Reaction & Review | Class Of Nuke 'Em High

Welcome, one and all, to "Full Moon vs. Troma" here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna continue this marathon by covering a film from Troma. This movie came out in 1986. That movie is "Class Of Nuke 'Em High".

Now, I don't really know a whole lot about this movie. But from what I've gathered, it's one of those films that most people know about Troma, not counting stuff like the "Toxic Avengers" series or "Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D." Mostly because when this movie came out in 1986, it became a huge hit amongst fans and critics. So much so that it later produced 4 sequels. Now obviously, I don't have any of the sequels planned for this marathon, because I was only able to find the first movie. But who knows? If this movie turns out to be any good, I may eventually try to track down the sequels and cover them at a future date for this series.

But for now, I should probably just talk about what little I do know about this movie. I know that the movie has something to do with radiation. And that there's a nuclear power plant that is set next to a high school, in which some students end up buying some sort of contaminated drugs from that plant that make them look really strange afterwards. I have no idea what the hell this all entails to, but it does leave me sorta curious here, and I'm hoping that it will make more sense when I start watching the movie.

Now, the only other thing that I do know about this movie is one of the cast members for this thing. That cast member is Lloyd Kaufman. And for those of you who may not be familiar with him, he is the head guy of Troma Entertainment. And he's been producing and directing movies for over 4 decades. Probably more than that. Which is pretty damn impressive, especially since he's still producing movies today. At least, at the time that I'm writing this review. But anyway, that's the only other thing I know about this movie. I haven't seen any trailers or clips from this movie, so I'm gonna go into this thing pretty much blind here. I'm hoping for this movie to be as good as most people who have seen this thing say it is. But the only way I'm gonna find out if it is any good, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Class Of Nuke 'Em High".

7 minutes later

Well, guys, I will say that this movie is certainly off to an interesting start. Mostly because the smartest guy in the class ended up getting killed after he drank the toxic waste that came from the school's water fountain. The way he died was kinda gross, but, then again, this film was made by Troma, so I guess I'll be expecting more grossness later on, most likely.

20 minutes later

So, guys, I'm still waiting for something interesting to happen since Chrissy and Warren took a smoke out of that 'Atomic High' cigarette from earlier. The only thing that's currently happening with them is that they have the hots for each other while having sex. I'm kinda hoping there's more to it than just them having sex, because I'm still interested to see where this is going. But as of right now, the movie's kinda moving at a slow pace, and I'm hoping it picks up soon.

5 minutes later

OK...I will say that those dreams that Chrissy and Warren had were kinda messed up. Not in a psychological way, mind you, but more in a messed up-kinda disgusting way. Warren, in particular, having the hugest boner I've ever seen. I'm going to assume that was from the effects of the contaminated drug that our main characters were forced to take earlier on. Looked pretty cool, but I'm hoping we get more than just them having disgusting-looking dreams, you know what I mean?

11 minutes later

All right, I was going to ask what the hell Chrissy threw up from her mouth. I thought it might've been a turd for a moment, but it looked more like a little eel creature. It was certainly disgusting. And definitely something I wasn't expecting.

10 minutes later

So, after the Cretins have been told that they've been expelled for causing too much trouble, they're now singing the National Anthem to one of the officials of Tromaville High School. I don't know WHY they're randomly singing the National Anthem, but I will say their singing kinda sucks. Which, to be fair, was probably intentional. But I never expected these guys to recite the National Anthem of all things.

20 minutes later

Well, guys, I've now gotten plenty of chances to see this creature that's been hanging around in that toxic barrel, and I will say that the make-up effects for it look really cool. It kinda looks like a mixture of the Predator and Swamp Thing. And seeing it actually kill off most of these gang members is honestly really satisfying. Just thought I'd let you guys know.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Class Of Nuke 'Em High". And we're closing out the movie with a pretty cool song. You guys can't hear it for obvious reasons, but this song here is pretty cool. I'll have to listen to it later. Right now, I got a movie to review. So, let me go ahead and shut the movie off...OK. So, what to begin with here...? I guess I can say that, for the most part, I really enjoyed this movie. Mind you now, I didn't end up loving it, but I still got quite a bit of enjoyment out of this thing.

