TROMEO AND JULIET

It is Manhattan, the mid-1990s. Lemmy, who an onscreen caption tells us belongs to the House of Motorhead, is our narrator. He introduces us to "two households, as different as dried plums and pears". On the rough side of town, we have the working class Que family (the father of the house is called Monty Que - get it? As in, Montague, from Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" ...?). The Capulets live in a more privileged neighbourhood: they have the money, the parties, the women etc.

Why are these two families at war? It all has something to do with their respective patriarchs - Monty (Earl McKoy) and Cappy (William Beckwith) - who had a filmmaking partnership previously. The latter ripped the former off, thus deciding their fortunes from that moment on. Hence, they - and their families - have been sworn enemies ever since.

On the poor Que side, we have cheery, pensive Tromeo (Will Keenan). He likes to party, enjoys hanging out at his brother Benny's (Stephen Blackeheart) body piercing emporium, and is devoted to his large-chested girlfriend Rosy (Jacqueline Tavarez). Unfortunately he doesn't realise that she's doing the dirty on him.

Juliet (Jane Jensen) has relationship problems of her own. She meets maid Ness (Debbie Rochon) for regular lesbian trysts in a bid to help fend off the incestuous advances of her own father, along with his billionaire fool of a friend (Steve Gibbons). Her family are hardly better: cousin Sammy (Sean Gunn) is first seen trying to get into the knickers of his own sister Georgie (Tamara Marie Watson) at a party.

It's at one such party that Tromeo and Juliet finally meet, the former attending with his young family members and masking up as is the shindig's requirement. Naturally, it's love at first sight - the young pair not initially realising they come from opposing sides of the fence.

By the time they do cotton on to the forbidden nature of their love, they are of course so deeply entrenched in their feelings that nothing will keep them apart. But that won't stop members of each family trying...

You know the story, as outlined above. Anyone unfortunate enough to attended school in their youth will have been subjected to the swill that is "Romeo and Juliet", written by the pretentious knob that was William Shakespeare.

Thankfully, in the hands of Troma Entertainment, TROMEO AND JULIET injects some much-needed verve into the story of star-crossed lovers, warring families and political differences. When I say "verve", I do of course refer to fart gags, ample exposed bosoms, insane violence, unconvincing but energetic gore, punk rock music and cameos from the likes of Lloyd Kaufman and Ron Jeremy.

From the very start, we know what we're in for: the first ten minutes alone proffer unsimulated nipple-piercing, big-busted sex, swearing galore and mohawked youths dancing badly to Motorhead. Not to mention references to incest and anal rape. Keep watching for truly OTT fight sequences, an amusing gory car crash punchline, more tits, piss, vomit, wanking, decapitation, yet more tits, and even a radioactive monster penis.

A typical day at the Troma office, then.

Clearly a few alterations have been made to the Bard's intolerable original play. But, the usual Troma excesses aside, what's actually very surprising about TROMEO AND JULIET is how faithful it does stay to its source material. Make no mistake, co-screenwriters James Gunn (he who went on to direct SLITHER, SUPER and GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY) and Troma head honcho Lloyd Kaufman - along with script contributions from Andrew Deemer, Jason Green and Phil Rivo - have obviously done their research and stuck to the plot rather admirably. Even a fair bit of the original dialogue is put to amusing use here.

Also, it has to be said that this doesn't feel much like a film directed by Lloyd Kaufman. Of course, it has the aforementioned - and entirely expected - fart jokes, gratuitous nudity and comical violence, but there is a generally darker tone than normal throughout. It may due to the source material, or perhaps the unusually high calibre of the cast who know how to play things deadpan throughout. Or perhaps it is, as rumours have persisted over the years, the fact that Gunn unofficially directed the majority of the film (in what would have been a feature debut effort for him).

Whatever the reason may be, TROMEO AND JULIET has all the irreverent fun and mad energy of a Troma vehicle but stops short of the overplayed broadness which hampers a lot people's enjoyment of their output. As a result, it's one of the studio's most tonally consistent, satisfying and accessible films to date.

