Troma’s War

Troma’s War
Directors: Michael Herz, Lloyd Kaufman
Stars: Carolyn Beauchamp, Sean Bowen and Rick Washburn

Survivors of a Troma Airline’s plane crash wash ashore on an island with right wing extremist with plans to take over the world; it’s up to the citizens of Tromaville to stop the extremist.

After watching Troma movies for years I know what to expect from a Herz/Kaufman production. All the staples of low budget exploitation film making are there, as well as an intentionally bad script, bad acting, and a bad film as a whole. Troma embraces these attributes and plays them to the limit.

Although this movie has all the main ingredients of a good Troma film, I was a little disappointed. It’s not from the bad acting, special FX, script, or production values, but rather the repetition of scenes that at first are funny, toward the middle are tiresome, and by the end just plain boring.

I know the purpose of this film was to lampoon all the crazy action films of the 80’s that seem like nothing more than excuses to show gun fights and blow shit up. They really do pack more of these set pieces in this movie than any action film I can think of.

The question is do we really need a spoof? I guess at the time this was made the answer was probably justified as yes, looking at it now it all seems a little unnecessary.

My oldest son is 12, he loves the Missing in Action trilogy as well as the Delta Force movies. He will watch these films in order from start to finish whenever he’s bored or just in the mood. When he does he laughs his ass off. He totally gets it, he knows these were serious films at one time, but can see the unintentional hilarity of them now. The big explosions, gun fights, and tough guy bravado is nothing more to him than good joke fodder.

The biggest box office action hits of the 80’s are funny enough as they are and don’t need the spoof treatment. Hold this film up to say, Rambo III and I guarantee it will be the Stallone vehicle getting the most laughs.