Gallery5 Troma-tizes the River City
Photo by: Erin Edgerton
Cult film fanatics and folks with $3 and a night to spare descended on the Gallery5 visual and performing arts center Aug. 22 for the opening cut of the Troma film series.
“VHS Massacre: Cult Films and the Decline of Physical Media” was the introduction to the eight-film series, which will continue through Nov. 28.
Founded in 1974, Troma Entertainment bills itself as the longest-running independent movie studio on the continent. The Troma catalog includes films like “Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead” and “Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D.”
“Troma isn’t for everyone,” said Gallery5 Operations Manager Ben May. “The point of the series isn’t to pack theaters. The point is we are screening films that aren’t going to make it to the Bow Tie, Regal or AMC.”
May took the stage after the “VHS Massacre” screening and announced “Chubbies” as the next film on Sept. 12.
“Chubbies” depicts the invasion of a Bowl-o-Rama by a race of lascivious little aliens determined to ruin a teenager’s Halloween party and invade the bodies of her and her friends.
The other films in the series haven’t been selected yet, but May said the Oct. 10 screening would feature an appearance from the creative team behind “Hectic Knife,” a new Troma release about a knife-wielding vigilante who saves the city from the evil Piggly Doctor.
“VHS Massacre” acts as a post-mortem of the 1980s, the era of mom-and-pop video stores before Blockbuster cornered the market and before Netflix shut it down. This was the market that gobbled up independently-produced, direct-to-VHS films like those that made Troma a cultural phenomenon.
Directors Kenneth Powell and Thomas Edward Seymour are on a quest to find what remains of the mom-and-pop video store market.
Cult film celebrities like Troma co-founder and director of “Toxic Avenger” Lloyd Kaufman, and esteemed actress and star of “Tromeo and Juliet” Debbie Rochon said they try to determine the path forward for independent film in a market increasingly dominated by digital forms of distribution that don’t monetize like the mom-and-pops did.
“The ways of watching a film have changed every five years or 10 years in major ways,” said John Bloom, better known by his pseudonym Joe Bob Briggs, the much-loved host of ‘90s variety show “MonsterVision.” “So when we talk about what a film is, what are you talking about?”
Regardless of the immediate physical form of their films, Troma’s mission statement asserts it will “continue to strive toward its long-term goal of not just movies of the future, but also world peace.”
The Richmond area’s own mom-and-pop video store, Video Fan, on Strawberry Street in the Fan neighborhood, carries many of the same titles referenced in “VHS Massacre” in both VHS and DVD formats.
Jim Thomma, Contributing Writer
