Troma, as a grand gesture and blatant publicity grab, has uploaded 150 movies to YouTube. Not clips. Not trailers. Full movies. A fairly substantial chunk of their library, in fact, crossing a range of genres, and not just their usual, ah… material.
The transfers aren’t great, but hey, they’re free and there’s some real gems of varying quality in the collection.
Here are ten movies they’ve uploaded worth seeing, for serious reasons and for laughs.
Burt Reynolds directed by Samuel Fuller in a movie full of sharks. You don’t get more manly than this.
Believe it or not, this is a comic adaptation and it’s got creature design by H.R. Giger. Plus the worst use of Lauren Hill’s cover of Killing Me Softly ever attempted. It was also shot, on location, in New York City, by a bunch of Germans. Really.
OK, I admit it, I only saw this movie because of the title. And it’s not that great. But it’s an awesome title to drop at parties.
A movie by Max Allan Collins (Dick Tracy, Road to Perdition) about an insane parent. It’s… memorable.
A public domain title, but uploading this is a public service, not least because it shows Rod Serling’s personal politics in a way that foreshadows some of the better (and worse) episodes of The Twilight Zone
Probably the closest Troma has ever come to making a genuinely good movie. Not that it’s any sort of classy affair, but it’s a lot funnier than their usual work.
Only in the ’80s could this much cultural insensitivity be this funny.
If you’ve never seen a Dennis Woodruff movie… suffice to say you won’t forget it. Here’s his website to give you an idea of what you’re in for.
This is one of the few movies Rob Zombie likes that is remotely worth watching. A spare, effective horror movie.
I’m just embedding this one because if you’re a film nerd, it is exceptionally weird that Troma is distributing a movie starring Harold Lloyd and directed by Leo McCarey. Decidedly different from their usual fare.
