Tromeo & Juliet | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Lloyd Kaufman |
Screenplay by |
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Based on | Romeo and Juliet 1597 play byWilliam Shakespeare |
Produced by |
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Starring |
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Cinematography | Brendan Flynt |
Edited by | Frank Reynolds |
Music by | Willie Wisely |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Troma Entertainment |
Release dates |
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Running time |
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Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $350,000[1] |
Tromeo and Juliet is a 1996 Americanindependenttransgressiveromanticblack comedy film and a loose adaptation ofWilliam Shakespeare'sRomeo & Juliet fromTroma Entertainment. The film was directed byLloyd Kaufman from a screenplay by Kaufman andJames Gunn, who also served asassociate director.[2]
The film is a loose adaptation of the play, as it includes the extreme amounts of sexuality and violence characteristic of Troma, as well as a revised ending. The film's title is a blend of "Troma" and "Romeo and Juliet".
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Set in modern-dayManhattan, the film begins with thenarrator (Lemmy ofMotörhead) introducing two families: the rich Capulets and the poor Ques.
At the center of these families areTromeo Que andJuliet Capulet. Tromeo lives in squalor with his poor, alcoholic father Monty and works at a tattoo parlor with his cousinBenny and friendMurray. Juliet is sequestered in her family's mansion, watched over by her abusive fatherCappy, passive motherIngrid, and overprotective cousinTyrone, all the while being sexually satisfied by family servant Ness (Debbie Rochon).
Both Tromeo and Juliet are trapped in cases ofunrequited love: Tromeo lusts for the big-bosomed, promiscuousRosie; Juliet is subjected into marrying wealthymeat tycoonLondon Arbuckle by her father who hopes of completing hismafia family tree.
In the meantime, an intense duel between Murray and Sammy Capulet catches the attention ofDetective Ernie Scalus, who gathers the heads of the two families together and declares that they will be held personally accountable for any further breaches of the peace. Almost immediately afterward, Monty and Cappy start threatening each other with weapons. Sammy, on the other hand, gets caught in the window of Monty's speeding car, where he is thrown head-first into a fire hydrant and gradually dies.
On the insistence of Murray and Benny, Tromeo attends the Capulets' masquerade ball in the hopes of meeting Rosie, only to find another man performingcunnilingus on her. Tromeo staggers around the party in disillusion until he locks eyes with Juliet. The two instantly fall for each other and share a dance until an angry Tyrone chases him out of the house.
Tromeo and Juliet continue to be enamored by one another from afar. Cappy, disgusted at his daughter's activelibido, forcefully imprisons her in a plastic cage as punishment. Eventually, Tromeo sneaks into the house of Capulet and the two meet once again. After proclaiming their love for each other both verbally andphysically, they agree to be married. Juliet breaks her engagement with Arbuckle and, with the help ofFather Lawrence, the two are married in secrecy the next day.
Tyrone, upon discovering Juliet's secret affair, gathers his gang together to find Tromeo in his family's parlor and accuse him ofbridenapping. Now a kinsman to the Capulets, Tromeo reassures Tyrone that Juliet doesn't want Arbuckle as her husband anymore hence announcing a truce to both families. However, Tyrone refuses to believe him. Eventually, Murray stands by Tromeo's side to try and defend his honor but is fatally wounded by Tyrone's club as an example for anyone, besides Arbuckle, who dares to seduce Juliet. Tromeo, enraged by his friend's death, pursues Tyrone and slays him (through a series of car crashes that dismember him). As punishment for the murder of Tyrone in addition to ruining Arbuckle's wedding with Juliet, Detective Scalusevicts the Ques from Manhattan to ensure that his sacrifice won't be in vain on behalf of the Capulet family while Cappy savagely beats Juliet into reconciling with Arbuckle after learning from the late Tyrone that Juliet has already become Tromeo's wife, threatening to disown her if she doesn't. With the help of Cappy, Arbuckle accepts her re-proposal and the wedding date is set.
