"Debbie Rochon Confidential:My Years in Tromaville"(2006)d/Troma Team Video

Face it, there are a lot worse ways to pitch a dvd to a guy than plastering the cover with delectable Tromette/Scream Queen/self-proclaimed Queen of independent Cinema, Debbie Rochon, all raccoon-eyed with a length of duct tape slapped across her pretty yap.Sure, it appeals to baser urges usually trapped in the criminal corner of the subconscious, but when has that(or anything, for that matter) ever stopped Troma pioneer and lead pitchman Lloyd Kaufman from using it(and/or any means possible) to milk a few measly bucks out of your wallet?Hey, you could part with the same sawbuck while buying posh wrapping paper n' ribbons for yer Grandpa's special holiday gift this season, when you know damned well the senile old coot probably won't make it through the winter and would much rather a good ol' Troma Team Video, with enough blood, boobs, and toilet humor to keep his Depends Cruisers extra snug around the berries during his last, blustery cold, lonely nights on earth at the convalescent prison you unflinchingly locked him in a few years back, so you could get your life back on track without worrying about diapers, cat food, or nipple-high polyester slacks for awhile.Or something like that, you know.Tonight's review is a veritable eyeball banquet for fanboys(and girls, I'm sure) of Ms. Rochon, whose keen sense of humor and ample physical charms have been on display in Troma films since Tromeo defied the stars.Be sure to look for a special cameo appearance from Lloyd Kaufman.And Lloyd Kaufman.

When she's seducing the Jiffy Pop, it just makes me wanna Redenbacher.
We open with Debbie in a platinum wig, stepping into a shower(with her heels on, for some odd reason), only to be disobliged, Psycho(1960)-style by a cameraman, who she batters repetetively with an impressive flow of profanity.After a brief title sequence, we find our foul-mouthed Tromette toplessly tonguing some Jiffy Pop popcorn, before rubbing the tin foil container suggestively upon her pubic mound and moaning,"Ohhhhh, popcorn!".If that doesn't get the kernels a-poppin', what will? I ask you.She's interrupted by an inquisitive Scream-esque phone call that calls her a "tough nut to crack" due to her aversion to new ultra-hip, ironic slasher movies with four ninety-nine masks.She replies:"Fuckin' A, pal!"She urges the voice to try to scare her.It tells her she's broke.Some repo men arrive to jack her shit.She curses them six ways from Sunday.They tell her she can keep her Troma videos.Whatta gal.We see some quicky video promos with Kaufman's superlative teleprompter reading skills, several scantily sclad Tromettes(Debbie included), and his iconic Toxie for cult hits like Tromeo and Juliet and Class of Nuke 'Em High 3:The Good, The Bad, and the Subhumanoid.Okay, 'cult hits' might be stretching it a little.But everybody's having fun hardselling it for the cameras, so, who am I to judge?The skits continue.There's a bikini-clad board of Troma directors, Lloyd picks his nose on-camera and fumbles through multiple takes in zombie makeup.Debbie interviews Oliver Stone via clips from "Sugar Cookies".More lovingly restored, digitally remastered director's cut dvds are humorously introed by Lloyd and Debbie.Several.

I've seen this particular pair o'bobblers somewhere before.Hmmmmm...
After inspecting a wall of much autographed Debbie-bilia with a pair of hefty fanboys, we come to a video tribute to Rochon that finds her rubbing elbows at a convention with a couple of guys who might want to haunt the circuit less often until they've seen some extensive cosmetic dental procedures.Seriously, bro.The Godzilla vinyl collection'll be there waiting for you when you get out of oral surgery.Debbie's webmaster gets some screen time.Then it's time for footage from her film appearances, like 2007's Poultrygeist where she gets hit in the head with a soft drink while Az-based ginger scream queen Elske McCain repeatedly screams "Fuck you!" while jumping up and down with her tits out.Then, in 1999's Terror Firmer, we find Debbie in a familiar blonde wig getting ploughed in a public toilet from behind as a blind Lloyd Kaufman serves up some urine-based coitus interruptus while offering African bowel-evacuation tips.Nice.Next is 1995's Tromeo and Juliet, where Debbie with faux tats n' piercings goes Chaz Bono on her blonde co-star.Nipples rub together and everything.If you think that was gay, next we find her in a lesbian comedy short by Jamie Greco, where, as Virginia Scum, she's hanky-headed in flannel, surrounded by framed posters of Rosie O'Donnell, and given a vagina-themed bush cake before discovering her goth daughter blows dildos in the stairwell("I'm not a Scum, I'm a slut!").They tie her latest eye patch-sporting piece of meat to a kitchen chair and stuff tampons in his mouth before stabbing each other to death, exclaiming, "We're women!We're women!".Roll credits.

Stay classy, Lloyd.
Don't let that single wop scare you away, friends, as Troma and the much coveted one wop score have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship together over the years.For the throngs of Troma fans out there, there's cheap thrills a' plenty; everything you've come to expect from Lloyd and Co. and more here.Though my generation's scream queens had names like Steele, Pitt, Curtis, and Carlson, I've gotta admit, some of this current wave of models are pretty tasty in their own right, Rochon included.If I were a Ouija Board, and you asked me if I thought she would enjoy even greater success in genre films and media, I'd spell out q-u-i-t-e, instead of sliding over "Yes", just because that's the kinda guy I am.But yes.

