CANNES 87 : MAYHEM, TOXIC WASTE: THE FUN SIDE OF CANNES

Critics will argue into the night the relative merits of this or that official entry in the Cannes Film Festival. But when they really want to enjoy themselves, they duck into one of the theaters on the Rue d’Antibes, off the main drag, and become Tromatized with the likes of “Surf Nazis Must Die.”

“Surf Nazis,” one of five new films being premiered here by the New York-based Troma Inc., is a post-apocalyptic gang movie set on the Southern California beaches after The Earthquake.

It is filled with bloody mayhem, sexual violence and an unusual heroine (an obese, cigar-chomping black woman who takes on surfing Nazi youths). It is, in other words, a typical Troma feature, and at its first screening in Cannes, the audience included many of America’s top critics.

“ ‘Surf Nazis’ is a terrific movie; it should have been in competition,” said the straight-faced Troma president, Lloyd Kaufman, at the Troma suite at the Carlton Hotel. “We’re not part of the elite here, so they never invite us (into competition). But the critics like us.”

Whether or not you like their movies, you have to love Troma’s titles, posters and ad lines. A sampling:

“Zombie Island Massacre”: “A fun-filled vacation!”

“The Toxic Avenger”: “The first Super-Hero from New Jersey!”

“Splatter University”: “Where the school colors are blood red.”

“Class of Nuke ‘em High”: “Readin’ . . . Writin’ . . . and Radiation!”

“Curse of the Cannibal Confederates”: “The South shall rise again . . . and again . . .”

Kaufman, a jaunty, bearded fellow, made his first trip to Cannes in 1971 to sell “Sugar Cookies” (“It was ahead of its time”). He said the eye-popping Troma titles usually are already in place when the company picks up the movies for distribution.

“People who make this kind of movies come to us,” Kaufman said, as alternating images of bare-busted women, monsters and gore appeared from a TV being used to recycle Troma promos behind him. “They know we will treat them right.”

Troma, operated out of its own four-story building in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen, is a private company that produces a few and distributes a lot of those weird movies that appear in your local theaters almost without warning.

They are independent films that exhibitors count on to create short-term business between major studio movies.

“No question, when something falls out of bed, they call us,” Kaufman said. “We usually won’t last 10 weeks anywhere, but for one or two weeks, our films do real well.”

Occasionally, they do much better.

Troma’s “Toxic Avenger,” the story of a 98-pound weakling who falls into a vat of toxic waste and comes out a disfigured giant who rips the arms and legs off of evildoers, grossed more than $12 million in the United States.

“Toxic Avenger” was filmed at Troma’s satellite facility in Jersey City, N.J. “Toxic Avenger” and the subsequent “Class of Nuke ‘em High” were set in Tromaville, N.J., a mythical town that billed itself as “the toxic waste capital of the world.” According to Kaufman, New Jersey residents loved it.

“A governor of New Jersey once took out a full-page ad in the Hollywood Reporter thanking Troma for making movies in New Jersey,” Kaufman said. “He said he wished we had three ‘Toxic Avengers.’ ”

The governor may get his wish. A script is being written for “Toxic Avenger, Part II.” Kaufman said the gentle monster has become a big hit internationally.

“In the second picture, the Avenger will go to Japan, sort of like the James Bond movies,” he said. “Women love the Toxic Avenger. He is a good person, he has a romance with a blind girl, he takes care of his mother. He just happens to be violent.”

Troma is gradually moving into A-movies, too, Kaufman said. “Monster in the Closet,” the first A-movie being produced by Troma, will be out soon, and “Student Confidential,” a $4-million pickup starring Eric (Kirk’s son) Douglas and Marlon (Michael’s brother) Jackson, is premiering in Cannes.

Most of the 15 to 20 films that Troma releases each year cost between $900,000 and $1.5 million, Kaufman said.

Kaufman, who brought along a tie adorned with erotic Oriental art for a meeting with Japanese buyers, said he doesn’t associate Troma’s popularity with American critics in Cannes to his films’ offbeat titles.

Last year’s Troma topper in Cannes was “Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid!!” “He’s all action. . . . He’s all man. . . . He’s all over the place!”

“ ‘Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid’ is a very good film,” Kaufman said, handing his guest a 1-cc vial of “Aroma du Troma,” which the company is using to entice buyers to its suite.

“That’s very close to being an art film. And it’s a lot more fun to watch than any of those things in competition.”

Among critics, “Surf Nazis Must Die” and “Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid” would fall under the category of “guilty pleasures.” A more rewarding discovery is the “buried treasure.”

Again, they are to be found “in the market,” in rented commercial theaters where distributors begin selling foreign rights.

One of the buried treasures so far this year is Phil Alden Robinson’s “The Woo Woo Kid.”

“The Woo Woo Kid,” which will be released in the United States by Lorimar-Telepictures this year under the title “In The Mood,” is a real discovery.

The movie is a fanciful, stylized re-creation of one of America’s most entertaining World War II scandals. It’s the story of Ellsworth (Sonny) Wisecarver, who at age 14 ran off with a woman in her 20s and got dubbed by Life magazine as the “Woo Woo Kid, the world’s greatest lover.”

“The Woo Woo Kid” was written and directed by Robinson, the talented author of the Steve Martin comedy “All Of Me.”

It stars newcomer Patrick Dempsey as Sonny and Talia Balsam (daughter of Oscar-nominated actor Martin Balsam) and Beverly D’Angelo as his two (yup, he did it twice) wives.

Make a note. “The Woo Woo Kid”--sorry, “In The Mood”--could be one of the major sleepers of the coming summer. Then again, it could remain a buried treasure.