Tales from the Crapper (2004)

As a fan of Troma, I thought this would be better. However, like Billy Bob Thorton's character in Bad Santa says, "They can't all be winners". The first film in this two film anthology series is unwatchable and stupid, even by the standards of Troma. The second film is better. It definitely is campy garbage, but amusing campy garbage that has cool cameos and makes fun of Hollywood's pretentiousness. Both of these films are short and the rest of the movie has Troma's Grand Poobah Lloyd Kaufman chewing up the scenery, making bad jokes and acting like an imbecile. Which would have been fine, but he does it for way too long and wears out his welcome quick. Tales From The Crapper does have plenty of boobage, gore, as well as an overdose of camp and super lowbrow humor. Most of what is contained here is not funny, or entertaining like a good bad film should be. It is just bad. There are plenty of other titles from Troma that are much better viewing choices. For example, in their own way films like The Toxic Avenger and Redneck Zombies are brilliant. I can only recommend this pile of crap to Troma's most die-hard of fans, who probably watched this 12 times already.

Therefore it is important to talk about the DVD release instead of just the film. Tales from the Crapper is a film that only one studio in the world could deliver. The one that has brought us innovative and original REAL independent films for 30 plus years now: Troma. This is truly a very special film because it manages to be certainly not my favorite of the Troma-productions, but released on a disc that because of what I just said is one of my most valued and favorite DVD's. Not only counting the countless Troma discs I own, but counting my entire collection of films. The film itself is the result of an ill fated plan to produce a television series to be directed by a director who was trusted with a substantial amount of money (especially for Troma) to make something wonderful and delivered a lot of unfinished and incomprehensible material before quitting (or being fired, I am not sure which at this moment). In order to prevent having to shove a vast investment down the toilet Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz decided to get together a team of directors and actors and use the material as the backbone of one movie. One movie that really consists of two, in the nice old Tales From The Crypt anthology fashion, hosted by the Crapkeeper played by Mr Kaufman himself. But, as I said, not quite my own favorite of all their movies. That is greatly due to a weird sense of discipline at the various sets, forgetting about the hard Troma rule of "no booze on the set" which was discovered by a furious Lloyd and other less respectable employees that Troma had at the time of the filming of the added scenes. All this made it all but impossible for Mr Kaufman to make a worthwhile product in the editing room. But Lloyd Kaufman is a genius, and with the troubled added scenes to an already misshapen start-product he crafted not much less of a masterpiece. The film itself is as good as circumstances would allow the most brilliant filmmaker to slice together and it is certainly highly entertaining, totally confusing, loaded with those elements that made Troma great and certainly unique and one of a kind. As a film itself, though, not as brilliant as many other Troma productions. The genius of Independent Cinema however made the DVD of this film so much more than a release of a film with some extra's. The film is, when push comes to shove, actually only a part of the entire DVD that in its whole is a document of the difficult situation serious filmmakers find themselves in having to survive in a world that is monopolized by the few Very Big Ones who don't really allow any other players on their market turf. A document of the problems one has when trusting people to be on the level, only to find out that freedom sometimes is something that is hard to live up to and realization that access to a Movie Budget when the Boss is not around can corrupt even those who should really know better. The brilliance of this DVD is that the film is not perfect, and that Lloyd KNOWS it, and doesn't want to make anyone think he believes it is. The full-length commentary is a show in itself (as is often the case with Mr. Kaufan's audio commentaries), mixing humor, sneers at those who deserve it and highly interesting information for anyone interested in Independent Film-making in such a fashion that watching the film again with this commentary straight after viewing it on its own merits is so interesting it is hard to stop. The feature-length documentary THE THICK BROWN LINE takes us behind the scenes at the various locations where Lloyd visits the sets only to sometimes take over and make the most of what he finds there. We see him somewhat disillusioned sometimes, different from his appearances in other Making Of Documents such as Fart of Darkness and Apocalypse Soon, both to be found in the must-own MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN MOVIE box set. The added scenes with James Gunn (who started his career at Troma only to find success as a writer an now a director in Hollywood) and Trey Parker (again someone to start out with a Troma-released work, to later be a national hero with his South Park series) are entertaining and probably (as is much else on this release) a reason for obtaining this disc alone for anyone remotely interested in the work of these two characters. Loaded with much more than I could mention here (including a SECOND audio-commentary) this is one of the best Troma-DVD-releases.

These were two video shot movies that Troama decided were horrible so in a desperate move turned into this one movie. Perhaps the bitterness on Troama's side helped spark the comedy, but for whatever reason this is very funny stuff with an inspired bit with "Oliver Stone" doing commentary during the movie. Lots of cameos, lots of use of the Lesbian Cannibal HoeDown song add to the fun. Trey Parker, Ted Raimi, Julie Strain etc etc....One of the best of recent Troama releases. Yes it's all over the place, know that going in, the production quality, or lack of, becomes one of the many running jokes. Go with it and you'll be in for a good time.The behind the scenes, frequently the best things about Troama releases are also above average this time around. I really think the anger they felt over these two lousy films helped drive them to, well not greatness, but drove them to "fix" this film in a way that's better than either of the films would have been as they were originally planned.

Another BRILLIANT film from Troma. I'd goes as far as to say it's going to be the most unique film put out this year. The purpose of this film is hilarious in itself. According to the narrator THE CRAP KEEPER (played by Lloyd Kaufman, he better get an oscar nod for costume design) this movie was designed from the remains of two awful films they had made. As awesome as Troma is rather than putting out 2 boring BAD films they decided to make it one kicka** double feature. A double feature like no other, the adr work, narration, editing, and BONER-VISION make this one of Troma's finest gems. Lots of people will probably disagree, but these people have been cinematically brain washed. I enjoyed it more than Citizen Toxie, it was more from the hip, looser, as though it was pure creative freedom. Lloyd is the king of this stuff, he hasn't hung up his hat like Waters and so many others, he keeps exploring far away from the realms of safety.