Granny's home remedy looks an awful lot like the hair o'the dog that bit me.

"Splatter University"(1984)d/Richard W. Haines

We've covered some of the best examples of the slasher sub-genre over the past five years here at Wopsploitation.This ain't one of 'em.I clearly remember the first time I endured tonight's feculent lump of cinematic guano, as a rental at D's Video on Main Street of a burned out shell of a once-prosperous mining town some folks liked to call Pittston.We all had made our movie choice for the evening, and Splatter U, unfortunately, was mine.Faces of Death 2 must have been rented out already.I'm guessing some of my boys back then that I haven't talked to in over twenty years still hold having to endure Splatter U against me.I don't blame them.I don't liken the production of a slasher flick to be as difficult as something like, say, auto-neuropathology, or some shit.It's a simple formula that's been xeroxed by hundreds of movies over the years, and you'd have to be pretty worthless to fuck it up.Take a cold-blooded psychopath, throw a couple of hot naked chicks in front of the camera who can scream worth a shit(dub them in afterwards if they can't), and dump gallons of blood all over them.If you don't have any competent actors, don't write a dense screenplay worth of Shakespearean dialogue for them to flub on-camera.Really.Or, simply just do the exact opposite of what the makers of Splatter U did.Thanks to the folks at Elite, whole new generations of genre fans can eagerly take home this brainless waste of seventy-eight minutes and hate themselves for doing so afterwards.There's a quote from Rick Sullivan, of Gore Gazette fame, on the back of the dvd case that says,"THE MOST TERRIFYING MOVIE OF THE YEAR!".I think they must have edited that down from,"This inept dogshit is the farthest thing from the most terrifying movie of the year..." or something.

"Arggghh!I've been stabbed in my latex tittie appliance!"
At the outset, we see a pair of feet(one is bare, so he's obviously a lunatic) as the man they belong to picks up a knife.Titles."Two Forty Three P.M. William Grayhan, paranoid schizophrenic, is discovered missing."Two guys in scrubs(orderlies or doctors, it doesn't really matter) search for the nutbag in what's supposed to be a psychiatric facility, when he pops out and shanks one in the junk, heisting his uniform in the process.Titles."St. Trinian's College, three years later".A female professor gets shivved in the milkwagon.More titles."Next semester, yesterday."Good one, guys.New instructor Julie Parker(Francine Forbes) arrives at the single room full of thirty-something non-SAG extras we're supposed to believe is an Ivy League catholic community college.I'll give you a minute to catch your breath.Enter a whole lot of badly dressed, moronic characters with laughingly bad hairstyles exchanging lifeless dialogue and bad jokes.One's a pre-Tiffany flameheaded broad with a halfrullet(1/2 afro, 1/2 mullet)and one's a drunk meathead priest with the libido of a bunny with a bloodbomber that theorizes that his failure with women runs concurrent with their menstrual cycles.Some others walk into and out of the story in the same scene.It'd almost be confusing if the whole rotten affair wasn't tranquilizing me already.Julie's not entirely uneasy on the eyes, but she's got this annoying habit of keeping her clothes on at all times.More banal dialogue and stale jokes.“A weird thing happened, a girl said she was skipping class today. Has that ever happened to you?” Skipping class is weird? I skipped whole fucking semesters.

Don't blame him, he's just a clueless collegiate ginger.
When the fuck is something going to happen here?Not yet.There's a crappy party sequence(the kind of gathering that you're ashamed for everyone attending)full of off-beat eighties caucasian-style dancing to a band that never made it past the town picnic level, in their designer Sassoon and Jordache jeans, leading to more forced conversation.Julie's landlady sucks, one of her students is knocked up(must be a 'change of life' baby), and a fellow prof fancies taking their relationship past the professional(you know, in the exact same way he was dating the previous instructor who got iced).Zzzzzzz... When random students finally start turning up shanked or scalped, Julie's suspected by the paraplegic principal, Father Janson(Dick Biel), who seemed to be pretty cool with her taking the vacant teaching position before he told her about the previous prof with the perforated pillow.This leads Julie to do her own investigation into the murders.Not a bad idea, since she seems to be the only character remotely concerned that there's a killer loose.The wheelchair-bound padre/prinicipal turns out to be the escaped lunatic on the bloody spree.Anyone who hasn't fallen asleep a few times since the opening title sequence could figure that one out.He kills Julie.He gets caught and put back where he belongs.It's finally over.

"I think we're alone now, and the beating of our hearts is the only sou-ound."
Just as a pile of shit will eventually decompose, director Haines, who has a cameo here as pipsqueak priest, Father Perkins, went on to further hone his craft with Class of Nuke 'Em High(1986) for Troma.Lloyd Kaufman was a creative consultant on tonight's review.It's all starting to make sense now.The likeable Francine Forbes who doesn't deserve to have this movie on her résumé, later became Forbes Riley and enjoys a career in television to this very day.One wop on the ratings scale, and not a good-bad score, to clarify for you woprophiles out there.This one's bad-bad.

Sitting in an empty corner of a white room = Insane asylum.