FULL DISCLOSURE PART. WHEN THE TEXT TURNS GREEN, THE FULL DISCLOSURE IS OVER. THIS PART WILL BE LONG. FEEL FREE TO SKIP IF YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT FULL DISCLOSURES: I was a kickstarter backer for Return to Return to Nuke ‘Em High AKA Volume 2 (henceforth referred to by the super simple acronym of RtRtNeHAKAV2). So you may think my bias to be askew. I even shared screentime with Lloyd Kaufman, Sgt. Kabukiman, AND the Toxic Avenger himself.
If my bias were skewed in any way initially, that slant was corrected by my sourness concerning the film’s release. See, I pledged my support and money back in May of 2015, with the expectation of a January 2016 release… Well… Nearly three years later, backers were finally presented with a download link to view RtRtNeHAKAV2. This being after it did the festival circuit and was shown to all those fortunate enough to attend those events. And to put into perspective further, My Return to Nuke ‘Em High Volume 1 T-shirt is almost completely faded to nothing!
Why am I griping? Well, if my first chance at seeing this movie would be through a link, it made me wonder… why wouldn’t the backers get to receive what they paid for and were promised YEARS ago while this thing took its merry old time being shown at festivals? It’s frustrating and stupid, but, vitriol will only get me so far.
Okay! Now all aboard to Tromaville!
IN MEMORIAM: RtRtNeHAKAV2 is dedicated to the memories of Troma regulars Joe Fleishaker and Lemmy Kilmister. Stan Lee died after editing or I’m sure he would have been included as well. When another Troma regular, Ron Jeremy, appears as God—I wondered why the big man couldn’t have taken him instead. Then I remembered God is imaginary and heaven is a lie and the only lord is chaos and we all die and rot away at random.
The movie kicks off at full veloctitty (seen above) and refuses to slow down. RtRtNeHAKAV2 is rife with all the 4th wall breaking and non-sequitur we’ve come to expect from a Troma feature. Yes, all of uncle Lloydie’s staples are here: Female nudity begets slime which flows into male nudity. Social commentary shakes miscreant hands with fart jokes, and mutants walk in tandem with teenage degenerates. To top it all off, Lloyd Kaufman himself does more acting in this thing than all of his other movies combined, and the movie doesn’t suffer because of it. On the contrary.
