One thing is for sure—it’s never dull writing about Troma films. Here we have cannibal kids from the end of the 80s, and cannibal crack from the end of the 90s, and they are two very different experiences.
BEWARE – CHILDREN AT PLAY (1989)
That title rules, but this film gets trashed pretty bad, often being described as laughable. Personally, the term I prefer to use to describe it is SO AWESOMELY 80s. For me, this is probably one of the best Troma films in my collection because it actually feels like a horror film. Even if it isn’t particularly terrifying, it has that video store nostalgic feel. Totally something you would have rented as a teen back then and been completely satisfied with, it’s basically Children of the Corn if the kids ATE people. It blows Isaac, Malachai, and their kid crew away…literally, by the end….
During a camping trip with his young son, a man gets caught in a bear trap…leading to him telling his kid to eat him to survive. Man, does this kid dig in!
Ten years later, a paranormal investigator guy comes to town with his family to help the sheriff with cases of missing children and murdered adults. The movie essentially plays out like a slasher, with adults either wandering into or being lured into the woods by the kids, then offed in inventive ways.
Then comes the cheesy part, as the townsfolk form a lynch mob to take down the kids. After a rather macabre scene of the oldest kid in the bunch raping a chick in a tent under strings of body parts while the other kids watch, we finally get the best part…
…kid brains splattering everywhere as they are 2nd Amendmented by a bunch of rednecks.
BUTTCRACK (1998)
Running a little over an hour—thankfully—Buttcrack is surprisingly restrained for a Troma film about a guy’s buttcrack. We are, shockingly and mercifully, spared a single shit or fart joke.
So there’s this big guy Wade who seriously can’t keep his pants up and drives his roommate nuts. So naturally, there are endless scenes of Wade having a reason to bend over. It gets so bad that at one point, the roommate’s girlfriend pukes because there’s buttcrack in her face. Okay, I’ll admit, this stupid movie made me laugh quite a few times, and that was one of them. Wade is completely obnoxious, but he’s so flighty it actually feels natural, like the actor may have improvised quite a bit. He is obsessed with playing his Atari (at the end of the 90s) and regularly bursts into the theme to Fat Albert. Sadly, Wade is such a homophobe! He thinks one of his roommate’s friends is gay for him, and goes on total rants about how gross it is and how the guy is a “pervo.”
Despite being only 67 minutes long, the film actually has way too much filler before Wade is accidentally killed. His sister then puts a voodoo curse on the roommate, which involves saying “buttcrack” 12 times. Again, I laughed. The chick chanted “buttcrack” 12 times with a straight face!
When Wade comes back from the dead, he’s still pretty normal. The catch is, anyone who looks at his buttcrack turns into a zombie instantly! This is 12 minutes before the fricking movie ends. Even worse, the zombie action takes place within a total of about 2 minutes! WTF? I got totally dicked by Buttcrack.
