Don't you remember the lesbians in the original?
Juliet: Parting is such sweet sorrow.
Tromeo: Totally sucks.
Tromeo: Totally sucks.
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet... in modern day New York. And, you know, with a little artistic license taken (it's a Troma movie, after all). Written by a young James Gunn.
See also William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, another modernized adaptation of the same play.
This movie contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Capulet locks Juliet inside a cage and hits her in this version as punishment for misbehavior (i.e. being sexual outside marriage). The cage is even inside a soundproofed room so nobody would hear her scream outside, which appalls Tromeo, but Juliet has gotten used to this.
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: Played for Laughs at the end. Rather than committing suicide together because of a misunderstanding like in the play, Tromeo and Juliet suddenly find out they're actually siblings and drive off into the sunset to
raise their mutant children. - Adaptational Sexuality: Juliet has a girlfriend, Ness, before Tromeo in this version.
- Bisexual Love Triangle: Juliet is initially sleeping with Ness, her female servant. Then she falls in love with Tromeo, leaving Ness for him.
- B-Movie: A near necessity related to any Troma movie.
- Brother–Sister Incest: Tromeo and Juliet as siblings at the end.
- Cargo Envy: A famous example from the source material is parodied: In the original play, Romeo sees Juliet in the window with her hands on her cheek and wishes he could be her glove. Here, Tromeo has the exact same lines in the same situation, but Juliet is touching her butt instead of her face, so he's talking about a different sort of cheek. Shakespeare would no doubt approve of this joke.
- Chocolate Baby: Tromeo's father Monty is black, while he's clearly white without any signs of being mixed race. It turns out Monty was just so naive he bought Tromeo as his biological son. Tromeo was just too dim to notice the disparity in Monty being black later. It turns out that his birth father is Capulet.
- Colorblind Casting: It almost looks like the movie is doing this by having a black man play the white Tromeo's father. This is actually a plot point.
- Creator Cameo: Screenwriter James Gunn appears as the father of the family whose car crashes, and director Lloyd Kaufman is credited as "Shocked Onlooker".
- Death by Adaptation: Neither the servant Samson nor Lord Capulet die in the original play.
- Disaster Dominoes: Tybalt has his arm ripped off while being dragged by a car, and then is decapitated landing on a moving truck's camp. The head lands on a family's car and causes it to crash spectacularly.
- Domestic Abuse: Capulet beats up his wife Ingred when he grows angry with her. By the lack of reaction from Juliet and Ness, this happens regularly.
- Dysfunction Junction: Does it really need Lampshading?Tromeo: Maybe both of us are warped.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The credited characters include "Guy Who Says It Will Take Him Only Two Minutes to Have Sex," "Guy Who Says 'You got to work hard to get ahead in life' and Then Looks at the Camera," and "Blind Chick, Vision Impaired Girl, Woman that can't see, Person of the female persuasion with very good hearing".
- Fanservice Extra: It's a Troma film, so topless young women had to appear, mostly just extras and supporting characters who appear briefly.
- Filth: The Capulets and Ques are porn moguls.
- Fingore: A sex scene goes from "I love fingers" to cutting them with a machete.
- Foreshadowing:
- "And then you put a little incest into the mix..." from Martini towards Georgie at the start of the film.
- There's plenty of cow references, when... well, see Half-Human Hybrids below.
- Gag Penis: The first appearance of a certain popular Troma prop...
- Gorn: The fingers scene early in the film alone would qualify for this.
- Half-Human Hybrids: Juliet's potion doesn't make her look dead, instead it turns her into a cow monster.
- Incest Subtext: Capulat seems more than a little creepy with his daughter Juliet, to the point that it's easily read as repressed desire for her.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Ness sheds tears on seeing Tromeo and Juliet having sex but is supportive of them.
- Last Request: Murray asks Tromeo for a kiss before he dies, which is granted. Benny is surprised and concludes he'd been gay due to this.
- Lipstick Lesbian: Ness, Juliet's girlfriend initially, is long-haired and wears feminine, revealing clothing usually. Juliet herself appears to be a lipstick bisexual, having an equally feminine style but later falling in love with Tromeo, leaving Ness for him. Ness is saddened by this but supportive.
- Ms. Fanservice: Juliet has multiple topless scenes while having sex with Ness and later Tromeo.
- Name and Name: An homage to the parent company, Troma, with the phrase Tromeo replacing Romeo in the film title. Could also extend to Ques and Capulets.
- Not Actually His Child: Ingrid let Monty naively think Tromeo was his biological son, bond with him, and then drop the revelation Capulet actually fathered him.
- Not His Sled: Fans of Troma and even some non-fans know of the twist ending despite never having seen the film.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Monty was extorted into signing over his company to Capulet by the threat of Ingrid taking away his son, as he isn't Tromeo's biological father.
- Parallel Porn Titles: Tromeo has a Porn Stash with Et Tu, Blow Job, The Merchant of Penis, As You Lick It, and Much To Do About Humping (the last of which is especially hilarious since Much Ado About Nothing already has a sex joke in the title).
- Pedophile Priest: When Tromeo tells Father Lawrence about his love for Juliet and their plans to elope, Father Lawrence agrees to help as he himself was in love once. Cut to a flashback of him frolicking with a little boy.
- Rasputinian Death: Cappy Capulet throughout the movie.
- Refuge in Audacity: A staple of Troma films and this one definitely lives up to the refuge in aspect.
- Slut-Shaming:
- Capulet berates Juliet and punishes her for extramarital sex.
- Monty Que disparagingly refers to his ex-wife as a whore, though in his case it's more sympathetic as she really did cheat on him, having another man's baby.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Neither of the title characters die, unlike the pair they are based on.
- Stock Footage: In keeping with Troma's trend of
Prop Recycling, the spectacular car flip caused by Tybalt's death appeared in other Troma movies as well. - Straight Gay: Murray turns out to want a kiss from Tromeo before dying, with Benny saying he was gay as a result. He had the same style as them, his straight buddies.
- Surprise Incest: Tromeo and Juliet end up being siblings.
- Torture Porn: Not as bad partly due to its low budget but you can see it in the Gorn scenes throughout.
- True Love Is a Kink: Tromeo Que has a brief scene where he masturbates furiously to a pornographic interactive computer game with a list of fetishes to pleasure himself to. Which does he choose?In-game Voice: You chose true love.
- Uptown Girl: Juliet is involved with the family servant Ness here.
- World of Ham: Troma and Shakespeare are already exaggerated enough, so imagine them together! Just the fact the narrator is "Lemmy, House of Motörhead" shows this is a movie not holding back.
