From Dreamwatch Issue 109 (October 2003).

As the man behind such cult classics as The Toxic Avenger, Class of Nuke ’Em High, Sergeant Kabukiman NYPD and Surf Nazis Must Die!, Troma Films supreme Lloyd Kaufman has established himself as the king of modern-day low-budget and Z-grade movies. Sharon Gosling gets Troma-tised!

Troma movies won’t be found at your local multiplex, or even in a lot of video stores – but they are out there. There’s a lot of them, and they’re what most people would call bad. Their ingredients include head-crushing scenes created using melons wearing wigs, monsters played by badly disguised midgets, and naked guys running through Times Square with their heads covered in gauze. And yet, despite the enduring disdain of the film industry, Troma has managed to develop a cult status that has steadily expanded to cover the globe and even spawned Troma Cafes in Japan, where fans can watch films like The Toxic Avenger.

Troma was established in 1974 by Lloyd Kaufman with his Yale roommate Michael Herz (who prefers to stay out of the limelight, but to whom Kaufman attributes the company’s entire success). Kaufman is a surprising person. From the films he directs and produces, one would expect a large, brash man with dubious morals and little of value to express. Yet in fact, Kaufman is the exact opposite: charming, gentle, fascinating – and with plenty to say about the state of the film industry and American life.

dreamwatch caught up with the veteran independent filmmaker at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, where he was sharing a one-bedroom apartment with the 14-strong team of young volunteers that had assembled for the annual, anarchic and infamous ‘Troma Cannes’ experience…

What were you thinking when you started Troma?

Well, I was young and it was the 1960s, and there was a peace-and-love feeling in the air – that being an individual and being independent and being small was an OK thing to be. I always expected to be making auteur movies. I was very much taken with the theory of auteur filmmaking, and directors like Sam Fuller and John Ford inspired me.

I knew I wasn’t going to get far in the establishment. I had a few jobs when I got out of Yale – I worked on Rocky, I worked on Saturday Night Fever – and I always wanted to do things my way, but the bosses always wanted me to do things the correct way. I also knew that I wanted to control my movies – the battlefield of the cinema is littered with filmmakers whose careers have died as a result of their oeuvre being tampered with by committees. There are tons of them. So it was apparent to me that I must control what I do, and that the only way that I could really control it was to be able to raise the money. I also knew that the less money I raised, the more control I would have, because the more money you raise the more people there are telling you what to do.

So Michael Herz and I had this theory that we would make very low-budget movies. We would try and put some kind of commercial element into those movies – like a gun. If there are any film students out there, even if you’re making a movie about a raccoon family, put a gun in there somewhere, because the gun gets the attention! Our theory was: put a monster in a movie, put science fiction or an atomic bomb in it… Put in something that people will go to see. Then keep the budget very low and aim at the largest demographic audience, which is young people. We slowly evolved this famous Tromatic touch, which is basically putting all the genres in one movie.

So was that the only reason you decided to include all those controversial elements in your films – just to get people to watch?

No. Lemmy from Motorhead loves our movies and he’s been in them for about 10 years. He’s given us music and he doesn’t charge us – he’s the best. But I went out with him one night and he’s convinced that the only reason I make movies is to piss people off. It’s not true, but I definitely enjoy being a shit-disturber. About two years ago, one of the major French newspapers, Le Figaro, I think, said that I was like Salvador Dali and Luis Bunel, because my work was kind of Dadaist.

The idea is to create strong emotion. We should be hot, we should be emotional. There are half a million black babies dying of starvation, 20 million Americans don’t have healthcare, women are still being set on fire in some countries. There’s a lot of stuff going on out there. Why should we be cool? I’m there to make people feel.

People who go to see a Troma movie know that they will love The Toxic Avenger or they will absolutely hate Sergeant Kabukiman NYPD; they know they will never forget Tromeo and Juliet. They’re going to go on a ride in the cinema that they’ve never had before. There are a lot of people who don’t want to sit there and watch Mel Gibson in What Women Don’t Want, or whatever the movie was.

The majority of the movies we are spoon-fed cost $60 million – that’s the average Hollywood movie! And it’s not even that they’re bad, it’s just that they’re baby food. Because of the budget, they have to be all things to all people. You can survive on baby food, but it’s boring. Troma films are the jalapeno peppers of the cultural lasagne. A lot of people want jalapeno peppers on their cultural lasagne.

With the movies I make, it’s not about the director, the writer – it’s about the filmmaking. We are doing movies for less than one half of one per cent of a typical Hollywood movie, and we’ve refined the art. Citizen Toxie, made in the year 2000, was made for exactly the same price as The Toxic Avenger, which was made in 1983. Part of that is because Troma is famous for giving people a chance, so people are willing to work for free. In 1983, we had to pay people!

So how would you define Troma’s aims in the industry? Do you want to see a complete change in the way the industry works?

Troma wants to survive and prosper, and we’ve been doing that for 30 years, up and down. Right now, it’s the weirdest thing, because we’ve never been more famous, and yet it’s never been harder getting our movies distributed or making movies.

Does that ever make you feel like giving up?

Oh no, I love it. I love making movies, and I believe that in the fullness of time, Troma will become huge. It already is – Troma is an art movement, it is more than just a business. We’ve got Troma clubs in Japan... People are responding to these movies. We are very proud of that.

What do people get from Troma that they don’t get working on other productions?

Well, I think working for Troma is a way to go to film school without paying. If you make it through a Troma movie, it is really like graduating from film school. You may not get paid very much, but you usually get paid something.

Have Troma’s techniques changed at all in the company’s 30-year history?

I think we’ve refined our techniques. We’ve figured out ways to blow up a school for $10 and do it very convincingly. I think we’ve developed the art of head squashing using only a melon… I think we have got better at doing stunts for safety, and for being able to get away with not doing them. We’ve been using the same car flip, and we’ve become world-famous! People love it. We did a Kabukiman car flip in 1989, and we’ve used it in about five movies!

I hear that Troma’s latest project is called Schlock and Schlockability and it’s going to be filmed in Wales…

It’s written with Jane Austen in mind. Jane is up in Heaven with Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy and Mark Twain and they’re looking down. In their day they were shit-disturbers, they were revolutionaries. Jane Austen was doing the women’s lib thing long before Gloria Steinem. They’re upset because their work is being made into this babyfood. So they draw straws and Jane Austen is the one who is sent down to stop it. She’s reincarnated from Heaven into a hard-bodied, muscular Tromette, and kicks Hollywood’s butt, basically. At the end they all come down – Mark Twain with a machine gun, Thomas Hardy with grenade launchers – and they save her at the last minute! I think it’s a very good script.

A TOUCH OF TROMA

The Toxic Avenger (1983)
Plot A tormented geek plunges into a tub of toxic waste and emerges as a horribly disfigured vigilante.
Remembered for Launching Troma’s biggest success, which spawned several sequels and a cartoon series.

Class of Nuke ‘Em High (1986)
Plot Escaped nuclear waste from a nearby power plant mutates a group of high school students.
Remembered for Troma managing to blow up a school for $10.

Sergeant Kabukiman NYPD (1989)
Plot A New York cop suddenly finds himself imbued with fantastic powers from a Japanese Kabuki actor.
Remembered for A car chase that has subsequently turned up in several other Troma films.

Tromeo and Juliet (1996)
Plot It’s Romeo and Juliet, Troma style.
Remembered for Juliet turning into an incestuous hermaphrodite.

Cannibal! The Musical (1996)
Plot The life of Alfred Packer, the only American ever convicted of cannibalism.
Remembered for Being the brainchild of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who went on to create the anarchic animation franchise South Park.