Eventually, Juliet goes into hiding with Father Lawrence, whom she recruited along with Tromeo, who was recently evicted from his home by Scalus along with the rest of his family. Together, the three devise a plan to clear the Que family name and end the Capulet/Que feud for good, enlisting the help of Fu Chang, theapothecary, who sells Juliet a special potion which will aid her predicament.
On the day of her wedding, Juliet drinks the apothecary's potion, transforming her into a hideous cow monster (complete with a three-footpenis). The mere sight of her causes Arbuckle to leap out of Juliet's window in fright, committing suicide in the process. Enraged over the loss of his would-be son-in-law and meat inheritance, Cappy deems Juliet a disgrace to the Capulet family and sentences her to death, but Tromeo arrives just in time to chase Cappy out of her room before he can rape her to death and bring Juliet's appearance back to normal by a single kiss. Meanwhile, Cappy was forced to retreat into the parlor to get hiscrossbow, and then returns to Juliet's room, ready to execute the newlyweds. Eventually, Juliet performs one last act of defiance against her father by electrocuting him to death with a computer monitor. After the Capulets' residence is successfully overtaken, Detective Scalus becomes impressed by Tromeo and Juliet's teamwork of ending Cappy's criminal empire, pardoning Tromeo of murder while ordering for Cappy's corpse to be transported by anambulance to themorgue forcremation.
With Cappy's criminal empire finally defeated, Tromeo and Juliet embrace victoriously until they are stopped short by Ingrid and Monty, who reveals to them the real reason behind the Capulet/Que feud: Long ago, Cappy and Monty were the owners of the successful Silky Films pornographic production company. Ingrid, married to Monty at the time, struck up an affair with Cappy, eventually birthing a son which Monty raised as his own. Faced with a divorce from Ingrid and the threat of having his son taken away from him, Monty was forced to sign over all the rights of Silky Films to the Capulets in exchange for his son. After the initial shock at the revelation that they are siblings, Tromeo and Juliet brush it off as they are determined not to let their whole ordeal be for naught; theypassionately embrace and drive off into the sunset.
The film picks up six years later in Tromaville, New Jersey, where Tromeo and Juliet, now married, have become suburbanyuppies with a house and (birth defected/deformed) children of their own.
The film ends with the narrator's brief poem for the lovers:"And all of our hearts free to let all things base go/As taught by Juliet and her Tromeo". A brief shot of William Shakespeare laughing uproariously is shown before the end credits.
Actor | Character inTromeo and Juliet | Character inRomeo and Juliet |
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Will Keenan | Tromeo Que | Romeo Montague |
Jane Jensen | Juliet Capulet | Juliet Capulet |
Maximillian Shaun | Cappy Capulet | Lord Capulet |
Valentine Miele | Murray Martini | Mercutio |
Earl McKoy | Monty Que | Lord Montague |
Stephen Blackehart | Benny Que | Benvolio |
Patrick Connor | Tyrone Capulet | Tybalt |
Tamara Craig Thomas | Georgie Capulet | Gregory |
Wendy Adams | Ingrid Capulet | Lady Capulet |
Steve Gibbons | London Arbuckle | Count Paris |
Debbie Rochon | Ness | Nurse |
Tiffany Shepis | Peter | Capulet Servant |
Flip Brown | Father Lawrence | Friar Lawrence |
Gene Terinoni | Detective Ernie Scalus | Prince Escalus |
Jacqueline Tavarez | Rosie | Rosaline |
Garon Peterson | Fu Chang | TheApothecary |
Sean Gunn | Sammy Capulet | Sampson |
Joe Fleishaker | 1-900-HOT-HUNK | — |
James Gunn | The "Found a Peanut" Father | — |
Brian Fox | Bill Shakespeare | — |
Lemmy Kilmister | The Narrator | — |
Charis Michelsen | Person of the Female Persuasion with Very Good Hearing | — |
Lloyd Kaufman,Merle Allin andAmi James have non-speaking cameos in the film. A scene featuringRon Jeremy as a homeless man was filmed but ultimately deleted from the final cut of the movie.
