Review--Return to Nuke' Em High Vol. 1

Troma is an important staple for any fan of dumb B-movies. To this day, the original The Toxic Avenger and Class of Nuke' Em High are classics of the genre. There's a lot of crap around that (mostly crap honestly), but the little company-that-could made something of a "comeback" with entries like Tromeo and Juliet (written by the director of the upcoming Marvel flick Guardians of the Galaxy, James Gunn) and Terror Firmer.

This eventually led to the anticipated return of Toxie in the stupidly entertaining The Toxic Avenger IV. So it's not a surprise that Lloyd Kaufman would eventually get around to making a sequel to that other Troma movie people have actually heard of. When it opened with the original theme song I had a big smile on my face. It wasn't soon afterward that my smile turned into a look of flaccid boredom.

The plot--if you want to call it that--has to do with the students eating irradiated food that is being investigated by blogger Chrissy (Asta Paredes). She becomes annoyed by a new rich kid named Lauren (Catherine Corcoran) before they give into their carnal desires and become lesbians.

It's not necessarily that no effort is put into the plot--this is schlock after all--but that it all feels so lazy. Troma movies have always been goofy and filled with low-ball gags, but at this point they're nothing more than a series of bad jokes loosely strung together. Lloyd Kaufman believes that all he has to do for a scene to strike comedy gold is to add a fart sound effect. I never thought I'd be complaining about farts, but this is where we've arrived.

The Cretins themselves are a total afterthought. They begin as members of the glee club (I guess they're supposed to be retarded because that's OUTRAGEOUS) who are transformed by the toxic waste or whatever the fuck is going on. When they become Cretins it causes them to show up arbitrarily at certain points in the movie and sing like a barbershop quartet. Because if there was anything in Poultrygeist we all wanted more of, it was the musical numbers.

Even the lesbian romance is lame. Yes, it's an excuse for the two leads to get naked and make-out (probably the only excuse for this to exist), but we're supposed to still accept lesbians as this wild and crazy thing. It's 2014 and nobody cares anymore. Time for Lloyd to update his taboo rolodex.

It doesn't matter though. Troma makes a product for a niche audience that will still support them. Hell, pretty much everyone in the movie is made up of their fans. You can tell because they look like the people hunched over long boxes in the local comic shop searching for back-issues of Micronauts. Normally I'd be right there with them, but unless Volume 2 knocks it out of the park (the lesson here is to never take advice from Quentin Taratino) it might be time for Lloyd to step back into a producer role and allow the fans who grew up with his movies to take creative control of them.

The Blu-Ray has a few short entertaining extras, but nothing substantial. I'm assuming they're going to save a making of feature for Vol. 2. The full-length making of Toxic Avenger IV was even better than the movie, so hopefully it will be included since that alone will be worth the price.