It’s Here!

The Calgary Horror Con starts today and runs tomorrow as well, and it’s a great show at a great price. Some of the guests we’re looking forward to seeing include actors Jessica Cameron, Felissa Rose, C. Thomas Howell and Don Coscarelli, but the big event for us is the screening tonight of Return To Nuke ‘Em High Vol. 1 featuring a Q & A with one of our all-time favorites, Lloyd “Freakin” Kaufman. We’ve been getting ready for the show by looking back at the first 3 films in the Nuke Em’ Franchise, with PART ONE and PART TWO. Today it’s finally time to look at what appeared to be the final film in the series for quite a while, 1994’s Class of Nuke ‘Em High Part 3: The Good, the Bad and the Subhumanoid. “On a Troma set, you meet people that are working there because they want to help make a movie. On a big budget set, you get people working there just because they want to tell their friends they worked on a big budget movie, and they got to meet some famous asshole. Sure there have to be some dedicated people on a big budget set, but you won’t find as many as you would on a Troma set.”  Lloyd Kaufman, 1999 Nuke ‘Em 3 sees the return of Eric Louzil to the director’s chair, this time by himself. This is a good thing, a very good thing, as the film obviously benefits from having just one vision. In fact it’s interesting to take a deeper look at Parts 2 & 3 because it’s pretty easy to determine those things that feel like Mr. Louzil’s style, and those of his previous co-director, cult movie powerhouse Donald G. Jackson. Of course these movies have some truly insane things in them, as you would expect of any good movie from Troma Entertainment. Highlights this time include… The female romantic lead’s hair is shaped like a hand fan, and a truly remarkable site. According to this movie, and the others in the franchise now that I think about it, every female in Tromaville’s wardrobe is a thong bikini. The lead villain comes complete with an eye patch and gloriously stilted delivery of his lines, which is tremendous. There’s another appearance of the Toxic Avenger who steps into the wrong film, again. A soundtrack that I’m pretty sure is lifted from the Sega Genesis 16 bit gem ToeJam & Earl. The conclusion to the question we all needed to know, what’s the outcome of the giant mutated squirrel known as Tromie’s fate? Ron Jeremy shows up as an asthmatic, bitter educator at the college the film takes place at in an epic cameo. His name..? Professor Chernobyl. Brick Bronsky returns as Roger Smith, but this time also takes on 2 additional roles as Roger’s kids, the earnest hero Adlai, and his twisted brother Dick.

“The conventions are a very important way for me to be interactive with our fans. The fans very often tell me what to do. The fans are the ones who told me to go into DVD. Troma was probably the first studio to use DVDs interactively with the interactive tour of Troma studios as the bonus material or the Troma Intelligence Test. The major studios still aren’t using the interactive qualities of DVD. The fans told us about DVDs and we were making them long before the majors were doing it. And the internet, too. Troma’s probably the first studio to have a web site. 1993, I think we started it. And the fans were the ones who told us to do it. And our fans also with “Citizen Toxie” told us at conventions or at book stores where I’d be signing my books and during the Q & A they’d say “What would happen if Sgt. Kabuki man fought the Toxic Avenger?” Every place I went they wanted to know, so that’s why we put that in “Citizen Toxie”. That’s why we came up with the alternate universe, the evil doppelgangers, the evil Kabuki Man, cause Toxie’s a good guy and how can he fight Kabuki man if he’s also a good guy? So that’s why we had to have the Noxious Offender. But our fans were the ones who put that idea in my head. The conventions give you a good chance to hear what the fans like and what they don’t like and also to find out what’s going on. To keep in touch. I think a lot of big stars forget to do that. A lot of directors get caught up with the system and the swimming pools and they get shielded from realities of life. They stop going to movies, they stop reading books and they end up making shite.” Loyyd Kaufman, 2005 Bronsky was good in Nuke ‘Em 2, but he’s even better in this one. His acting skills dramatically improved in the shooting time between the movies, and he already had a natural charm and ease in front of the camera. These roles seemed like a lot of fun to do, getting to play the dorky dad character, the heartfelt lead, and the evil henchman. Nice work! The female lead in this one is Lisa Star, who’s simply gorgeous on screen, and seemed to enter every scene with the attitude

clothing is optional, which I didn’t mind at all. The Class of Nuke ‘Em High 3 is a good bounce back from 2, which had a lot of great and memorable ideas but managed to lack a little in the execution. This one pulls back the crazy a little more, and the result is more action scenes and more jokes that work, one of which I expect I may stop laughing out loud at next week some time, I thought it was that funny. This has the elements of a Troma movie, but if you love the super crazy it might not be the one that works as much for you, but for me this is a fine piece of B Movie Cinema, and again contains some of the most hilarious end credits ever! Plus Lloyd Kaufman penned the lyrics for the title song that’s here in parts 2 & 3, and it’s damned catchy, so check it out and we’ll be back with thoughts of Return to Nuke ‘Em High Volume 1 after the screening. Grade: B-