Is there a softer side?

People either love or hate Troma team’s movies, and it’s pretty easy to make a case for both sides. Since 1974, the label run by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz has essentially defined the low-budget, cult-oriented exploitation film. On the one hand, it’s hard not to admire the good old American stick-to-it-ness of the prolific B-movie production and distribution company, and their independence from the film mainstream is unquestionable.

It’s no small feat releasing extremely low-budget, critically panned movies for over 30 years and not losing the desire to continue to do so. Some of their offerings, namely the Toxic Avenger series, have taken hallowed places in the annals of American film.

The gratuitous cheapness, violence and sleaze of most Troma movies makes them perfect companions for the pimply-faced teenagers who make up many of the “cult followings” that keep Troma in the black year after year.

The other side of the coin, however, is the fact that a lot of these films are basically the same, and a large chunk of them are completely horrible. Judged by any normal standards, such as acting quality, plot continuity, and so forth, these movies are nigh unwatchable.

But with such a prolific output, there’s bound to be something beyond mindless gore, gross-outs and gratuitous breast exposure. Or is there? Are there actually any Troma movies that are good in any kind of serious way? There’s only one way to find out, and that’s renting and watching a bunch of these crappy movies until some gems pop up. Along with some of the expected junk, some did.

Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid

While the title of this film is either instantly attractive or repulsive depending on one’s personality, the contents of the tape reveal a lighter, more nuanced touch than a person might expect. Although the cover features a police shootout, bikini-clad punks, and the titular Fat Guy playing saxophone in a band, none of these things really happen the way they’re depicted. In fact, most of the film deals with the travails of a rich young man, Roger, as he attempts to figure out what to do with his life. His inherent lassitude and apathy makes this difficult, but after Roger and his similarly unguided brother David meet up with the escaped mental patient Fat Guy, they swerve wildly off any path they may have been trying to follow and instead get into a series of zany misadventures. These do indeed cause the Fat Guy to go nutzoid, but not in the way one might expect. It’s more a function of the gross lack of understanding that the world seems to have for the good-natured and loyal Fat Guy. For Roger, however, protecting the hapless reprobate becomes a sort of crusade. The film’s conclusion has him risking everything his life of idle privilege has handed to him in order to free his friend from a mental institution. This kind of character depth and development is totally absent in most Troma movies. You can tell this was made on a budget, and it’s certainly not perfect, but the producers obviously didn’t cut corners on heart.

Rockin’ Road Trip

Although deviating from the usual gore and high camp of Troma releases, this movie certainly didn’t deviate from the trend of sucking. Although I’m going to have to say this is a monumentally bad movie, I still feel a little bad for saying so.

Not very bad, though.

Rockin’ Road Trip is the story of, as one might imagine, a road trip involving a band, two kids falling in love, a jolly blind man, and an angry, insane ex-boyfriend. Rote hilarity ensues, and for 101 minutes the viewer is barraged with non-stop bad acting, pointless subplots, unresolved issues, and totally underdeveloped characters. Even with all these strikes against it, it was a little bit endearing. Although they were pretty cardboard-cutout flat, you couldn’t help but root for the rockin’ road trip-ees to make it to that last gig, make up after a big fight, or figure out how to stretch their money far enough to survive. It was kind of like a Michael J. Fox movie, if he were the shittiest actor ever.

In the end, though, anything even remotely good about this movie is completely overshadowed by its amateur, middling tameness and unoriginality. Not horrible in the traditional Troma sense, but horrible nonetheless.

Story of a Junkie

The choicest of the films, Story of a Junkie makes you glad Troma took the time and effort to release and distribute a work like this. The film’s director, Lech Kowalski, would go on to achieve some success with his documentaries on Dee Dee Ramone and Johnny Thunders, who coincidentally were also junkies. Essentially, the film follows an eye patch-wearing heroin addict named Gringo (played by real-life junkie John Spacely) as he skateboards around the dilapidated Lower East Side in the mid ’80s, visiting various characters of the night and pontificating about his life on the streets. Consisting almost entirely of actual footage of addicts using and going about their business, spliced with a few well-placed interviews, Story of a Junkie is a palpably gritty masterpiece of observation. While it doesn’t really offer a lot in terms of plot, aside from some basic exposition of Gringo’s past, it seems that this is no barrier to the film’s success. The real main character here, however, is the city. Spacely is a guide and common thread tying together the run-down, abandoned buildings, piles of trash, junkies on the street, graffiti, filthy apartments, and other hallmarks of the time and place the film is documenting. It is this truthful depiction that sets Story of a Junkie apart from any other drug film, making even highly crafted works such as Requiem for a Dream seem like overblown Hollywood productions. Don’t expect any glamour or hip drug use here. This is the real, ugly deal.

So there you have it. There actually are Troma releases that succeed on a level other than the campy playing field the perennially busy company has helped create for itself. Although not without the expected rough edges, and certainly located far off the beaten path, some of these underexposed gems actually have a lot to offer when given a chance to shine.