could I resist a movie whose tagline is: “Golf – A Game of Hooks, Slices and … Slaughter”? Well, I couldn’t resist and settled in to watch this wacky and entertaining B-movie.

A series of gruesome murders is taking place at the prestigious Tall Grass Country Club. Golfers are being dismembered left and right, but with a live televised golf tournament coming up the owner refuses to shut the place down. Resident golf pros Roy (Robert North) and Kelly (Victoria Scott) set out to stop the murders, but are shocked to find that the culprit is an evil lawnmower out for blood. Can the pair of golf pros stop the killer machine before it mows down anymore unsuspecting golfers?

Blades is certainly not the perfect B-movie; for a Troma film it feels pretty restrained and lacks the outrageousness of most of their films. It also tends to drag in some places and the finale feels a bit stretched out. For a satire/parody it doesn’t quite go far enough and the laughs are far and in between (though I really liked the special ops caddies). However, I found myself enjoying the zany film, with its crazy ‘80s country club attire (think Lacoste polos, pastel- or neon-colored visors and high-waisted jeans…oh wait, I guess golf fashion really hasn’t changed!), random humor and its flesh-hungry killer machine (that looked more of like a combine rather than a lawnmower).

Even the two leads didn’t bug me (though they were a little bland) and Robert North and Victoria Scott did a good job in their roles as the resident golf pros Roy and Kelly. The rest of the cast was pretty hammy (intentionally, as this is supposed to be a parody of slasher flicks) and served their roles well (I especially liked William Towner as the country club owner Norman Osgood – “It’s on TV!!”).

Blades even has a sort of Caddyshack-like feel to some of their humorous scenes, and I half expected Bill Murray to pop up to defend his golf course against the ravages of a rogue lawnmower. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “Caddyshack for horror lovers”, as I’m sure some reviewers have, but with the golf course setting and its zany humor it’s hard not to make the comparison. In reality, director Thomas R. Rondinella intended it to be a Jaws spoof, replacing the ocean with a golf course and the shark with a lawnmower. Yes, it’s pretty silly but it is also pretty entertaining as well! I especially liked the POV shots of the lawnmower stalking its victims through the grass and the fact that the leads got trapped on a broken-down van down by the river in the middle of the course by the lawnmower just like the people were trapped on a sinking boat at the end of Jaws.

Still, I felt the comedy in Blades was a little too restrained. With that you’d think they’d amp up the splatter, but besides a few shredded legs and various bloody body parts strewn about the golf course there’s hardly any gore in the film. Even a scene where a young caddy gets “eaten” and large sprays of blood arc out of the woods doesn’t satisfy because the blood looks so fake.

Sometimes you just have to take a chance on a film, and while Blades certainly isn’t a Tromasterpiece it still managed to entertain me. If you like your films a little bit silly and can appreciate the humor in a bunch of golfers running for their lives from a killer lawnmower, do yourself a favor and check out Blades.

Available (only on VHS) from Amazon!

Poultrygeist (2008)

Make sure you’ve got your seat belts fastened tightly, because Poultrygeist is one wild ride. Filled with puke, poop, killer poultry, putrescent gore and plenty of bad nudity, Poultrygeist shows Troma at its trashy (and socially-conscious) best!

Arbie (Jason Yachanin) and Wendy (Kate Graham) vowed they’d always be together…but a year after consummating their love in the Tromahawk Indian Burial Ground Wendy has come back to town a changed woman. She is in town protesting the bulldozing of the burial ground and the erection of fast food joint American Chicken Bunker in its place with her militant girlfriend Mickie (Allyson Sereboff). Yep, Wendy has turned into a lipstick lesbian much to the chagrin of lovesick Arbie. He vows to get her back and promptly takes a job at American Chicken Bunker. He joins the colorful group of employees, including high-strung manager Denny (Joshua Olatunde), backwoods dead chicken f*cker Carl Jr. (Caleb Emerson), gay Mexican Paco Bell (Khalid Rivera), and burka-clad Humus (Rose Ghavami) who has her own prayer mat in the kitchen to pray to Mecca every day.

Besides the angry protesters outside, Arbie and his co-workers must also deal with the angry spirits of displaced Native Americans as well as the souls of all the chickens American Chicken Bunker has slaughtered. Soon, people start ending up dead and/or start turning into horrific (and hungry) chicken-like zombies.

Can Arbie and his friends save the world? More importantly, can Arbie win Wendy back in the process?

Troma’s take-no-prisoners humor is readily apparent in this gloriously low-brow film and everyone from liberals to minorities to huge corporations get skewered. I especially liked how no group was left unscathed…as soon as fun was poked at big corporations, they’d switch it around and start making fun of the protestors standing against big business. Of course, this being a Troma film it’s also heavy on toilet humor…dick and fart jokes abound and this definitely isn’t a film for those easily offended!!

