Class of Nuke 'em High
Dir: Lloyd Kaufman, Michael Herz, Richard W. Haines
1986
***
Troma films are a product you either love or you hate. I'm going to totally contradict myself by saying I neither love or hate Class of Nuke 'em High. I admire it and as trash films go it certainly is of a higher calibre than most, Troma are very self aware their films are trashy and they never pretend to be anything but trashy which will always work in their favour. I just can't help but think that even with their tiny budget they could have done better, especially when you think that Evil Dead was made 6 years before for less money. Peter Jackson got it right with Bad Taste a year later, Troma never seem to have learnt from this and pretty much rely on sensationalist titles to get the punters in. 80's film dialogue will always be a mystery to me, I don't know anyone who used to talk like that but that's not just a Troma issue, it's any high-school film made in that decade. I suppose I'm just a little bit disappointed because this was one of those 'top shelf' videos in my old video shop and I always wanted to see and now all these years later I have finally caught up with it and it didn't live up to expectations. Still, it's a lot of fun and if you're a trash fan and haven't seen it you probably should.