Circa 2000, Troma’s Terror Firmer was one of a handful of discs I purchased when I picked up my first DVD player and man, what a high point that was. I must had watched the film a hundred times that summer and, even worse, tried to show it to every single person who dared set foot in my then-hovel.

As impressionable as I was back then, true to form, I firmly believed Terror Firmer to be more than just another Troma flick; I believed it to be director Lloyd Kaufman’s testament to his life in independent cinema, straight from the fart heart.

Twenty years later, while much of the offensive humor is now, admittedly, “of the time,” the spirit of the film and what it stands for is still more important than ever, an idealized and wholly personal take on the now long-dead sentiment of art for art’s sake, something this generation has forgotten in the search for easy cash and easier fame.

On the set of blind director Larry Benjamin’s (a meta-Kaufman) latest Toxic Avenger flick, the cast and crew of the film are graphically murdered by a long cool woman (?) in a black dress, seemingly with an ax to grind (literally) against independent film. But even that’s a minor quibble when compared to the constant trouble that goes on behind the scenes.

Besides the ample nudity that is more questionable than erotic, there are plenty of gross-out gags and gag-out grossness, such as busty actor Joe Fleishaker chewing on his own guts as he’s mutilated by an escalator; caged monster Ron Jeremy singing “Amazing Grace” as his appendages are hacked off; and, most famously, Yaniv Sharon as a P.A. with a tiny pecker who goes on an all-nude tour of NYC before having his head crushed by a piece of Troma’s best stock footage.

And while all of that still works in goo-covered spades, the oft-repeated rallying cry of “Let’s make some art!” is the message of this medium; if you have a vision, you’ll do anything to get it up on the screen, even if it means capturing random acts of tractor-truck maiming, dill-pickle coitus or transsexual immolation. It’s something that Troma’s been doing it for well over 40 years, dollar signs be damned. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

If you consider yourself any of the below, chances are I hate you:
• influencer
• thought leader
• public figure
• storyteller

All are narcissistic labels for that most 21st-century of phenomena: the “internet celebrity,” famous for being famous. Fewer targets mark themselves more ripe for skewering, which is why something like the mockumentary The Social Ones holds delicious appeal. I say “something like” because for all its potential, the movie is toothless where it should be ruthless.

The Social Ones is written, directed and produced by tyro Laura Kosann. She and her sister, Danielle Kosann, also star as the sane ones in this ensemble comedy. Working at the thankfully fictional magazine The National Influencer, they feverishly prep for — and stress-puke over — the following month’s fifth-anniversary cover shoot, which will showcase such superstars of social media as a teen-dream Snapchat king (Colton Ryan), a demanding Instagram fashion model (Amanda Giobbi), a high-strung YouTube chef (Desi Domo, The Conjuring), an insecure vlogger (Nicole Kang, TV’s Batwoman) and “meme god” Kap Phat Jawacki (Setareki Wainiqolo). For the sake of story, the stakes could not be any lower.

Although the film is clearly modeled from the Christopher Guest template, it is difficult to tell whether the jokes are driven by the script or improv. Either way, with few exceptions, they’re simply not funny, no matter how hard the actors try; unfortunately, most of them do so by cranking their exaggeration dials three or four notches further than the illusory nature of the mockumentary subgenre recommends, if not demands.

If Kosann had trimmed her scenes to align with the short attention span of the digital generation, the film could settle into a more natural comedic rhythm. As is, the bits drag on and on, with the most glaring offender being Kap Phat creating a meme in real time from disparate elements on a huge bulletin board — the kind you see on every obsessive-detective crime show, full of clippings and pushpins and string connecting them. The sequence is painful.

The movie is not a complete #fail, even if each occasional plus gets canceled out. Domo’s Holly Hunter lilt is endearing, as opposed to Giobbi’s annoying Judy Garland. Peter Scolari delivers an amusing-enough cameo, whereas Richard Kind grates. I enjoyed the magazine intern (Nicky Maindiratta) harboring a stalker-like same-sex crush on Ryan’s Snapchat kid, but we’re ghosted by a payoff. Kosann nails several aspects of the characters, from the minor (the mangling of “important” as “impor’ant”) to the major (vacuous self-importance), so she obviously knows her subjects well. I simply wish she had followed through on the setup by satirizing them instead of celebrating them. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.