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Class of Nuke 'Em High

Class of Nuke 'Em High (1986) Movie Poster
  •  USA  •    •  85m  •    •  Directed by: Richard W. Haines, Lloyd Kaufman.  •  Starring: Janelle Brady, Gil Brenton, Robert Prichard, Pat Ryan, James Nugent Vernon, Brad Dunker, Gary Schneider, Théo Cohan, Gary Rosenblatt, Mary Taylor, Rick Howard, Lauren Heather McMahon, Chris McNamee.  •  Music by: Ethan Hurt, Michael Lattanzi.
        When Warren and Chrissy notice some strange things happening around their high school, they begin to suspect that something is going on at the nuclear plant next door. Though the plant officials deny that there are any problems, Crissy gives birth to a bloodthirsty mutant who immediately begins eating everyone in the school. Will Warren and Chrissy be able to stop their killer kid?

Trailers:

   Length:  Languages:  Subtitles:
 3:16
 
 
 2:25
 

Review:

Image from: Class of Nuke
Image from: Class of Nuke
Image from: Class of Nuke
Image from: Class of Nuke
Image from: Class of Nuke
Image from: Class of Nuke
Image from: Class of Nuke
I happen to be of the opinion that Tromeo and Juliet is a very good movie. I'm not qualifying that in any way at all. If more Hollywood movies had that level of intelligence and humor, it'd just be more fun to go to the movies. I also really like The Toxic Avenger. But let me tell you, there's absolutely nothing less appealing than a really bad Troma movie. But as my summary indicates, Class of Nuke 'Em High isn't really bad. But it's certainly bad.

When a pipe at the local nuclear power plant bursts, some people think the townspeople should be warned. But not the portly man in charge. He sends in cleaners and goes about his business, unaware that the nuclear sludge has leaked into the ground and that the kids at the high school a quarter mile away may be in danger. But of course things have been bad at Tromaville High for a while. The National Honor Society, for example, has become a gang of self-mutilating punks who ride their bikes around down and decorate themselves with body art ranging from the ambisexual, to the multipierced, to the truly odd. Was it the radiation that made these good kids go bad? Who cares! When a geek drinks nuclear waste from a water fountain and dies a kinda yechy death, nobody thinks anything about it. But when some atomic weed turns two popular kids into sex-starved animals, well, that's not entirely relevant to the plot either. Actually, looking back at Class of Nuke 'Em High, I don't entirely understand how one event led to the next and why anything happened at all. This isn't really "good-bad" plotting, it's just confusing.

Troma films operate on a basic principle of anarchy which stretches from the absurd plots (it never feels like a Troma film has much more than a basic ten word premise, anything more than that is gravy) to the hammy acting (John Waters's acting troupe looks like the Royal Shakespeare Company compared to these guys) to the special effects. At their best, though, there's a true joy that comes with their "artistic" freedom. Troma films can doing anything, show anything, and say anything. That's why it's disappoint watching this film. It's just doesn't seem to go anywhere. There's some sort of inherent satire of the high school comedy going on, but nothing is ever taken to the extreme where it would be at best hilarious or at worst offensive.

The special effects look especially cut rate. Much as I enjoyed the images of the mutants with bodily fluids pulsing just beneath their skin, I would have liked to see more of that and fewer close-ups of bubbling waste. And the dialogue reaches all of its high points entirely too early. When one of the nerds-turned-cretins is accused by his girlfriend of caring too much about money, his quick response is something to the effect of, "That's what you get for dating a yuppie." I wanted more of that and less endless footage of the cretins terrorizing the school.

Class of Nuke 'Em High shouldn't be anybody's introduction to Troma. It has all of the bad traits of the company's films without any of the amazement that comes from watching every rule of cinema broken. Class of Nuke 'Em High just makes you remember why things like good writing, quality acting, and production values are mostly good things.


Review by Daniel J. Fienberg from the Internet Movie Database.

 

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