Tag: exploitation

The Toxic Avenger Part II (1989)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Welcome back to another trip to Tromaville, New Jersey, for a brand new B-Movie Enema review!

Back for Christmas 2022, I took a trip to everyone’s nuclear waste-ridden town to discuss Lloyd Kaufman’s original superhero, The Toxic Avenger. That 1984 breakout hit for Kaufman’s Troma Entertainment was brash, offensive, slapdash, but brilliant in many ways. The sheer irreverence in Kaufman’s style of comedy is in full display here. That wasn’t Lloyd’s first film he directed, and it certainly was not his first comedy, but this was the one that skyrocketed Troma into the vocabulary for all those exploitation, trash cinema fans scouring the video store shelves looking for some depraved weekend entertainment in the 80s.

Funny enough, Lloyd Kaufman’s sex comedies between 1979 and 1983 all had titles with exclamation points: Squeeze Play!, Waitress!, Stuck on You!, and The First Turn-On! You gotta love Lloyd’s commitment to the schtick. Then again, considering how bombastic his mannerisms and the way he speaks, I have to assume he shouted the titles he wanted to put on his movies, and the guy who made the title cards just thought that was part of the title.

Eh… Anyway, considering a bigger budget remake of the original The Toxic Avenger is now hitting theaters across the country, starring a for-real Emmy Award-winning actor, Peter Dinklage, I figured it’s time to revisit the world of Toxie. This week, we’re going to look at the 1989 sequel to the original, The Toxic Avenger Part II.

(Oh, and my official review of the new Toxic Avenger movie? It’s a lot of fun and has a surprising amount of heart but keeps the counterculture vibes of Lloyd’s original intact. 4 out of 5 stars!)

Continue reading “The Toxic Avenger Part II (1989)” →

Monsturd (2003)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

There’s a line in that last song in Grease that has been cut out due to no one understanding what the fuck it meant in 1978: We go together like Monsturd and B-Movie Enema. And then there’s a bunch of nonsense words like someone is doing a 50s white boy scat before it says something about being remembered forever or some such shit.

Heh… scat.

Double heh… shit.

Continue reading “Monsturd (2003)” →

Lucky Bastard (2013)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Welcome back to B-Movie Enema!

It’s Friday the 13th! As is the case commonly over the last few Friday the 13ths, I am totally fumbling the bag on what I’m reviewing. Oh, sure, I could surely find another outing from good ol’ Jason Voorhees to write about. That Jason Goes to Hell is a shitfest, but it’s a shitfest I take no pleasure in watching. So, instead, I’m going to celebrate Friday the 13th with a movie from 2013 that features something that we all like watching… found footage!

What, did you think I was going to say porn? I dunno about you, but I’m strictly anti-porn. Who on Earth would possibly want to watch succulent naked bodies doing things to give themselves pleasure with toys or digits or appendages or, I dunno… cucumbers or something? No sirree… I do not condone sexual gratification.

Nah, I’m fuckin’ with ya. Porn is great… in moderation. And pornography is at the heart of the movie getting reviewed this week, 2013’s Lucky Bastard from director Robert Nathan. Nathan got his start in media as a novelist, most notably for writing the political thriller The White Tiger, which was set in China back in Mao’s rule. In the 90s, Nathan started writing a ton of episodes for Law and Order. Lucky Bastard is the only film he wrote and directed aside from a TV movie the same year called The Grim Sleeper.

Continue reading “Lucky Bastard (2013)” →

The Burning (1981)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Welcome to a new B-Movie Enema review, and welcome to the official start of summer.

Yeah, you read the right, bitches. I say when summer starts. And it starts right now as we say goodbye to May this weekend and hello to June. With the warmer months, traditionally speaking, people start taking vacations in various ways. Families might plan trips to lakes to go boating and maybe fish or something. They may plan on going to Disney World. The days get longer and the movies get more fun and entertaining (for better or worse). Parents are ready, after a long, grueling school year dealing with piss poor report cards and parent-teacher conferences, to send their kids to a camp to get them out of their goddamn hair for a few weeks.

That desire to make your kids someone else’s problem gave birth to two very distinctly 80s subgenres in movies. The first were comedies like 1979’s Meatballs. The second, much more popular subgenre, was the slasher horror like 1980’s Friday the 13th. The latter is where this week’s featured movie, 1981’s The Burning, lies.

Continue reading “The Burning (1981)” →

Her Private Hell (1968)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle1 Comment

Welcome to another review here at B-Movie Enema.

