Low-budget Shakespeare
Troma Entertainment’s Lloyd Kaufman Waxes Po[ultry]etic

By Jeff Freeman

Lloyd Kaufman has been a driving force in the world of independent filmmaking for nearly 40 years. Shortly after graduating from Yale in 1974, he and partner Michael Herz founded Troma Entertainment — the low-budget film house would go on to enjoy a cult status like no other among fans of the horror, farce and social commentary genres.

Over the last 36 years, Kaufman and Herz have taken Troma to legendary status as a bastion of true independence, and a strong consumer brand through a visionary body of work that has had a huge impact on pop culture and today’s mainstream filmmaking. In 1984, Troma debuted what is regarded as one of the greatest cult classics ever produced: “The Toxic Avenger.” Kaufman has been cited as a major influence by many filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, James Gunn and Eli Roth — just to name a few.

Freeman: You’ve been making films for more than 40 years — is it still fun?
Kaufman: Yes. Film is my life, film is my passion. I wouldn’t be making ‘Toxic Avenger: Part V’ at this point in my life if I didn’t love it. There’s no better chore than working with a team of Troma people making a Troma movie and having total freedom, having nobody interfering and nobody editing our work — and of course having nobody watching our movies.

Of all your films, is there one that stands out as your favorite?
Right now I would say my favorite Troma movie, of the movies I’ve written and directed and produced, I would say ‘Poltrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.’ I think it’s the most original, best-acted, best-directed, the most visionary and controversial Troma movie.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given, and did you take it?
Shakespeare said, ‘To thine own self be true.’ And I did take that advice for most of my career, and I’m happy I took it. My only regrets are when I diverged from that premise and compromised. With ‘Toxic Avenger’ Parts II and III, we could see that compromising did no good.

What is the most important piece of advice you would give to today’s Indy filmmaker?
‘To thine own self be true.’ Do what you believe in. A maxim compounded by one William Shakespeare, who, as everyone knows, wrote that book ‘101 Screenplay Ideas’ otherwise known as ‘Hamlet.’

Do you think the prevalence of file sharing has hurt the Indy filmmaker?
I think that sharing on the Internet, some people call it ‘piracy,’ is a good tool for the independent filmmaker and the independent artist and the independent entrepreneur. We live in a society where everything is controlled by a small number of devil-worshiping, evil, media conglomerates or oil conglomerates or toothpaste conglomerates, whatever…

[At this point Kaufman stops the interview so that he can interview Brian Pulido, filmmaker and creator of the “Lady Death” comic series.]

Kaufman: [The Internet] is a great tool because we are economically and profiley (if that’s a word) blacklisted. The major media ignores us. With the democratization of cinema, everyone can make his own movie, thanks to digital technology, that’s wonderful. However, we can’t live by our art. We make great movies at Troma like ‘Cannibal: the Musical’ by Matt Parker and Trey Stone (the creators of South Park) which has never been on American television. ‘Citizen Toxie: the Toxic Avenger IV’ is better than the original and has never been on American television. ‘Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead’, got better reviews in Entertainment Weekly than ‘Indiana Jones … umm Skullfucker,’ and yet has never been on TV and never will be on TV because we’re blacklisted. So file sharing helps people like me. And piracy helps, we don’t do the piracy, but the piracy that is done of my movies helps us as it shows the public we’re around. The public likes our movies. I just put up ‘Poltrygeist’ on Hulu.com for free because the few deals we were offered for American television were so insulting that we said ‘Let’s just give the movie away.’ At least people will get to see it and enjoy it and it won’t get put in the ghetto of 2 o’clock in the morning, and let people have it for free. With piracy, the bugaboo is that the media conglomerates will find out that there are good independent movies out there and people will watch those movies instead of going to see ‘Sex and the City 2.’ That’s what they’re worried about. I’m also an advocate of not just piracy but butt-piracy at Troma, as you may know… we encourage homosexuality.

Is there any particular filmmaker’s work that you really admire today?
I went to the Miami Beach Cinematheque — that’s a wonderful cinematheque — you get to see films there by Ken Loach. You can see Troma films there. There are many directors I admire today. Ken Loach, Mike Lee, Tarantino is great. James Gunn, who used to work for Troma, Peter Jackson is terrific… I mean there are great directors out there. Some of them get watered down by the mainstream but in spite of that there are great movies being made by great directors that are able to get their visions out to the public without too much interference. Which is a wonderful miracle.

Why did you feel that it was necessary for you to break away from the mainstream?
Well I went to Yale University where my freshman roommate was a movie nut and ran the Yale film society. He was a great supporter and follower of the Auteur style of cinema: the ’50s group of French film critics that founded the Auteur theory of cinema that said the director should be the author of the movie and have total control. With that in mind I felt that I couldn’t work in the mainstream, so I stayed in New York and made films that no one wanted to see.

Any regrets?
The only regret I have is that I occasionally compromise. The ‘Toxic Avenger’ was without compromise — initially not one movie theater would play it. Then one movie theater played ‘The Toxic Avenger’ and had a line around the block the day it opened. Eventually it played on a 1,000 screens in the United States, and that lead to cartoons and television shows, a Broadway musical and now an $80 million dollar-remake. I hear that Tom Cruise wants to play Melvin and Cameron Diaz… (this is like exclusive to you, this was just sent to us) and Megan Fox want to be in it. The guy behind the remake is Akiva Goldsman, he got an Oscar for writing ‘A Beautiful Mind.’ The moral here is don’t compromise, stick to your guns and you won’t regret it.

My editor wanted me to ask, if you could be any kind of sandwich, what would you be?
(Laughs.) If I could be any kind of sandwich I would be a ‘Sloppy Jose.’ A ‘Sloppy Jose’ is a gay chicken/human sandwich that has the most spoken lines in ‘Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.’

To find out more about Lloyd Kaufman and Troma Entertainment, visit troma.com.

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