Like a beacon of naked, blood-soaked, vomit-spewing, creatively independent art, New York City's Troma Films continues to defy convention, buck all known systems, and generate astonishingly unique examples of over-the-top cinema.
The studio's latest is Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006), a ferocious tear-up of fast-food culture involving reanimated foul and all manner of Tromatic excess.
At the recent Fangoria Convention in Chicago, Troma president and Poultrygeist director Lloyd Kaufman, accompanied by his favorite leading lady, Debbie Rochon (Picture: 1 - 2), talked with intrepid girl reporter Alix Lakehurst about their latest doings--and undoings.
I just recently watched The First Turn On!!
DEBBIE ROCHON: That's the Madonna (Picture: 1) movie.Yes, why didn't you cast her?
LLOYD KAUFMAN: Because we were stupid--very stupid people.DEBBIE: I think Lloyd wanted her, but the others felt that she couldn't act.
LLOYD: Yes, and also I was at a film festival, and usually when someone is very eager to be in our movies, I will write a part or find something. I just wasn't around when she was there, and she made her own little camp costume, and she said she would do anything to be in a movie. I talk about it in my first book. Unfortunately I wasn't there, and Troma co-founder Michael Herz doesn't like to write extra stuff.
Do you remember which part she was up for, or was she just going for anything?
LLOYD: For the Jewish princess, and Michael felt that Madonna looked more like a Detroit grandmother--he did not find her attractive.Why don't we promote Poultrygeist?
DEBBIE: Yeah! Night of the Chicken Dead!When is it coming out?
LLOYD: It's opening in London April 27th and, oddly enough, it's the Peckham Cinema.DEBBIE: Really! Oh, my God! That's hilarious, very appropriate.
When does Poultrygeist open up in the USA?
LLOYD: I don't know. We have to find a movie theater here in Chicago.How long did it take you to make?
LLOYD: About three years from the time we started working on the script. We started principal photography in 2005.Is there a lot of nudity in Poultrygeist? Do we get beaver?
LLOYD: Yes. And we get male genitalia. We call it male cock.So why poultry, why chicken?
LLOYD: We made a movie called Stuck On You (Picture: 1) many years ago, in 1983, where the protagonist worked in a giant egg-laying factory. His job was to make the chickens lay more eggs. To produce more eggs, he created a porno film with chickens and then put it up on the big screen and 50,000 chickens were watching it and they laid too many eggs. Stuck On You I think is our funniest movie from the '80s. So chickens, we actually had chickens, we raised chickens in our editing room from babies.
We read a book called Fast Food Nation, and it's a wonderful book; it's a page turner. It was very entertaining, much unlike the movie that was made from that book--it was very boring.
And also McDonald's, we had a building in New York called the Troma building and a McDonald's moved in next door. They were very evil in how they treated us as neighbors. We had an infestation in our basement of rats, and my second book opens up with me in the basement fighting these rats, and I had to clean up all this rat shit. That got us thinking that we don't like fast food and then PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, was a sponsor of our film festival TromaDance.
Tell me about TromaDance.
LLOYD: We run a festival every year called TromaDance. We're in our eighth year. It takes place in Park City, Utah, during the Sundance film festival. Same time and place as Sundance except you don't have to pay money to submit your movies to TromaDance, as you have to do with Sundance. Also you can go and see the movies for free.None of the TromaDance movies are Troma movies. They are all independent. This year we had a wonderful film called Viva; it was a 35 millimeter world premiere.
Oh, Anna Biller, who directed Viva, is amazing!
LLOYD: Yes, and right after TromaDance she went to Rotterdam, which is really amazing. No Troma movies have ever gotten into Rotterdam. She's got a really talented group of people with her. She's a real filmmaker.Also, we had the world premier of the Giuseppe Andrews movie Trailer Town. He lives in a trailer camp and he uses all the old drunks. Giuseppe's made about six films, and so we premiered his new film.
So anyone can put a movie in TromaDance?
