Terror Firmer is a film that Lloyd Kaufman describes as "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer meets Living in Oblivion through the eyes of Frank Capra". That's probably one of the best ways to descibe Terror Firmer. The film shows what would happen on a typical Troma production, if there was a serial killer picking off the members of the film crew.
The film focuses cast and crew of a new Troma film, working to create independent art, despite the low production values, an on-set love triangle between the Jerry(Trent Haaga) the makeup artist, Casey(Will Keenan) the Spielberg obsessed boom man, and Jennifer(Alyce LaTourelle) a PA with dreams of becoming a director, incompetent crew members, and the small fact that a someone with animosity toward the production are killing off members of the crew! The blind director Larry Benjamin(Lloyd Kaufman) continues to lead his crew to make art, despite all of these problems. As the film leads to it's climax, we learn the shocking identity of the killer, which I'll choose not to reveal here. What, do you expect me to tell you everything? I'm not coming anywhere close to describing Terror Firmer in all it's glory in this short little paragraph, so you better get out there and buy the DVD and support Troma!
Terror Firmer is an amazing film, satisfying both Troma fans by providing in-jokes and the classic Troma style and satisfying newcomers(however, on some occasions, I've known a Troma newbie to hate the film when they first saw it and held a grudge toward Troma films because of it. I was able to convert them though...) with it's hysterically over-the-top scenes, featuring ideas that not only push the envelope, but tear it to shreads, as Troma's been doing for 30 years. Terror Firmer also boasts the second best cast list in recent Troma history (following Tromeo & Juliet of course), including Debbie Rochon, Will Keenan, Ron Jeremy, Alyce LaTourelle, and the introduction of Troma superstar Trent Haaga. Not to mention an awesome soundtrack, featuring Lunachicks, Motorhead, Flipp, gODHEAD, Vision of Disorder, Entombed, Catch-22, and many others.
Troma has once again delivered a brilliant piece of art. The back cover description that reads "Movies like Scary Movie and Cecil B. Demented clearly owe a great debt to Terror Firmer." I definately agree. Terror Firmer is highly recommended. Troma fans may also want to seek out the R rated edit, featuring cut-ins from Lloyd Kaufman, describing what the scenes that the MPAA exempted should have been.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
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