Terror Firmer 2000

Shot in 1998, Troma's Terror Firmer is, if you look past the horribly dated hipster milieu & cheap technology, as relevant as the most popular satire in 2017. This film marks a turning point for the world's longest lasting independent company, for better and worse. Following Tromeo & Juliet and preceding Citizen Toxie, this is a much weaker and cheaper exercise but probably the most original conceptually and the most sincere aesthetically. TF would be the first film to really cut down on production to an almost amateur level, embrace a very infantile & anarchistic style of entertainment and preach an Anti-Hollywood message over all other plot elements. The film suffers because it does stray so far from Troma's bread and butter: romantic comedy, action, low budget spectacle, but it is a valiant effort to experiment & push boundaries, especially when it comes to censorship.

The script is a self-deprecating, modest but still (overly?) proud manifesto for Troma's work ethic & a great representation of Lloyd Kaufman. What will be Kaufman's legacy? In Terror Firmer, he casts himself as a blind director of very little taste or know-how, but some mixed up but very pure ideals about freedom. Some of it is muddled and contradictory when you realize the message is basically "Work for free for this shared vision that I profit from" (which is more troubling given Troma's history of exploiting workers & hired artists), but I guess Kaufman's message is to suffer for a greater good. He doesn't seem to think much of his workers on one hand, yet he does give them opportunities to be themselves in his well-known little factory when Hollywood wouldn't consider 9/10ths of these often talented people. The best contradiction is that the plot involves Troma literally letting cast & crew get murdered before stopping their pursuit to make movies while unironically touting how safe their shoots are. Kaufman and his partner Herz are probably more concerned with the legal ramifications than human preservation, but are they totally hucksters in the vein of Golan & Globus or The Weinsteins, who were forced by exclusion to be low budget mavens? Does it matter when they became sincere artists later?

I think Terror Firmer speaks to the sincerity (at least in Kaufman's case) of Troma's left-wing roots. The preceding "Troma's War" and "Tromeo..." showed hints of a radicalization of Troma, but "Terror..." is an explosion of insanely fresh & progressive topics. Namely sexual confusion, which almost 20 years later has become an obsession and violent debate in America. So while Troma has a history of exploitation, money-grubbing and some disturbing inconsistencies, they really started to mature in this era & maintained a very fashion-forward stance. Unfortunately it took them losing their commercial powers completely before waking up.  It would be great to see the full-blown anarchy and abuse of budget in their 80s films married with their underlying leftist politics. With the Toxic Avenger sequels and such, Troma's message got bogged down in gags, FX and cheap exploitation tricks for distributors and investors. And Terror Firmer suffers from the same ills, BUT owns up to them within the context of the plot, saving the film and making it a meta-commentary on the state of low budget art.

Why am I recommending this mostly unfunny & clumsy little movie? Because its more than that. What it lacks in script, budget, style & execution it more than makes up for in sheer charm, dedication & bravery. While overloaded with bits and characters that just don't matter, the film WORKS when it focuses on its core story: a screwball love triangle between 3 film crew members that turns into a sexual horror story. Its a great commentary on feminism, rape culture, gender politics and most ambitiously transgenderism. It feels like a lost Sleepaway Camp film written by South Park fanboys and that is what society REALLY needed then & now. SPOILER: TF uses hermaphrodites as a McGuffin (can't believe I typed that (and they wrote it)) to explore the sexual sickness in our Millennial culture. The film is full of clever sexually confused imagery and casts gays, drag queens, kings, transexuals in peripheral roles to subtly prepare for the climactic twist and you get the idea that Kaufman is very concerned about this issue and respects the plight of these people. Its just all filtered through the mind of a middle aged Jewish Yale graduate who originally made movies for a quick buck and fart jokes. So you're really seeing the arrival of an artist here (though Tromeo & Juliet is a forerunner & The Toxic Avenger is quite an aesthetic feat for its time). Directors need vision & technique and Kaufman has little of both, but he has an excessive knowledge of economics & morals. That makes him a better artist than a commercial entertainer and has relegated him to a cinematic ghetto but he is a cult hero to fringe fans & DIY filmmakers and has become an influence on a generation of big time Hollywood workers.

Check out this film. Parts of it are a chore but its an inspired and inspiring work from an important group of filmmakers. Few films shot in 1998 or released in 2000 will hold up to the morals & politics of today's youth & counterculture, but this crappy "Scream" parody does. Thats a sign of true art.