So, let's go ahead and get into this review by talking about the movie itself. And I'm gonna start with the two noticeable problems that this movie has. The first one is more prevalent than the second, which I'll get into later. One issue that I did have with this movie was the pacing. This movie has a rather slow boil. Now, in most cases, I wouldn't normally have a problem with this. Because as someone who's seen a lot of Westerns over the years, pacing is usually something I can look over most of the time. At least, when it comes to those films. Now of course, slow pacing is not excluded to just Westerns. It applies to EVERY film, so it really depends on how much you can tolerate pacing for certain movies. And for this movie, for about the first 3rd of it, is pretty slow. It starts off pretty strong with a pipe leakage that takes place at this nuclear power plant that's next to the high school, and the toxic waste soon contaminates the water, which also includes the water fountain at the high school after one of the smartest kids ends up drinking it, then later causes him to convulse and his body starts to rot. He then jumps through a plexiglass window, which causes him to fall to his death. And all of that takes up about 7 minutes. But then the movie has about a 25 minute gap afterwards where nothing much is really happening. The only noteworthy thing that happens is something that I kinda brought up earlier. Which was this high school gang known as the Cretins, who end up buying some weed at this power plant from someone that works there, and they try to sell it off to the other students at school in order to make a quick buck. Not knowing, of course, that the drug is also contaminated. But anything else during that point is basically just filler. And things don't really pick up until sometime after our two main characters, Chrissy and Warren, have some really fucked up dreams that were caused by the drug that they took earlier on in the movie.

In fact, before I get into the second problem that could be seen as a bit of an issue, I will say that the writing for this movie is pretty good. Again, there is that issue involving the pacing, but the movie does sorta pick up afterwards, in which it finally starts to get interesting again. It mostly follows our two main characters, Warren and Chrissy, feeling the effects of this 'Atomic High' drug that they took. It starts off kinda disgusting with those dream sequences, but then later, the after effects start to really get to them. Chrissy ends up getting the worst of it, especially during one moment where she ends up throwing up this little eel creature from her mouth, and ends up in the toilet. And we don't see it again until another student flushes this thing down the toilet, to which it ends up in a barrel full of toxic waste. We don't see this creature again, aside from a small teaser in which it ends up killing one of the power plant workers that's there to investigate a possible contamination that goes on at the school. Then afterwards, the creature doesn't end up appearing again until pretty late into the film. I kinda already gave my own description of it, which may not do it entirely justice. So if you're really curious about what this creature really looks like, you'll just have to go and watch the movie yourself. I will also say that this movie combines several different genres of film. Those genres are sci-fi, comedy, body horror, and a drug film. Now, unlike something such as "Robogeisha", where that movie ended up combining a bunch of genres of film and didn't know what it really wanted it to be, this movie was actually able to combine all of those genres I just mentioned and they mesh it pretty well. And they did it without having an identity crisis, unlike "Robogeisha", which that movie definitely suffered from.

Now let's get to the other problem that I hinted at earlier on. And this one is an issue that, in most circumstances, would be a huge problem. And it could still be one, but I'll talk more about that in a bit. Basically, the characters in this movie are very one-dimensional in terms of personality. Nobody in this movie has any actual depth, and that includes our two main leads. In terms of personality, there's only 3 that I was able to pick up. You're either an idiot, an asshole, or you're personality free. The first one basically fits characters such as Eddie, who's basically a perverted idiot, or the guy who runs the power plant, who thinks that there is no contamination happening at the high school, even though there is a TON of evidence to the contrary. In terms of assholes, well, most of that comes from the Cretins, who were once known as honor high students that are now reduced to being an asshole biker gang. They're not really evil characters, at least until towards the end of the movie sometime after they get kicked out of high school. But they're still very one dimensional in terms of personality. And as for the personality free category, that honor goes to our main characters, Chrissy and Warren. The only thing that we know about them is that they're a pairing at Tromaville High School and that they really love each other. But anything in terms of backstory from them is completely non-existent. Which also goes for every other character in this movie, as I just mentioned, but still.

Now in most cases, I would say that a lack of character depth, and the fact that just about every character in this movie is completely one-dimensional, would normally kill a lot of movies. However, this movie was actually able to get away with that. And the reason why I think it gets away with lack of character depth has to be because of the film's premise. It's such a goofy concept that it was still able to keep me invested with what was going on, despite the fact that the character's are really shallow. Now, to give you some perspective of other movies that were able to get away with lack of character depth, movies such as "Killer Klowns from Outer Space", "Suburban Commando", and the "Street Fighter" film from 94, are some examples of movies that didn't really have a whole lot of depth to their characters. And the reason why those movies worked with that setback was because they were comedies, and they really didn't take themselves too seriously. And "Class Of Nukem 'Em High" is no exception. Because if this movie had taken itself seriously with it's story, it's setting, and it's characters, then it probably would've been the death of this movie. Now that's not to say that the movie COULDN'T be taken seriously, but the movie knows what it wants to be. And it ends up having fun with this rather goofy premise, rather than being too serious with it. So that, to me, is definitely a positive. However, I could imagine someone watching this film, and they could be turned off by a lot of the things that I just mentioned. However, I will get more into that when I talk about recommendations.

