Tromeo and Juliet (1996)

It’s Troma Month here at B-Movie Enema!

Heck yeah, this is looooong overdue. I think the best thing I need to do to start things off here is to admit something. I don’t really have a great deal of history with Troma. I like Lloyd Kaufman. I like what he does to inspire new filmmakers. I like the general absurdity with the Troma films, particularly the ones that they create and make in-house. Sure, I’ve seen a handful of them. Of course, I’ve seen The Toxic Avenger. I grew up with Mother’s Day. Troma’s War? Yeah, I’ve seen it. But I had a little more experience seeing movies distributed by Troma as opposed to the movies they made themselves.

That said, Lloyd Kaufman’s personality is so larger than life that it feels like I’ve seen more from him than I have. So, this month, I wanna fix that. Let’s take a look at some of Troma’s catalog. I think I picked four pretty popular films from Kaufman specifically. We kick things off with his 1996 Shakespeare parody, Tromeo and Juliet.

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Big Man Japan (2007)

Welcome back, Enemaniacs!

Yup, it’s another Friday and another review here at B-Movie Enema. This week, allow me to take you to the magical islands of Japan. There, we’ll meet Masaru Daisatou. Daisatou-san is seemingly a normal guy, but he’s got a special superpower. That superpower allows him to grow about 30 meters in height when he receives a jolt of high voltage electricity. He uses this superpower to fight monsters just as his father and grandfather did before him in the identity of Big Man Japan.

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Candy Stripe Nurses (1974)

They’ll give us fast-fast-fast relief!

That’s what the poster says for this week’s movie, and I bet they mean it too! Welcome to another review here at B-Movie Enema. Also, welcome to another review of a movie from Roger Corman’s New World Pictures! 1974’s Candy Stripe Nurses was part of the company’s “nurses cycle”. However, there’s a very specific reason why we’re starting with this one, which happens to be the final entry of the five-film, loose series.

I may have used Valentine’s Day last week to do My Bloody Valentine because it’s a movie that has the day right in its goddamn title (and, frankly, the movie was overdue to get coverage here), but I won’t deny that this movie was nearly chosen instead. Thankfully, last week did feature the triumphant return of Cynthia Dale, so there’s that. But the main reason why this almost won out over that movie for the Valentine’s Day review?

Two words: Candice Rialson.

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Voyage of the Rock Aliens (1984)

Welcome to the final entry in B-Movie Enema’s Pia Zadora Month.

1984’s Voyage of the Rock Aliens, believe it or not, pretty much ended Pia Zadora’s film career. There are still a few film credits in the ten years following this movie, but in only one of those did she ever play a character. That came in John Waters’ 1989 camp musical Hairspray where she played a “Beatnik Chick”. The other three film credits were all playing herself. Perhaps the most notable of those films in which she appeared as herself was in 1994’s Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult.

Fittingly, in that, she is performing at the Academy Awards.

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Pajama Tops (1983)

Welcome back to another review here at B-Movie Enema!

January 2025 has been dedicated to Pia Zadora. Right here in the middle of the month dedicated to the lil’ starlet is not a feature film shown on the big screen. We’re going to look at the 1983 TV movie Pajama Tops. This “movie” was directed by Robert Iscove. Iscove has a whole lot of credits on his filmography. This includes a LOT of TV stuff. He directed episodes of Wiseguy, Star Trek: The Next Generation, 21 Jump Street, The Flash, American Playhouse, Great Performances, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

However, Iscove then made two kind of famous movies. One is famous for being one of those 90s movies that gained a huge fanbase and the other is kind of infamous. The one with the fanbase is 1999’s She’s All That. Yeah, everyone loves She’s All That, right? Rachel Leigh Cook, Freddie Prinze Jr., and Paul Walker! Yeah! We love those guys. However, the other film that isn’t so well-liked is 2003’s From Justin to Kelly. That’s the movie that starred the winner and runner-up of the very first season of American Idol – Kelly Clarkson and Justin Guarini.

Can you believe American Idol is still going?!?

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Fake-Out (a.k.a. Nevada Heat, 1982)

Welcome back to B-Movie Enema and another entry in January’s Pia Zadora Month!

Alright, so check this shit out… Last week’s movie, Butterfly, was directed by Matt Cimber. I had mentioned that we had already seen one of his movies (The Candy Tangerine Man) and that it was highly unlikely we would never see him again on this blog. Well, I wasn’t just whistlin’ Dixie. He’s already back! Yeah, Matt Cimber made two films in 1982 and both starred Pia Zadora!

That brings us to Fake-Out. At times, this movie was also released under the title Nevada Heat. I actually know it was called that because that was the name on the box we had at the video store I worked at in the 90s. Anyway, whereas Butterfly was a James M. Cain-adapted crime drama, Fake-Out sticks with the crime part of the genre, but it’s also a comedy. But it also gives Zadora a chance to be on film and sing too.

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Galaxina (1980)

Welcome to B-Movie Enema, and let’s all say goodbye together to 2024.

I’m sure by now, people have made the final decision if 2024 was good, bad, or meh. I’m also guessing we’ve already made the determination that 2025 has to be better, right? Well, to send Old Man 2024 out, I figured it was high time to talk about the 1980 sci-fi comedy Galaxina.

Now, obviously, there’s an elephant in the room when it comes to this movie. We’ll talk about her in just a moment. First, what I find kind of interesting about this movie is that the movie is not without a great deal of imagination and fun with more than a hint of camp. But it wasn’t cheap. The movie cost $4 million. That’s a mid-range budget in 1980. What’s even more peculiar is that this is a mid-range budget movie that was originally supposed to be shot in three weeks. What’s more, is that it took LESS than 20 days to shoot because of bad weather. So, we have ourselves a multi-million-dollar picture that was supposed to be shot in less than three weeks, only for it to be shot in even less time, and just to get the movie out, scenes were cut so it leaves the movie sort of incomplete.

You gotta love these types of Hollywood lore.

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Spaced Out (1979)

Since this is the holiday season, Enemaniacs, I figured I deserve a bit of a gift. After all, Metamorphosis was so lacking in charm and good vibes, that I kind of need something. So, for this week’s B-Movie Enema review, and with Christmas just around the corner, I’m gifting myself the return of a favorite around these parts, Mr. Norman J. Warren.

Hell yeah, guys, gals, and non-binary pals, Norman J. Warren is back!

One of the things I’ve always loved about our friend Norman is that he doesn’t seem to ever make the same movie twice. Certainly, if you go through his filmography, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any two movies that resemble each other in succession. That’s what we have here with 1979’s Spaced Out. In the 60s, Warren made sex comedies but decided to move into horror in the 70s. In three consecutive years, he directed Satan’s Slave, Prey, and Terror. All three of those have been covered here, and all three are quite different in terms of horror films. Spaced Out would be a return to his old form, as it were, with a comedy.

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