Terror Firmer

Saw Terror Firmer (thanks, Anne!) It was a long, masturbatory pat-on-the-back by the Troma crew for having brought the film The Toxic Avenger into the world. It probably would have helped if I had seen The Toxic Avenger, as I suspect there were some in-jokes I missed. I also suspect there are other in-jokes relating to Troma movies that I haven't even heard of. It follows the fictionalized production of Toxic Avenger. In this version, the production is haunted by a serial-killing woman in a black dress.

The movie has these cute meta-level jokes where they'll talk about an escalator murder in the film they're shooting, but then the woman kills a dude on an escalator for real. Also everyone involved is clearly having a great time (in the escalator murder, the guy being killed is clearly grinning with glee under all the fake blood and guts.) The film's enthusiasm is infectious, but it's also very, very self-indulgent. It's got the signature snotty obnoxiousness of most Troma films. One of the main characters falls in very wholesome and conventional love with another character. Because this is a Troma film, we know this will not end well. It's a tad predictable in its "wild creativity" sometimes but the film is disorganized enough that you will indeed not see the twists coming.

It's very punk-y and is clearly in love with the idea of staunch independence and with its own foul mouth. This manifests in a lot of sex and poop jokes (which are not, in and of themselves, particularly transgressive) and in a few speaches about the importance of independent film-making (which are instantly followed by something dismissive because the Troma films are incapable of sincerity) Although the film is dumb, its rebuttal to any criticism is obviously "Didn't like it? Film your own movie!" which I think is a pretty healthy attitude to have. We can always use more art.

That said, I didn't really like the film very much. It seemed childish and crass, not smart-dumb just dumb-dumb. I got the sense that they were making a lot of references that I didn't understand. Have you ever looked back at films you made with your friends in high school? Sure, they may look pretty cruddy now but you can still fondly remember the blast you all had making it. This film was like that. Sophomoric and not as shocking as it thinks it is, this is clearly the baby of some group of people. They obviously had tremendous fun making this, but as near as I can tell it's crap. Amusing crap.