Cody Knott’s cult hit has found distribution. Joining the pantheon of the depraved, his film Pro Wrestlers vs. Zombies will be released on DVD through TROMA. The company famous for releasing Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s first film, Cannibal: The Musical, and my favourite piece of schlock, Bloodsucking Freaks, it feels like a perfect fit.
Let me rewind a bit, here’s the synopsis, Wrestler Shane Douglas accidentally kills another wrestler in the ring. The brother of the dead man makes a deal with the devil to bring back the dead. He plots a private show in an abandoned prison to get back at Douglas and unleashes the Zombies on him and his close pal, Rowdy Roddy Piper.
[fresh_video url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4TTWJKsNdI”]
Now, I know that most people would already be hitting Ctrl-T to head over to Troma’s page to buy this, site unseen, so I am just going to fill in the bottom here with talk about whatever I feel like.
Let’s see- Troma Entertainment is the oldest still-operating fully independent production company around, we’re talking 40 years. About the same length of time the worlds most famous unknown band, The Residents, has been around. How does Co-founders Lloyd Kaufman & Michael Herz do it? They do not compromise. They do not compromise, and they they do not apologize. They make the movies they want to see, and they help release the film they want to see released and screw anyone else who has issue. And, to quote that great Canadian story, “If you build it, they will come.” Boobs. Crushed heads. More boobs. And plenty of shit jokes. What more do you need?
The Troma fans are plenty and they are vocal, and they come out to work for free on any of the films that Kaufman produces, just to be apart of the history. Known to reuse footage through many films, take for instance the car crash in Sgt. Kabukiman, NYPD that also showed up in Tromeo & Juliet. Another famous story is when the Kaufman had his team rush to the street outside of their Hells Kitchen Troma Studios to film the speeding train of Fire Engines and support vehicles passing so they could use it in their films.
Lloyd Kaufman has written books on Directing and Producing, as well travel the globe teaching Master Classes on Filmmaking on the cheap. Always ready to talk, and always ready to lend a hand to the other independent filmmakers, he founded the Tromadance Festival as a direct statement to Sundance, raising awareness that Sundance was not truly independent with their exorbitant submission fees and showing multimillion dollars movies, Tromadance is free and does not discriminate.
Like Kaufman told Parker & Stone when they handed Cannibal: The Musical over, that they probably wont make any money through Troma but he guarantees people will see it. And that they have, constantly one of their biggest sellers, the company that gave us Toxic Avenger, Class of Nuke’em High, and Poultrygeist has eked out a place in history, and Pro Wrestlers vs Zombies is going to have a long happy life there.
James C.