The first draft ofTromeo & Juliet surfaced in 1992,[3] written by Kaufman and Troma employees Andy Deemer and Phil Rivo, written entirely in Shakespearean verse and supposedly featuring The Toxic Avenger as a side character. The feedback from other Troma employees and Michael Herz was unanimously negative, so the idea was scrapped.
In 1995, another shot was taken at the concept, this time by newbie screenwriterJames Gunn.[4] Gunn completely rewrote the script, again in Shakespearean verse, making it darker and far more obscene;[5] the original version had Juliet as a stripper and Tromeo as a crack dealer. Another revision, with additional material by Kaufman, was crafted into what the film eventually became: the verse was trimmed down and more comical elements were added.
Tromeo and Juliet was shot in the summer of 1995 for $350,000, one of the most expensive films in Troma history.
DirectorLloyd Kaufman said that, in preparation for their sex scene, he gave Will Keenan andJane Jensen time during pre-production to block the scene themselves. "I wanted them to develop a very intense relationship and indeed they did. But they decided that they shouldn't actually have off-screen intercourse until after the movie. I don't remember whether they ever did but this gave their on-screen scenes together terrific sexual tension and was something a sex-crazed pervert like me would never have thought of in a zillion years," Kaufman said."[6]
Tromeo & Juliet had its world premiere at theCannes Film Festival on May 13, 1996.[7] In addition, it played at theMar del Plata Film Festival and theItalian Fantafestival, where it won the award for Best Film of 1997.[8]
Tromeo screened at New York arthouse theaters on February 14, 1997.[9] It expanded to select theaters in the United States on February 28, 1997.[10]
InThe New York Times,Stephen Holden said "Tromeo & Juliet is to HollywoodB-movies whatMad magazine is to comic books. Although many times more explicit than what Hollywood is permitted to show, there is something goofily exhilarating in the spectacle of all the staple images of teen-age sex andslasher movies transformed intofarce."[10] In a review for Entertainment Weekly, J.R. Taylor gave the film a grade of B and wrote, "While this comedy about star-crossed idiots (Jane Jensen and Will Keenan) has all the kinky sex and ultraviolence expected of the Troma studio, which built its reputation on chimichangas like The Toxic Avenger, Shakespeare’s dewy tragedy still glistens amid the deep-fried glop. Which is all the more incredible considering that Tromeo & Juliet changes the Bard’s ending and throws out most of his words. Some stories just adapt more readily than others."[11]
Daniel Rosenthal describedTromeo and Juliet as "thenadir of screen Shakespeare...[it] takes every major character and incident fromRomeo and Juliet and systematically drains them of humanity in a tedious, appallingly acted feast of mutilation and softcore sex."[12] Tony Howard summarized it as a film "in which Juliet and the Nurse have lesbian sex, Romeo masturbates, various body parts are removed, the feud is between rival porn czars and incest rules".[13]
Tromeo & Juliet was released on DVD as a 10th Anniversary Collector’s Addition on August 22, 2006.[14]
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After the success ofTromeo, Troma had plans to develop a spiritual sequel entitledSchlock and Schlockability (a play onSense and Sensibility),[15][16] in whichJane Austen is reincarnated as a well-endowed female who takes revenge on all of the Hollywood movie producers who have bastardized her novels. At one point, Troma announced that the film would head into production, but since then, there are no plans to follow up on the film.
Untitled | |
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Soundtrack album by Various artists | |
Released | May 6, 1997 |
Label | Oglio Records |
Tromeo and Juliet is also notable for its soundtrack, which is composed ofalternative rock,pop punk andheavy metal music. The CD soundtrack was released on Oglio Records on May 5, 1997,[17] and included the following tracks: