All guts, no glory

'Toxic Avenger' creator Lloyd Kaufman rants about the establishment

Kaufman is anything but a stuffy conservative. He's unapologetically foulmouthed, a complete crack-up, astute and bitter for good reason.

The director said he was the first to add tawdry sex and over-the-top blood and gore to his comedy and horror flicks. And despite the fact that Hollywood has made millions mimicking his style, the media hasn't given him credit.

So Kaufman and his independent company, Troma Entertainment, remain the feisty underdog with a loyal cult following.

What got you interested in filmmaking?

I was going to Yale to be a school teacher or a social worker and try to make the world a better place. It was the '60s, [era of] trying to improve things, teach people with hooks for hands how to finger paint, good things like that. Teach bums how to put beads on strings and paint happy faces on the beads. But by kismet my roommate was a movie nut. We had a very small bedroom and at night I would inhale his [filmmaker Jean-Luc] Godard stinkin' feet. And the aroma de Troma was born. I discovered I didn't want to teach the hooks for hands how to finger paint; I wanted to film them. It's all thanks to my Yale roommate who was head of the Yale Film Society. He was a total movie fanatic. I learned about all the great classic filmmakers. One day I was sitting in the Yale Film Society room and watching Ernst Lubitsch's "To Be or Not to Be." During that presentation of that film I decided to devote my life to film.

Why that film?

It was the wackiness of the film, and yet, the great control. It became very, very clear that being a film director was a matter of personal vision. Most people agonize over what they are going to do with their life. [For me], it was as easy as getting out of the lazy boy and going to a refrigerator and grabbing a beer. Of course, I don't drink beer. I shoot crack.

You used the pseudonym Samuel Weil when making your earlier films. Why?

I was a member of the Director's Guild of America, which is the union for directors. But that union doesn't want their members to make a living, they don't want their directors to direct movies. So in order to direct movies I had to use a pseudonym. One of the ways we paid the rent at Troma was that I worked on movies like "Rocky" as a production supervisor, and "Saturday Night Fever." I had to be in the Director's Guild to do those jobs, but it also meant that if I was going to direct a movie it had to be a Director's Guild movie, which would mean there would be all sorts of mediocre second directors, assistant directors and production managers and people who are more interested in what's being served for lunch then making a good movie.

You'd think the guild would want you to direct?

They were part of the blacklist in the '50s [those in the movie industry who were denied employment in their field due to their real or suspected political beliefs]. They are the scum of the earth as far as I'm concerned. If you have a little bit of principles and try to pursue your art they don't want that, they want you to be a mediocrity and tow the line.

How did Troma Entertainment evolve?

I decided not to go to film school and used practical jobs as film school. I had learned about the Auteur theory of filmmaking at school, under which the filmmaker is the author of the film and controls every aspect of it, which is why it becomes an art form. That made a big impression on me. Most directors out there have to conform, play the game and make crap, fast food movies. It's a pity. When I worked for some of the more conventional mainstream companies I always wanted to do things my own way, while my bosses wanted me to do things the correct way. There was an immediate conflict.

Is that why you stay true to the independent film scene?

Yes. I believe one must have total control, it's an art form. I didn't go in it to make money. I have no objection to making money, but that's never been the primary concern. The primary concern is to do something you believe in.

What motivated your early film work?

The original theory was to try to aim at the largest segment of the movie going population, mainly the 16 to 30-year-old crowd and to give them something for which they might buy a ticket. We'd keep the budget low so we could take a lot of risks and make the most original movie we could within that context. We wanted to make something that people would look at and they might either love it or hate it, but they'd never forget it.

And here you've been doing that style all along?

Yeah. We, of course, did it 20 years ago and were reviled for what The New York Times is now praising.

Why do you think the media's mentality has changed?

The New York Times has changed. We haven't changed. The New York Times has become addicted to the needle of advertising, revenue. If there's a major conglomerate that's paying for advertising, The New York Times will find a reason to put it on the front page and make it art. Twentieth Century Fox puts out a cheap adequate zombie film called "28 Days Later"" and The New York Times suggests it's something totally new, as if I never existed, or [filmmaker George] Romero never existed, as if this is something out of the ordinary. In fact, it's merely a rehash of our movies and Romero's movies. But that's how it works.

Does that piss you off?

I have to say it does [laughing] ... At this point in the game we are economically blacklisted because the theaters are owned by the big conglomerates now. Thanks to Reagan and Clinton all the rules that used to protect the public from monopoly have been done away with. The rules that used to encourage independent endeavor have also been done away. As a result, you no longer have long-lasting independent movie studios.

How did "The Toxic Avenger" come about?

