If you walk long enough among the smokestacks, warehouses and derelict apartments of Long Island City, eventually you'll come across the visage of a lumpy green creature brandishing a mop spray painted across the rolling doors of an otherwise nondescript office building.
With "Welcome To Tromaville…" emblazoned across the awning above the door, it's clear that this isn't just a random piece of street art on some local business; as any horror historian should know, this radioactive grin belongs to the cult film icon The Toxic Avenger, and what you're staring at is the humble headquarters of Troma Entertainment, an independent horror/exploitation film company that has been in operation for more than 40 years.
To appreciate the appeal of Troma is to be a part of a unique breed of film fan. These are fans that shrug off the homogenization and smooth edges of Hollywood in favor of a roster of more than 100 oddball Z movies with titles far afield of the mainstream, including Poultrygeist, Class of Nuke 'Em High, Surf Nazis Must Die, Cannibal! The Musical and a seemingly never-ending supply of sadistic, sardonic, satirical cinema.
This inimitable blend of abject gore, winking camp and underestimated sharp social commentary is the brainchild of two men: Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman.
Kaufman, a veteran of the industry who began his career in the very non-Troma confines of films like Rocky and My Dinner With Andre, sat down with us to talk about how this cult favorite house of horrors has influenced pop culture, taken on the mainstream and helped launch careers, all while forging an unmatched relationship with the fans.
"Michael Herz and I, from the beginning, wanted Troma to be a petri dish for new talent," said Kaufman, who was joined for our interview by the Toxic Avenger himself, who is apparently a fan of early '80s punk band Minor Threat. "Our slogan, until a few years ago, was 'Movies of the Future.' And if you look at the current $50-$100 million mainstream movies, they harken back to what we were doing in the '80s."
For 42 years, Troma's signature blend of toilet humor, horror and camp has been one of the best-kept secrets in the film industry, yet that hasn't stopped Hollywood from looking at the company for inspiration when it needs the type of offbeat energy that no classically trained auteur can give them.
The most recent in a long line of examples is Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn, who got his start at Troma as the writer on Tromeo and Juliet and Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV, which not only includes a role for adult film legend Ron Jeremy, but also involves a character affectionately known as Lardass.
Not just any young director with an idea and a working knowledge of a camera necessarily fits the Troma style, though. Despite the studio's penchant for the disgusting and obscene, there is a philosophy that the company holds on to, and it tries to find filmmakers that buy into it.
"The idea is you look for talent that's one-of-a-kind, that fits in with our world view, which is the little people fighting against the three pillars of elitism," Kaufman said. "Many of the young people who started here have been very, very talented, and have been fighting to change the world a bit."
To look at Troma as a studio solely focused on gross-out humor and cartoonish gore is to ignore the underlying message of these films - and yes, there is a message behind all the severed heads and phallic props. While you can look at Toxic Avenger as nothing more than a sadistic take on the superhero genre, a closer look will offer up a message on the misuse and mistreatment of our own environment. Poultrygeist is another movie with a message, as it takes aim at the dangerous conglomerates of the fast food industry.
"Well, Michael Herz and I went to Yale University, so clearly the very intellectual background is very present," Kaufman said with a chuckle. One of the people Kaufman likes to quote on this matter is Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., the late associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, who Kaufman paraphrased as once saying, "In order to be a citizen of the world, you must partake of the actions and passions of your time."
For someone like Kaufman, there's no better fodder for satire than a presidential election, and as the race itself begins to resemble a hackneyed SNL skit, he's making sure Troma's voice is heard when it comes to who he thinks should be our next Commander in Chief.
"We have already unleashed a huge campaign to push Bernie [Sanders] over the line in Iowa," Kaufman said, referencing a recent string of YouTube videos aimed at supporting Sanders' presidential bid. "I'm quite an expert at corn, so Iowa is particularly attractive to me. We'll have to see. If Bernie wins in Iowa, Troma's really gonna get behind him."
It might be surreal to see Lloyd and The Toxic Avenger talk about subjects like student loan debt and pay inequality for women, but for the company's fans, they wouldn't want to hear about these issues any other way. They understand that beneath the exploitative nature of movies like Chopper Chicks in Zombietown and A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell, Troma is, usually, trying to get a message across to its fan base.
"All of the movies we've produced, directed and written … have all dealt with current events," Kaufman said. The trend continues today, as the upcoming Return to Class of Nuke 'em High Vol. 2 is, according to Kaufman, "all about the poisonous food that young people are eating today. Yet it's an entertaining movie with stars of the future."
With films shot on a shoestring budget and subject matter that doesn't exactly fit our PC culture, it might sound tongue-in-cheek when Kaufman talks about the stars of the future. But when you tout an alumni base that includes Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Kevin Costner, Samuel L. Jackson and J.J. Abrams, it's obvious that Troma truly is the petri dish of new talent that Kaufman envisioned.
And it's not just passionate actors and filmmakers that Troma attracts; the company has a passionate fan base that is almost as notable as the films themselves. Kaufman is aware of just how important this small, but vocal, sect of Tromaville-dwellers is to the company's success, so he makes sure Troma films are available for free to whoever wants them.
"Sell Your Own Damn Movie, my most visionary book, talks about sharing art. I was a fan of Napster, I was a fan of file sharing from the beginning," Kaufman said. "We can't live without the public domain. That's where the cure for cancer will come from. That's where the great novels will come from."
"So I'm for shared, a reasonably shared, society. And certainly, giving away our movies on YouTube is what we should be doing. Share 'em," Kaufman said. "Our fans are young and poor and give it to them. And plus, they spent 42 years wasting their time on Troma movies when they could have been studying the Bible. So the YouTube channel is a good thing."
This isn't just lip service by Kaufman. One look at Troma's YouTube channel unleashes countless hours of movies, documentaries, original content, music videos and past Troma classics, including the famous Toxic Crusaders cartoon series.
As Troma attempts to hook a new generation of film fans on its unique brand of shock and shlock, the company is always looking at the future, which might just involve the rebirth of the company's very own mutated mascot.
"Well, there's a big-budget Toxic Avenger reboot or reimagination or reimagining or remake or sequel — I don't know what you call it. But it's one of those $100 million things," Kaufman said. "Akiva Goldsman, who won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind, is leading the charge with Richard Saperstein, who remade my brother's movie, Mother's Day, which is Eli Roth's favorite horror film of all time. Anyway, they're planning to do a recreation of The Toxic Avenger with big stars, or whatever."
"We are working on Toxic Avenger Part V," Kaufman revealed, making sure to emphasize the difference between Hollywood's upcoming reboot and Troma's own separate sequel. "We've got a rough draft and Toxie goes to Chernobyl in it, and it should be pretty interesting."
While modern movie studios depend on a constant stream of franchises and licensed properties to stay relevant, Troma has the advantage of depending on the one resource that will never dry up: society's own failings.
When you deal with issues like pollution, dangerous foods, racism, classism and corporate greed, you'll, unfortunately, never run out of material to skewer. As long as the movies continue to combine those issues with the violence and humor that these fans have loved for over 40 years, Kaufman's vision of Troma will never go out of style.
