Hey, Troma, where’s my kickbacks?
I mean, seriously — this is my third review of a Troma DVD in less than a month. Considering that this blog gets, according to the WordPress stats count, somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 views per day, that kind of free pub has to be worth at least a freebie DVD or some other? swag, doesn’t it?
Doesn’t it?
Okay, I didn’t think so, but you can’t blame a guy for trying.
So let’s talk about “Killer Nerd.” Like the other Troma DVD releases I’ve covered recently, namely “Pigs” and “Story of a Junkie,” this isn’t actually a product of the Troma “studio.” It was shot in 1991 by Ohio filmmakers Mark Steven Bosko and Wayne A. Harold on video for the princely sum of about five or six hundred bucks and picked up by Troma for VHS and, later, DVD release. The movie’s main selling point — hell, it’s only selling point — is that it stars Toby Radloff of “American Splendor” fame. Toby is a friend and co-worker of AS’s Harvey Pekar, and essentially serves as his sidekick in the AS film (Toby both appears as himself and is portrayed by Judah Friedlander — if you’ve seen the movie, you know what I’m talking about). And folks, Toby’s the real deal.
Thick glasses taped in the middle? Check.
Bow tie? Check.
Bizarre speech patterns? Check.
Pocket protector full of pens? Check.
Yes, friends, Toby’s a nerd and darn proud of it. His self-appointed moniker is that of the “genuine nerd” (co-director Harold has even made a documentary about Toby that bears this title). There’s no slack in his act. It’s not a con or a put-on. He’s as legit as it gets.
And damnit, in “Killer Nerd” he’s mad. Toby portrays hapless loser Harold Kunkle, and? he’s got the hots for a girl at work named Jenny (Lori Scarlett), but while she’s friendly enough toward him on a superficial level, she’s really got the hots for another officemate, a slick yuppie douchebag named Jeff (Richard Zaynor) who delights in tormenting poor Harold.
Our guy Harold eventually learns firsthand that the two of them are sleeping together, so he goes out to drown his sorrows at a local Cleveland-area watering hole ,whereupon he gets lured by a couple of ladies into a trap where some punk dudes who harassed him earlier at the bus stop rob him and beat him up.
That’s when Toby — excuse me, Harold — finally snaps and decides to get violent revenge on the society that has treated him like an outcast.
I don’t mean to give away too much of the plot here, but — oh, what the hell, I do, it’s not like it really matters anyway, the title gives it all away from the get-go. Toby/Harold goes back and gets payment for his humiliation in blood from the girls who set him up, the punks who beat him up, the woman who rejected his clumsy advances, and the smooth-talking slickster she’s fucking. He even kills his mom (while dressed in a diaper — an image you’ll never be able to get out of your mind) for good measure. Nobody that’s ever said or done anything mean to him is safe.
The kills are actually pretty creative for the most part, so I won’t give away any of the details )apart from the aforementioned diaper bit).? The ultra-cheap blood and gore effects are good, cheesy fun. The movie looks every bit as cheap as it is, and that’s satisfying for fans of trashy shit like myself.
The real joy of “Killer Nerd,” though, is just watching Toby essentially play himself. There’s no real “acting” required. He just has to read his lines and go through the motions while being who he is. Filmmaking doesn’t get any mor naturalistic than this, folks.
Even the script essentially follows what you’d expect Toby to do in real life (up to the point where he becomes a mass-murdering maniac, of course). When he tries to get a date with Jenny, he invites her out to a church picnic he’s taking his mother to. He likes going to comic shows. He displays no social skills or any concern about what the fuck anyone else thinks of him. He talks the exact same way he does in real life. In short, Harold is Toby and Toby is Harold.
“Killer Nerd” is like watching the nerd Elvis or nerd Michael Jordan in his prime — at the top of his game and in full possession of all his nerdly powers. He is who he is, couldn’t be anything else if he tried, and isn’t interested in trying anyway. Take him as he is or get the fuck out of his way.
Or, you know, get killed. The choice is yours.
Oh, and it’s got one of the greatest lines in movie history — “Roses are red, violets are placid, you screwed me over — have a face full of acid!”
Whoops, I said I wouldn’t give away any of the details of Toby/Harold’s kill-spree. Oh well.
Anyway, let’s be honest — you go into a flick like this because you know exactly what you’re in for, not because you want a story full of plot twists and dramatic surprises.
Followed a year later by a sequel, “Bride of Killer Nerd,” where Harold finally meets the girl of his dreams, an equally-picked-on and equally-revenge-minded high school girl, which might actually be the “better” (and yes, I use that term very loosely) of the two films, both are available one one swell double-feature DVD package from Troma. In addition to the films, you get commentary from Toby and Wayne A. Harold, an exclusive interview with Toby s he “really” is (again, no real difference), a tour around Akron, Ohio with Toby and Troma head honcho Lloyd Kaufman, and the usual Troma stuff like Kaufman intros to the films and a Kaufman-directed music video, this one for a band called Purple Pam.
In a world full of posers, fakes, phonies, and pretenders, Toby Radloff is the genuine article. He’s probably been picked on and shunned and ridiculed and made fun of his whole life. And in “Killer Nerd” he gets to play out the type of revenge fantasies he’s probably entertained in private for years. For everyone to see.
I don’t know if that makes this film a form of? accidental therapy or what, but I suppose we ought to hope so. Because there are a lot of Toby Radloffs out there, who are probably one good shove or insult away from snapping and giving the slick, smooth-talking assholes of this world what they feel they deserve.
So hell yes, laugh all you want to at “Killer Nerd.” That’s what the movie is for. But depending on how you’ve treated the nerds in your life, it might be nervous laughter.
“Killer Nerd” — harmless ultra-cheesy straight-to-video schlock or advanced psychotherapy on a budget for a tormented outcast?
I leave it for you to decide. But it probably wouldn’t be the worst thing if every picked-on, eccentric, socially inept weirdo could have the kind of outlet that Toby Radloff has here.
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