TERROR FIRMER
Occasionally amusing, extremely gross, but mostly tedious self-parody from the makers of “The Toxic Avenger.”
Running time: 114 minutes. Not rated. (full frontal male/female nudity, gore, mutilation). At the Anthology Film Archives, Second Avenue and Second Street.
TROMA is a New York-based indie company that specializes in ultra-low-budget, heavily tongue-in-cheek shlock-horror films with a high gross-out factor.
Some of them, like “The Toxic Avenger” and “Class of Nuke ‘Em High” are very funny indeed, and have clearly influenced raunchy Hollywood fare like “American Pie” and “Scary Movie.”
Unfortunately, “Terror Firmer,” the latest by Troma’s chief auteur, Lloyd Kaufman, is a self-indulgent bore, so lacking in wit and so gross as to be almost unwatchable.
It’s one of those movies about moviemaking – although the plot is really just an excuse for one over-the-top-gag after another.
Blind indie director Larry Benjamin (Lloyd Kaufman) is trying to make a Troma movie filled with blood and gratuitous T&A, but his cast and crew are being killed off by a serial killer who vaguely resembles Pam Grier’s murderous hooker in “Fort Apache, The Bronx.”
At the same time, a love triangle develops between Spielberg-loving soundman Casey (Will Keenan), production assistant turned actress Jennifer (Alyce LaTourelle) and special effects guy Jerry (Trent Haaga).
There are a couple of noisy sex scenes involving the use of pickles as sex toys, and if that’s not wild enough, cameos from plump porn star Ron “Hedgehog” Jeremy, notorious Manhattan party animal/journalist Anthony Haden-Guest, and Motorhead frontman Lemmy.