 CLASS OF NUKE EM HIGH (1986) Dir. Richard W Haines and Lloyd Kaufman, 85 mins Tro-March continues on apace as we come to one of the label’s better-known movies – maybe only behind the likes of Tromeo and Juliet, The Toxic Avenger and Sgt Kabukiman NYPD – in the form of Class of Nuke Em High. The title in many ways tells you what you’re about to get into, and this one was obviously a hit because we were later treated to two sequels, which is not really all that common where it comes to Troma-land. This one is co-directed by the living legend that is Lloyd Kaufman himself, so this one ought to be absolutely Troma-riffic. So let’s take our seats ready for the school bell, shall we? Class of Nuke Em High takes place at Tromaville High School, and before I move on I have to say how much I’ve always loved this fictional city of Tromaville. Someone ought to upon up an amusement park or an attraction or something that allows you to tour Tromaville. That can’t just be me, right? What a visitor attraction that would be somewhere over in the US… Anyway, Tromaville High School is of course filled with all sorts of weird and wonderful characters, with goths, punks, rockers, jocks and many more exaggerated character types besides. The story in the main follows Chrissy and Warren, two of the cooler kids at school and long-time girlfriend and boyfriend. However neither wants to make the first move in the bedroom stakes, much to the amusement and consternation of their respective friends. Their main antagonists are a group of biker punks who do a nice sideline in selling weed at the school. But who provides it, I hear you cry? Well, their supplier is none other than the nearby nuclear power plant – and when they promise their buyers an atomic high, they really mean it. And from here the story descends into the sort of madness you might expect from Troma, and the school finds itself the very epicentre of a nuclear outbreak… It’s hard to be too critical when you knowingly walk into a b-movie – after all, I can’t say that Class of Nuke Em High hasn’t delivered what it said on the tin. But there are good b-movies, and bad b-movies, and OK b-movies, and this one probably falls into that latter category. For me it takes a little while before we really get the ball rolling with the genuinely off-the-wall stuff, and sometimes it just feels like it’s trying a bit too hard to be totally outrageous and overblown. Some scenes do just feel eminently random, and add very little rather than showing off a particular effect. There’s a very strange moment in the middle with a miscarriage subplot that feels totally out of place in a horror comedy, and just jolted me out of things for a while. As the story wears on, I also feel like I don’t fully know quite why any of this stuff is happening – it’s a cavalcade of bizarre visuals and effects, sure, and if you just switch your brain off completely you can get plenty out of it. But I wasn’t quite immersed enough to fully do that, so that nitpicky, critical bit of me was still finding holes here and there. Class of Nuke Em High certainly isn’t toxic waste, but it’s not the finest offering Troma ever put out either. RATING: 5.5/10. There is some fun to be had here, but it feels like everyone involved is trying that little bit too hard. When we looked at Killer Condom that felt like it made more sense all along, and things felt like they fit within the world of that story. Nuke Em High seems to be so obsessed with grossing you out/and or making you laugh that it throws a lot of other stuff out to achieve that, and I think that with a bit more restraint (does that sound ridiculous when you bear in mind I’m talking about a Troma movie?) would have helped this one along immensely. There’s nothing to ruin your day, or frustrate your horribly, but having watched it recently I’m already finding it’s not going to live awfully long in the memory. So it’s a middling C grade for this one at 5.5/10.    |
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