You expect the toilet humor (like a guy having massive diarrhea…from the point of view of the toilet bowl, someone adding his own “special sauce” to the fast food, chicken carcasses getting raped, etc.) from a Troma film, but what surprised me was the high quality of the special FX! The budget for Poultrygeist was pretty low, but they still managed to pull off some amazing effects. Highlights included a zombie hand going through someone’s ass and out their mouth, a meat grinder accident with a spectacular spray of blood, someone’s face getting cut into perfect deli slices in a meat slicer, dozens of people throwing up green puke and tons of other gross-out moments. The effects in the film were impressive and by far some of the best shown in any Troma film in the indie studio’s 35 year career!

Also a personal best for a Troma film was the acting in Poultrygeist. The actors gave it their all here, with very enthusiastic performances. Even though the characters were way over the top, you couldn’t help cheer for them anyway. In the wrong actors’ hands, the quirky characters could have quickly fallen flat…Luckily, we get a near-perfect cast that delivers and hams it up just enough without going too overboard in this over-the-top film! They even manage some fun musical numbers!

Yep, I said musical numbers! These will even be enjoyable to those that normally don’t like musicals (trust me, I watched this film with my musical-hating boyfriend and even he loved it). The lyrics, including songs about sex, bodily fluids, love, and more sex (usually of the anal variety), are just so damn offensive that they are plain hilarious. Plus, the audio is great and the actors can really sing! The songs even manage to propel the narrative along and aren’t just there for schlock value (though they do help!). We even get to see Uncle Lloyd (wearing a skirt, no less) join in on one of the musical numbers as he sings and dances!

Poultrygeist also tackles some socially conscious issues and though they are covered in poop and puke (and chicken feathers), the message still shines clear. The take jabs at big business, fickle and hypocritical protestors, consumerism, American’s fast-food addictions and so on. And through it all you’ll be laughing your ass off…unless you’re blowing chunks, that is!

Poultrygeist is the most fun you’ll have with chicken-zombies, Native American spirits (the ghostly kind, not the alcoholic kind), lesbians, skirt-wearing men and fast food this year! This is a fowl, gross-out movie that super-sizes the fun and comes with an extra side of AWESOME!

Available from Amazon!

Class of Nuke 'Em High (1986)

Class of Nuke ‘Em High is an utterly outrageous, gross-out spoof of the typical 80’s high school comedy from your favorite independent studio, Troma!

The students at Tromaville High School are noticing some strange things happening ever since the nuclear power plant next door had a suspicious leak. For one, the once geeky honor society now terrorized the halls as vicious, leather-clad, motorcycle-riding Cretins (really, their name is The Cretins). Chrissy and Warren, the archtypical “golden couple” at school get thrown into the confusion when they smoke a joint that contains radiation from the marijuana grown inside the nuclear plant. Chrissy gets pregnant, miscarries a squirmy, black worm-looking thing, while Warren gets some ‘roid rage (complete with pulsating pustules) and falls on the Cretins bad side after beating them up. It all leads to a final showdown at the high school between the Cretins, Chrissy and Warren, and the slimy, hungry mutant that’s been growing in the basement.

Probably one of the better done and more well-known Troma flicks, Class of Nuke ‘Em High delivers surefire zany fun. This is actually one of the first Troma films I’ve ever seen, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I actually enjoyed the movie. It is completely over-the-top, farcical and features gratuitous nudity and gross-out gags, but I still loved it. My favorite aspect was all the crazy characters, especially the Cretins. I was pretty much rooting for them the entire time, especially the hot leader of the pack!

The gore was surprisingly very well-done for an early Troma film. One scene features Warren punching his fist all the way down a Cretin’s throat! A nerd oozing green slime out of his mouth was also a pretty neat scene. The best effect, though, was probably the mutant spawn at the end of the film. The creature was pretty impressive and looked great! And of course, what’s a Troma film without nudity? Class of Nuke ‘Em High has its fair share of boobie shots.

The film also features some very black humor regarding the U.S. government and nuclear testing. Some might say it crosses the line of poor taste, but to me it was absolutely riotous!

The film’s only downfall is its meandering storyline that takes its sweet time getting anywhere. Many of the scenes, including plentiful shots of students just milling about the high school, were repetitive and unnecessary, almost like they were trying to pad the film for time. There isn’t even a stable lead character to latch onto and root for. The whole film is over-the-top, including the acting, which some people might be turned off by.

Still, despite its flaws, Class of Nuke ‘Em High is a very entertaining film for those that like silly, irrelevant horror-comedies. To me, it felt like a mix of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Rock ‘N’ Roll High School and, Troma’s earlier effort, The Toxic Avenger.

Whether you are a fan of Troma films or not, I recommend checking out Class of Nuke ‘Em High for some brainless, B-movie fun!

Available on Amazon!