Summer camp exploitation movies were all the rage in the early 80s and Troma got in on the action with The First Turn-On! It’s the last of their string of increasingly wild, Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz-directed sex comedies before they struck gold–or at least, bronze–with The Toxic Avenger the next year and realized that over-the-top violence was what they were missing all along.
Meanwhile, Troma had already mastered the gross-out gag, which this movie relates by way of farts, jizz, piss, zits, stomach-turning food-related stuff and some unwanted nudity from actors whom we’d rather see covered up.
That’s the big Troma twist on the summer camp movie, but they’re not done fucking with the formula yet, no sir, because this is also an ANTHOLOGY movie.
You see, a few campers strayed from the nature hike to smoke marijuana in a nearby cave. Their nubile counselor (Georgia Harrell, young, blonde, healthy and willing) goes out to find them and she does… right before the cave entrance collapses and traps everyone inside.
And you know what that means. We’ve all been there.
You’re trapped. You might die. You might not ever see sunlight again. What do you do?
You tell the story of your first sexual experience to pass the time. Might as well embellish the fuck out of it, too. Can’t think of any reason to not to do that. Die with dignity. Die telling people that you had the full “Dear Penthouse…” experience. I’d probably do the same thing. And that’s what these crazy kids do here. They talk about everything from being the fat kid who scored with the local nympho to being a world class stud muffin on their very first time at bat to being a girl with a submissive bent who meets the predator of her dreams.
Then there’s the camp counselor’s story about the most disgusting prom date ever (Mark Torgl, who’d show up again next year for Troma as Melvin, the whiny weakling who’d transform into The Toxic Avenger), but whom she hilariously describes as a dreamboat.
It’s a classic porn set-up, but Troma, because they’re Troma, have to get weird and make it an outrageous comedy about human quirks and foibles. It’s about the lies that we tell ourselves and to others. Troma don’t want your erections and heart palpitations; they want your LAUGHS. Barring that, they’ll also accept your squirms and your dives for a vomit bag.
Also, as all fans of anthology films know, it’s the wraparound story that puts them over the top and at least HALF of this film is devoted to that. While these cave-trapped dweebs tell their fish stories, the film gives equal time to about two thousand crass summer camp jokes that the Troma people brainstormed probably over many shots of whiskey or some other substance.
In other words, it’s some classic Troma trauma. Watch it with a loved one. Also, keep an eye open for a young Vincent D’Onofrio in his first movie.