Terror Firmer

     It happens every year at Cannes, the streets are occupied by the noisy, tacky, ridiculously masked-and-unclothed crew from Troma Pictures, who are hawking the latest sex-and-violence cheapo exploitation picture from Lloyd Kaufman's New York-based company. Troma's huckster president, Kaufman, directs and appears himself in the company's newest, Terror Firmer, saying things like, "Where are those big-titted women at?" and playing a blind independent filmmaker. The reason he's sightless is not for symbolism; it allows Kaufman the chance to urinate at will all over his cast members. It's that kind of movie: peeing,farting, belching, fucking, blood-letting, while a film-within-the-film is being shot, featuring a bare-bosomed, fetching young thing climbing atop a serpentine extraterrestial. There's an iota of plot, involving the a mainstream-movie-loving crew member (Will Keenan) who, loudly proclaiming the virtues of Spielberg, beds a young woman (Alyce LaTourelle) who prefers "auteurs" like Sam Fuller. And then it's back to the anarchic movie set! Terror Firmer is Lloyd Kaufman's 8 1/2, if we're discussing IQ.

GERALD PEARY
(July, 2000)

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