So anyway, for the most part, the writing here is still pretty good. It's main issues are the pacing, which is mostly the first 3rd of the movie. And the lack of character depth and personality from these characters could be seen as a huge turn off to some people. However, I was able to get into it for the most part, so make of that what you will. Now before I get into the acting, I do need to correct myself on one thing. I stated at the start of this thing that Lloyd Kaufman was in this movie. And that's actually...kind of a lie. He's not really in the movie itself. However, his daughter, Lily Hayes Kaufman, was in it, mostly playing as extra. So while I was technically correct on a Kaufman being in this movie, it wasn't Lloyd Kaufman himself. So, I do need to apologize about that. It's very well possible that I mistook him in being in one of the sequels, so I'll have to keep note of that for future reference before I make a mistake like that again. But anyway, let's FINALLY get into the acting. The acting here is fine for the most part. None of it is great, mind you. However, when compared to the acting from a different Troma film such as "Vegas in Space", it's certainly nowhere near on the shit level of terrible acting in which that movie had. That being said, the acting in this movie ranges from being OK to being rather hammy. I personally didn't find any of the acting to be laughably bad, nor was it completely wooden. And considering the minimal amount of character development and personality that our cast had to work with, they were still able to make it work within their own way. So overall, the acting here is OK at best. It's not terrible, but it's not great either.

The special effects are pretty good. And looking up the budget, this movie was working with about $400,000. Which is pretty impressive, especially when you consider how much that was really worth back in the 80's. Nowadays, most major films studios have to work with millions and millions of dollars, so they have a lot to risk with those kinds of budgets. However, with studios such as Troma and Full Moon, they've always had to work with smaller budgets, mostly because they are indie films studios that don't have to risk a whole lot. And this movie's special effects are really good with this kind of budget. Most of that involves our toxic creature that we see towards the latter half of the movie. It looks really good, especially when you get to see it with it's full body. And the hand puppets effects for it before it turns into that giant creature are decent, but they're nothing to write home about. There isn't a whole lot of blood in this movie, up until, again, towards the latter half when the creature starts killing it's victims. There were hints of blood early on, but none of it was extremely prevalent up until we get to the reveal of the toxic creature. So anyway, the blood effects are pretty good for low budget standards. Our costuming here is fine, though the most ridiculous costumes come from our biker gang. Especially one member in particular, Gonzo, who wears a HUGE nose ring in between his nostrils. I swear, every time that Gonzo appeared on screen, my eyes would always draw attention to his nose ring. It really is THAT big. But anyway, the costuming here is still pretty good, regardless of all that.

Our camerawork here is pretty good. The lighting is lit fine. The sound-mix is mostly fine, up until a certain moment of the film where the Cretins start to invade the high school while riding their motorcycles. Because for some reason, the audio takes a dip in quality and the sound starts to sound very muffled and quiet as we get to see the Cretins vandalize the entire school. And I have no idea WHY this particular portion of the film sounds like that the way it is. I don't know if it was intentional, or if it was a problem on Betamax or VHS when Troma did the transfer for this movie onto DVD and Blu-ray, but it's definitely noticeable. And it did kinda take me out of the movie some because of the somewhat dramatic change in sound. However, it does start to sound slightly better sometime after that whole scene ends, and the movie still sounds mostly fine afterwards. The music here is also pretty good. In fact, I commented on it earlier before I shut the movie off. There was a song that was playing during the end credits that sounded like the film's theme song. And it was quite catchy, too. I wouldn't say that the whole soundtrack is catchy, personally, but it was still rather good, as was the score for this film, since most of it was 80's rock music. And I mentioned it before, mostly in the previous Reaction & Review I did for "Panther Squad", but I love 80's rock music. So, I was able to get into the music for this movie with no problems whatsoever.

Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Class Of Nuke 'Em High"? For the most part, yes. If you're able to look past the slow pacing from the first 3rd of the movie, and you're also able to look past the lack of character development and personality for these characters, then I think you would find something to really like here. Oh, and also, you would have to be into B-movies. If you're not into those kinds of movies though, then you can probably just skip this. Plus also, if you're looking for a more serious movie that focuses on the characters and their personalities, then this movie is not going to provide that kind of thing for you whatsoever. However, for anyone that's into B-movies, then this movie is most certainly worth watching, if at least once. And while I wouldn't say that I loved this thing, I would definitely be interested in checking out it's sequels, because this movie did interest me enough into checking them out. I can't guarantee WHEN that will happen, or even if I check them out for this series. But in the meantime, I will still have the first movie to rewatch again at some point in case I ever want to go back to it. Now...I mentioned that scene earlier involving Chrissy throwing up that eel monster from her mouth and then later seeing it get flushed down the toilet. And that scene reminded me of something that I watched in one of the short films for "Chillerama". And I kinda want to go and rewatch that movie again, because it's something that I normally would watch around Halloween, but I'm kinda in the mood to watch again right now. So, I'm gonna go and do that next after I'm done putting this review together.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.