Arrow Films

Starring: Janelle Brady, Gil Brenton and Robert Prichard

Directed by: Richard W. Haines, Lloyd Kaufman

Rating: 18

Duration: 85 mins

Reviewed by Guy Adams

I think the problem is that I just don’t like Troma movies. Which means I’m probably not the right guy to be reviewing them. Of the three Arrow are re-releasing, the one I expected to hate (soot-stained, mutated, eye-botherer Combat Shock) is the only one I actually rated.

I’d been saving Class of Nuke ‘Em High until last because it seemed the front runner of the pack, swaggering around on its swanky Blu-ray disc. Obviously it was going to be nonsense but hopefully fun nonsense that I could get my teeth into. But my teeth just don’t like Troma.

I suspect the problem is one of humour. This is more a comedy than a horror movie (obviously) and there’s nothing so subjective as a sense of humour. I like dry, subversive, slightly-poisonous comedy whereas Troma Prom King Lloyd Kaufman likes green snot monsters shooting at you from a toilet bowl. This is not snobbery on my part, I just rarely like comedy that tries to punch me in the face. And Class of Nuke ‘Em High is pulling on its radioactive boxing gloves from the first shot.

It kept playing eighties music at me too. The soundtrack is a constant waterfall of eighties rock which makes it like walking through a shopping mall. A shopping mall that sells whoopee cushions filled with sick.

To me it felt like what would happen if the writers of early nineties American shitcom Saved by the Bell (you remember, the one featuring the hilarious Dustin Diamond as Screech, the fictional character this reviewer would most like to kill with a blunt trowel) got stoned together and then decided to write ‘A like, totally hilarious horror movie set in a High School next to a power plant.’

Still, whatever my feelings on the subject the movie certainly has its fans, it led to two sequels and is possibly soon to be remade (might I suggest the Wayans brothers? They’re SO funny at this sort of thing). If you’re one of them then this disc will certainly appeal, it’s positively loaded with extras, a commentary, interviews, a tour of Troma studios by Lloyd Kaufman… oodles of stuff. Sadly for me it’s like being handed a giant-size portion of deep fried horse eyes but it would be a boring world if we all shared the same tastes.