LLOYD: Go to TromaDance.com and you can download the application and the entry form. It's all free. And then if you can get to TromaDance you can stay in the Troma condo and all of these movers and shakers are in this small town for Sundance. It's a very nice thing.South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone pretty much inspired it. They entered their movie into Sundance and they paid the 300 bucks or whatever and they never even got a "fuck you" out of them, so they just showed their movie and made their own festival. That's kind of how it all started.
So you are very much pro-independent?
LLOYD: Yes! We are the oldest [independent film studio], thirty years, the only one that's been able to survive in this age of conglomerates thanks to MrSkin.com and other alternative universe members that keep us going.How can I be a Tromette?
LLOYD: You should be a Tromette of the month. The Tromettes usually have names like Diphtheria or Gonorrhea. All ending in "ia". We even have Troman of the month.What goes into being Troman of the month?
LLOYD: You have to be a hairless young Asian boy.DEBBIE: (laughing)... that likes to bend over and pick up soap.
LLOYD: Perhaps you've seen me on Dateline Predator?
Was that you?
(Everybody laughing)LLOYD: I was the rabbi they caught.
DEBBIE: But they lit you well!
LLOYD: Yeah, they did.
I don't know if you guys have any problems with hardcore; I mean I do a little hardcore.
DEBBIE: You'd probably get bumped up.LLOYD: That may help you. If there's some hardcore in the script, you know I don't mind that. As long as it's entertaining and it's got some kind of interesting controversial theme to it.
Debbie, tell us about your radio show.
DEBBIE: It's about horror. We like to have people on like Lloyd Kaufman. The interesting people are the indie people like Lloyd, and it has everything to do with horror, whether it's comic books, books, movies. You name it, we cover it.It's hosted by Dee Snider and myself, and I'm one of the producers. It's on Sirius Satellite Radio, channel 101; it's on Friday nights. It's live and then repeats directly after. It's really exciting and a lot of fun. Dee's great. He loves horror and he has a really great sense of humor. Plus he doesn't ask really boring questions; he's more into getting to know the people.
If I came to New York and wanted to, could I be on the show?
DEBBIE: Yes, I think you should, and I think Lloyd should bring you!LLOYD: Yeah, let's do a Friday night and let's talk about Mr. Skin.
DEBBIE: Yeah, Mr. Skin is a huge horror guy.
What are your favorite movie nude scenes?
LLOYD: The lesbian scene in Tromeo and Juliet with Miss Jane Jensen (Picture: 1) and Miss Debbie Rochon. It's a beautiful scene and it's in iambic pentameter.I love that scene. It turned me on.
DEBBIE: It's funny, because that scene was so easy to do, and yet you watch a lot of lesbian scenes in movies that try to copy us and there is no heart in them. That's what's missing because you know when somebody is into it, and it's just sad because that is what makes the scene. It's not just the physical, you know, moving through the motions.LLOYD: We had rehearsed in the rehearsal room and then we'd go to the location and rehearsed and then we'd film. We all worked together quite a bit to get to the scene, so it wasn't like here we are.
DEBBIE: That's right, there was a lot of rehearsal
LLOYD: And Jane was very turned on.
Was it her first time or her first scene, do you know?
LLOYD: Her first film, I think.So she gets to do a lesbian scene in her first film?
LLOYD: Yeah, both a hetero and a lesbian scene.DEBBIE: I think probably, for me, it's Terror Firmer, because there is so much nudity--male and female, everything. I love the pickle scene. The pickle scene is hilarious because there you have a very sexy scene combined with humor, and I like sex and humor combined.
LLOYD: There is. Will Keenan and Alyce LaTourelle (Picture: 1 - 2) have a scene where he is pleasuring her with a pickle and later she masturbates to the idea.
DEBBIE: Yes, that was a total turn on!
LLOYD: And she was definitely having an orgasm I think; I think she had a genuine orgasm when she was masturbating.
DEBBIE: And with a pickle, so you had all these vegetables! You had nudity and sex and it was very graphic. I think it was pretty graphic, and humorous, and a turn-on!