If you have been around this website for a while, you know that we’re fans of the works of British director Norman J. Warren. So much so, of the nine feature films he directed between 1968 and 1987, I’ve already covered two-thirds of them over the years. Well, it’s time to start getting into that final third I’ve not yet touched. While I’ve mostly covered his best known films in the horror genre, the last time out, I looked at 1979’s Spaced Out, a return for Warren into the world of the sexploitation circles.

Sexploitation was where Warren got his start. In 1967, our favorite director was 25 years old and already had two shorts under his belt, 1963’s Drinkin Time and 1965’s Fragment. As he would put it, he was desperate for a job, especially one on a feature film. Enter producer Bachoo Sen and arthouse cinema owner Richard Schulman. The two had just entered into a partnership to start making their own films. It just so happens that Schulman had been screening Warren’s Fragment at his cinema. They needed a director for their first film, and they approached Warren. Warren, as I mentioned, was desperate and had no idea what he would be asked to make, but a job was a job.

Norman J. Warren’s feature film career began with this week’s movie, Her Private Hell.

Continue reading “Her Private Hell (1968)” →

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Welcome back to B-Movie Enema and the final week of Troma Month!

This month has been a fun one, hasn’t it? Whether it’s a love letter to Kaufman’s appreciation of William Shakespeare in the romance Tromeo and Juliet, or the earlier Tromaville kids run amok horror Class of Nuke ‘Em High, or the most Troma film of them all, Terror Firmer… It’s been a good time visiting these classics from the 80s and 90s master of gross-out comedy, horror, and comedy-horror, Lloyd Kaufman. But now, we bring things to a close with another dark comedy-horror from the man himself. However, this time, we have a bit of a twist.

This time we have a musical.

Yes, it’s Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead. This time around, Kaufman has a little uncredited help from one of the co-writers of the film, Gabriel Friedman. Friedman would go on to be a producer for specials for the cable channels E! and G4, as well as for online series like The IGN Show. In fact, he mostly worked on a lot of specials and behind-the-scenes stuff, including making-of documentaries for Troma films like Terror Firmer and Citizen Toxie. His writing credits are mostly for Troma films like this one, Make Your Own Damn Movie!, the aforementioned fourth Toxie flick, and Lloyd Kaufman’s most recent, #ShakespearesShitstorm.

Continue reading “Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006)” →

Terror Firmer (1999)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Welcome back! It’s the third week of Troma Month here at B-Movie Enema and it’s time to go back, sorta, to the James Gunn well. This week, I’m gonna be talking about 1999’s Terror Firmer.

What do I mean about this sorta going back to the James Gunn well? That’s because, to a certain extent, Lloyd Kaufman, along with co-writers Douglas Buck and Patrick Cassidy, based this movie’s script, albeit loosely, on the 1998 book All I Need to Know about Filmmaking I Learned from the Toxic Avenger. That book was co-written by Kaufman and James Gunn.

I made the comment last week, in my review for Class of Nuke ‘Em High, that I kind of put Kaufman in the same camp as Roger Corman. Corman, back in the 50s and 60s, were cranking out cheap B-movies quickly. However, quickly those movies were, and however cheaply they were made, most (especially in today’s film culture) could not look at those movies and think they weren’t made professionally. Maybe the monster was kind of goofy, but you couldn’t argue that the cast was well-directed and doing their jobs professionally.

I bring up that commentary I made because Roger Corman wrote the introduction to the book this is sort of based on.

Continue reading “Terror Firmer (1999)” →

Class of Nuke ‘Em High (1986)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle2 Comments

Welcome back to Troma Month here at B-Movie Enema!

Last week, it just so happened, the month started with a leadoff home run with Tromeo and Juliet, a movie that I believe, by the time we finish this month and I’ve increased my viewership of movies made internally by Troma, will be the best film ever released by the company. I know, I know… Toxie and what have you. There was just something special about Tromeo and Juliet that had my by the balls and shook me about until I cried out for my mommy to save me.

Wait…

Eh… anyway… This week, we’re going back to the 80s when Troma and their fictional hometown of Tromaville was in its infancy. We’re looking at 1986’s Class of Nuke ‘Em High. This horror/sci-fi/comedy was Lloyd Kaufman’s follow-up to his seminal 1984 classic The Toxic Avenger. This time, though, he wasn’t alone. Kaufman shared directing duties with Troma editor Richard W. Haines.

Continue reading “Class of Nuke ‘Em High (1986)” →