"Poultrygeist" film-maker spatters gore at Cannes

CANNES, France, May 21 (Reuters) Down in the bowels of the Palais des Festivals at Cannes, away from the red carpet and the stars, lurks Troma Entertainment, maker of the ''Toxic Avenger'' and a regular at the film festival for more than three decades.

''I slept on the beach when I first came here in 1971. You can't do that anymore,'' Troma president Lloyd Kaufman told Reuters at the firm's marketing booth.

Troma's guerrilla marketing squads of rubber-masked ogres, buxom models and sign-waving students have become an established sight on the main drag at Cannes and attract the kind of attention mainstream studios pay millions for.

''It's very tough all over but Cannes is probably the best festival for Troma because we have an international audience,'' Kaufman said.

Since starting out in 1968, Kaufman has carved a niche with a stream of slapstick horror movies that mix gore, crude humour and general excess. He says Troma represents one of the last bastions of truly independent film-making.

''What passes for independent film producers these days are very often vassals of the big studios,'' he said.

Troma titles include schlock classics ''Surf Nazis Must Die'', ''Nuke 'Em High'' and ''Tromeo and Juliet'' as well as a stream of ''Toxic Avenger'' sequels.

Kaufman's latest project is ''Poultrygeist. Night of the Chicken Dead'', a zombie film about a fried chicken restaurant built on the site of Native American burial ground.

As well as the bloody revenge wrought by the slaughtered zombie chickens, the film also includes singing and dancing numbers, a new development for Troma.

LAST OF THE AUTEURS Beyond the farcical scenes of dismemberment and destruction, Troma films often have a subversive edge and ''Poultrygeist'' targets the fast food industry.

Discussing his films, Kaufman lays into various elites including labour leaders (''who make huge amounts of money while their constituency eats dog food''), bureaucracies (''feeding at the public trough'') and corporate bosses.

''These three elites suck the little people dry of their economic and spiritual capital and every once in a while they need a Toxic Avenger to save them,'' he said.

The films may be largely ignored by mainstream movie distributors but they have clear echos in the cult cartoon series ''South Park'' and the ''Grindhouse'' cinema revived by Quentin Tarantino.

With his patter and old-fashioned showmanship, Kaufman has something of the comedian Mel Brooks about him although he claims more elevated inspirations.

While studying at Yale University in the 1960s, he says he translated articles in the bible of highbrow French films, the ''Cahiers du Cinema'', and decided on a career in film during a screening of the Ernst Lubitsch classic ''To Be or Not to Be''.

''I totally bought into that stuff,'' he said.

''I'm one of the few real auteur film makers left. I write, direct, come up with ideas, control every aspect of the movie, including the posters.

''The trade-off is I only have half a million dollars to make a movie.'' Reuters ABM VV0859