Don’t you hate it when your fly’s down on Junior League no pants day?
What do you get when 1,700 of the worst actors you’ve ever seen commit 1,000% to a movie about crash-landing into a multi-national terrorist island in which a horny mercenary with AIDS is not even the worst thing that can happen? (Dang, and I said I wasn’t gonna write about that.) Troma’s War! a/k/a the most-violent anti-war film ever made a/k/a Man, I am really getting to hate this place.
As drive-in flicks go, perhaps only Demon Wind from LDI Season 1 had more characters — with War’s ranging from a redneck ex-Airborne in a Hawaiian shirt who might’ve coined ‘Merica when Dubya was still hittin the powder to a Continental in a white suit who can enunciate the hell out of the word “cur-ar-e.” Oh yeah, and a swine-faced guerrilla who had us wishing he’d indulged in Step Seven of the Bobo Rodriguez cold remedy: Physical (Nasal) Detachment with Possible Hallucinations.
All this plus ear necklaces, shots to the pecker, and how to fix conjoined twins’ headache (personal thanks to my watching partner MC Shelby a/k/a @Gemini_Nights for reminding me of those gems). Lloyd Kaufman’s camera adds 10 pounds to TW’s sex and violence, acting as an MRI not only to MPAA censorship and a plethora of late-’80s American social ills but several sets of jungle breasts shot close enough to qualify for an annual mammogram.
Speaking of Lloyd, it goes without saying that few guests can out-riff, out-know and out drive-in Joe Bob on his own show but Yalie and co-mastermind behind Troma Studios for nearly 50 years, might just have done it. Friday night featured a second guest: the absolutely lovely Pat Kaufman, who has balanced an accomplished career in New York film development and the Junior League with married life to America’s favorite lunatic uncle. There’s really no way to capture all of Lloyd and Pat’s stories — from his bouts with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (#GetRidofExplosiveDiarrhea) and his very brief delivery room cameo appearance to the accomplishments of other Kaufman family members including artisanal bread-making brother Charles and late father Stanley Lloyd Sr, who proudly repped Blood Sucking Freaks throughout late ’70s Europe.
Nowhere to go from there but the totals…
• 297 Dead Bodies
• 10 Breasts
• Face Sewing
• Gut Ripping
• Ear Lopping
• Aardvarking on the Beach
• Slimy Worm Droppings
• Vicious Guerrilla Bumper-Boat Attack
• Face-Eating Rubber Snake Attack
• Hari-kari
• Crossbow to the Groin
• 12 Unemployed Actors Set on Fire
• Exploding Jeep
• Exploding Boat
• Exploding Cuban
• Heads Roll
• Ears Roll
• Tongues Roll
• Gratuitous Hymn-Singing
• Gratuitous Mexican Hat Dance
• Kung Fu
• Poison Dart Fu
• Uzi Fu
• Baby Fu
• Outhouse Fu
I’d add Gratuitous Acrobatic Death Plummeting, Minus Wilhelm Scream and Gratuitous Tree Farting — so many reasons why The Last Drive-In is my personal weekly training film for all that ails me. And, like Troma itself, most decidedly here for the underdog.