But even so, I don't suggest you showing it to your Granny...

TROMEO AND JULIET comes to UK blu-ray fully uncut courtesy of the fine folk at 88 Films. Presented as an MPEG4-AVC file on this region-free disc, the film is afforded the benefit of a 1080p HD transfer which looks generally really good. There is some onscreen debris - the occasional scratch here and there - and perhaps the print is a tad worn-looking at times, but by-and-large this is vibrant, colourful and satisfyingly sharp affair. It's easily the best the film has looked on home video.

Two things to note here. Firstly, there are two aspect options to view on this disc, the original open matte 4:3 version and a new, looser anamorphic 1.78:1 rendition of the previously fan-maligned 1.85:1 theatrical matte version. While the former clearly reveals more information at the top and bottom of the screen, the latter feels nicely framed and obviously looks a lot more cinematic. Kudos to 88 Films for providing both options though.

Secondly, this is the original uncensored 107-minute version (unrated director's cut) of the film. Of course, an extended version was released several years back in Europe, integrating 7 minutes of deleted scenes. That version is contained herein - but the deleted footage is, as a separate extra (more on that further in the review).

Reliable, clean and consistent English audio comes in a solid 2.0 Master HD mix.

An animated main menu page opens up affairs. There is no scene selection function among the pop-up menus, but the film does have 14 remote chapter stops.

The most substantial bonus features by far are four audio commentary tracks. Count them ... four!

I'll be honest, I find most audio commentary tracks taxing. I love that people offer them, especially when it's a film's director on the mic, and I do appreciate that they are probably the greatest source of first-hand information on a movie's making. But a lot of them do tend to get dull after a while. The prospect of listening to four all relating to the same film was daunting, to say the least.

In actual fact, there is a lot of fun to be had listening to these tracks. Kaufman turns up to host a typically rambunctious one - a very funny affair which plays loosely with trivia and tosses in a whole lot of irreverence along the way.

Gunn and his brother, actor Sean Gunn turn up to chat retrospectively about the film's shoot with a great deal of fondness. There's a refreshing streak of honesty throughout, and Gunn reaffirms why he's regarded as one of the film industry's nice guys.

The film's editor Frank Reynolds converses with the editor of another modern Troma classic, POULTRYGEIST: NIGHT OF THE CHICKEN DEAD, in the third chat track. This is an admittedly patchier affair.

Finally, and perhaps best of all, there's a 2006 track from Gunn and Kaufman which seems primed for amusing cattiness right from the start. Gunn has no time for Lemmy, for example, while the actors' shortcomings are among the targets of the tongue-in-cheek duo. Their friendship is clearly genuine, and they have a lot of fun on this highly engaging track.

Next up, we have a clutch of deleted scenes which are presented by Kaufman (sporting a nifty Tromeo and Juliet T-shirt). I don't know what's happened here, but the first plays out fine - an alternate ending more downbeat than the one used - but then the second one, which looks like a rape possibly, plays out with the same audio (Kaufman's introduction and the subsequent film dialogue) from the first clip. A spectacularly dangerous stunt is barely seen; additional gore is always welcome, Kaufman's only reason for its exclusion from the final edit being that the original cut of the film was a bum-numbing 3 hours in length. Fair enough. This windowboxed featurette runs for 19 minutes in total.

2-and-a-half minutes of VHS-quality cast rehearsal footage is blighted by muddy audio and exists for completists only. Still, as ever, it's nice to have it included.

The film's original 2-minute is a typically high-octane, fast-moving assault on the senses. Set to the thumping rhythms of Motorhead (their song 'Sacrifice'), this promises fun "from the playwright of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE and the director of THE TOXIC AVENGER". Brilliant.

Amazon advertises a lot more extras (which I believe are also available on Troma's US import blu-ray?), including 2 hours of cast and crew interviews, and two featurettes. None of which were present on this screener disc.

What do we get though are some great extras, a very nice presentation of the film (complete with two framing options for the main feature), and - most crucially a movie that stands the test of time as one of Troma's most rewarding endeavours.

Review by Stuart Willis