We were breaking the rules with our earlier movies like "Squeeze Play," "Waitress," and "Stuck on You." These were raunchy comedies. The rule was you weren't supposed to mix sex and comedy. But ... I knew there was a big tradition of burlesque where comedy and sex went together. I don't mean porno, I mean eroticism. So we made a film called "Squeeze Play" and happened to hit big with it. We hit the "Porky's" trend, that whole trend, we got a little bit ahead of it. We made two or three movies ... then we had to change because major studios were making the films we were making. But instead, they were using good scripts and good acting, which wasn't fair. We had to switch to another area. We saw a headline in one of the trade papers that suggested or stated horror films were no longer viable, commercial vehicles. So that was when Michael Herz and I decided that's where we are going. We are going to do what the experts say not to do.

Why did you create that character?

My wife and I would go camping and we'd notice that there were McDonald's cups and plates that were laying there in the woods. At the same time I was working on "Rocky" which was all about going to the gym and I started to notice people were going to sports training institutes and making their bodies beautiful, they were eating organic food. That just seemed like an interesting theme that while we are making ourselves beautiful we're defiling this blue marvel of ours. It kinda evolved into this Toxic Avenger. At the Cannes Film festival it hit me that we'd make him - the hideously deformed creature - the good guy. Clearly we hit on something. The Toxic Avenger has become a part of the American lexicon without any advertising, no money.

Where was "Toxic Avenger" the movie series, shot?

Most of our movies are shot in, or around, New Jersey. We've shot in Leonia, Bay Ridge, Hoboken ... right around the time it started to get gentrified. Boonton we shot when Melvin jumps out of the window and into a vat of toxic waste. Jersey City was Tromaville for "Class of Nuke 'Em High" and "Toxic Avenger" parts two and three.

Why Jersey?

Our Troma building is in New York City. But the Tromaville of our movies, the fictitious town, is in New Jersey. A lot of our fans think Tromaville is a real place. Troma [Entertainment] is a big champion of the underdog. New Jersey has always been the underdog living in the shadow of the big city, and the butt of jokes made by late night talk show hosts. We always had a soft spot for New Jersey.

Some people may look at your films as just campy B-movie horror films. But obviously there's substance behind them.

Otherwise we wouldn't still be here. That's why it's a little frustrating that we are so marginalized. The Cinematheque Frances (the analogy film archives in NYC) has done two major retrospectives of our movies. We've affected all over the world except New York. You talk to all of the film directors, everyone from Quentin Tarantino to Peter Jackson to Miike Takashi in Japan to Gaspar Noe ... they're are all major Troma fans, they've all been very much influenced by what we've done.

Tell me about "Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead" to be released February 2007?

It was 100 percent inspired by my faithful reading of Exit, especially that column called "Different Strokes."

No really, what's it about?

It stems from the fact that McDonald's moved next door to the Troma building and they behaved really rudely. One of the results of them being next door to us was that we were invaded by rats. That's where I first got interested in the notion of fast food. Gabe Friedman, who is our supervising editor, he got his job at Troma because he worked at a fast food establishment and he knows how to say 'you want fries with that?' He became monomaniacal about doing a movie about fast food ... In a nutshell, a fast food chicken establishment is built on the ancient Indian graveyard of the Tromahawk Indians. The life of a fast food chicken isn’t too far from the way the Indians themselves were treated, it’s mass extermination. So the two victims of extermination mix the souls and poultrygeist enters the fast food establishment.

You were in the Peace Corp. What was that like?

I spent a year in the bush of Africa. I went to the Republic of Chad. I wasn’t in the Peace Corps. I was a pathfinder. I was there before the Peace Corps. I was a guinea pig to test a remote area of Chad to see whether or not the Peace Corps wanted to send in people. Based on what I went through they would make their decision to either send people in there or not.

Why did you want to go to Chad?

I went to Yale. I had been to a small allboys school in New York City and Yale was more of the same. I sort of blew a fuse and had to get out of there and stir the soup so to speak. I had been raised on European and American western culture so I decided I would devote my college career to the study of Africa and China. So I figured what better way to study about Africa then to go there and go as far into the interior as possible. And I was successful. I lived in a place that had no running water, no electricity, no phones, no nuttin’.

I hear you attended a class with President George Bush while at Yale. What was that like?

Bush – not the bush in Chad – was always going around the Yale campus in 1968 looking for weapons of mass destruction. I never understood that. I next saw him and filmed him at our Class of 1968 35th reunion when he invited us all to the White House. I made a pro bono film (not to be confused with the bad-skiing dead ex-husband of Cher congressman) with Bush and Rev. William Sloan Coffin [liberal Christian clergyman and peace activist] at that reunion.

Any parting words?

I’d like to thank the fans of New Jersey and thosewho have spread the Troma. Thanks to the digital age, Troma continues to be successful. I think this is the first time I’ve ever been proud to talk about viruses I’ve spread.