#shakespearesshitstorm — #shakespearesshitstorm( UHD & Blu Ray)
From the early 2020s, Shakespeare's Shitstorm sees Lloyd Kaufman and the Troma team doing their own distinctively crude, wacky, and deranged take on the Bard's play The Tempest. It finds mad doctor Prospero (Kaufman) shipwrecking, via a storm of defecating whales, a boatload of pharmaceutical executives to Tromaville, New Jersey, to carry out his revenge. If you know Troma, this is pretty much business as usual, with self-referential/perverse humour, large-breasted ladies, generally wacky manic-ness, silly musical numbers, and splatter-bound gore. Here from Troma Films is a three-disc release of the film, taking in a UHD, and two Blu-rays, with a good selection of extras
Shakespeare's Shitstorm ( #ShakespeareShitstorm) is from the year 2020. It was directed/co-written/starred ( in two roles) Lloyd Kaufman. I’d hope that even if you have a vague knowledge of the horror/ bad humour genres, you’ll know who Mr Kaufman is. Since the late 60’s he’s chalked up forty-eight feature-length directing credits, he’s acted in nearly five hundred films, and produced seventy-one. His most notable/ known films are from the 80’s, taking in the likes of The Toxic Avenger, Class Of Nuke ‘Em High- though he has had some gems in the 90’s/ 2000’s like Terror Firmer & Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.
Things kick off in a typical bad taste manner, as we see a woman holding the hand of a little girl, blowing her brains out- blood/ brain matter spraying on the crying girl's face. As we move on, we get introduced to a boat full of obnoxious pharmaceutical executives- taking in CEO Big Al (Abraham Sparrow)- who rather looks like a certain Mr Epsterin, his twentysomething son Ferdinand(Erin Patrick Miller), female executive Antoinette Duke( Kaufman in drag), and a couple of woke influencers
The boat is full of all manner of coke snorting, boob fondling, wild partying, though this doesn’t last, as the boat is surrounded by several whales, who start rapidly browning the water- then all of a sudden they are flying over the boat, liberally spurting out gallons and gallons of shit onto the party/ boat- so much so it gets sunk.
The shit drenched party lands up on the shores of Tromaville, New Jersey, where they make their way to the night club of crazy-haired mad doctor Prospero(Kaufman). We find he worked with Big Al and Antoinette in the 80s, developing pharmaceuticals – but he was ceremonially dumped by the pair, before being cancelled.
As mentioned in my intro, Shakespeare's Shitstorm is very much business as usual for Troma. And as I’m a fan of Troma/ fan, this is (largely) good news- on the positive side-the shitstorm scenes are so wonderfully OTT, we get a small/ but amusing selection of bad taste songs, Kaufman/ most of the cast are hamming it up wonderfully, and in its last quarter, some great deranged gore. On the less positive side, after the party get shipwrecked, the film drags somewhat, and some of the Woke/ PC bating humour becomes a little tiresome.
They are more than a few nods back to the studios past- with the most notable of these being a blind/ randy Tutu wearing female character, and green spurting vomit- the first of course comes from The Toxic Avenger, and the second is from Class Of Nuke ‘Em High.
The film's last half an hour is so, so entertainingly deranged- we start with the green foaming at mouths, then bodies start growing with some head burstings. Before we get large female & male genitals sprout out of faces/ bodies- oh, and a chicken with a giant cock performs a head-splitting BJ.
I think the last time I checked out a modern(ish) Kaufman film was the two-part Return To Nuke ‘Erm High- which I recall being highly mixed in quality. I’d say for the most part, Shakespeare's Shitstorm is a good return to form from Troma, though I’m not sure it’ll convert the haters.
On the extra side, we get a good selection of things- and I’ll list what is found on the two Blu-ray discs, which I presume is also on the UHD. So first up on disc one, we get two commentary tracks- one is with the cast, and the second is with the producers- I played the first of these, which brings together Lloyd Kaufman, producer John Brennan, and second assistant director Mark Finch. We begin by finding out that the little girl covered in blood/ brain matter is Lloyd's granddaughter. They talk about how the film came about, and find out the original play was Lloyd’s favourite Shakespeare play- which he first saw at the age of eight with his mother. They discuss how people's safety is key to any Troma production, and they’ve never had an accident/incident on set. We find out a large part of the film was shot in Albania, and that the most difficult scene to realise was the whale shit storm. Later on, they discuss how a lot of the crew have returned from previous productions. They talk about how they got so much on screen for such a small budget, and more. It’s a very light/ chatty track- with some interesting titbits of info/ stories.
Otherwise, on disc one, we have: A heaping of Troma ( 6.13), four trailers, Radiation March(0.54), I’ve been tromized(1.50), and Invite to your next sleepover(2.06).
On disc two, we have Brown Is The Warmest Colour( 1 hour 34) an in-depth making-of doc starting on the first day of shooting, all the way through to the end. Tromalbania( 26.33), Troma in Times Square(1.01). Musical numbers- taking in four isolated songs from the film. Historic additions- taking in sixteen in all.
Shakespeare's Shitstorm is most certainly up with the best of Troma’s/ Kaufman work- and if you enjoy what they do, you’ll very much enjoy what's on offer here. This three-disc set is packed with interesting/ worthy extras.