I was looking forward to this day. Icon Bert I Gordon released his classic The Amazing Colossal Man on 28 August 1957. But I’ve featured Mr BIG a lot on this site and I doubt people need more information about him. Luckily, three crazy Canadian kids released Turbo Kid on 28 August 2015.
Turbo Kid is a charming science fiction film (with horror elements) that digs deep into our shared nostalgia. It features such icons of my youth as View Masters and pens with undressing women. But I find this odd. These were things from my childhood! The guys who made this film are half my age!
But I should be clear. “The guys” were François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell. The world knows them as the Roadkill Superstars or RKSS for short.
Turbo Kid started as a short film, T is for Turbo. It’s just 5 minutes long but it does capture of the essential of the feature film it will become.
They have since made three other films, Summer of 84 (2018), We Are Zombies (2023), and Wake Up (2023). But there’s a wrinkle.
François Simard was arrested late last year on charges including sexual assault on minors. To be clear: “the alleged victims were between the ages of 9 and 11.” As a result, the other two members of RKSS kicked him out of the group and removed his name from prints of Wake Up.
I’m long over caring that many psychotronic filmmakers are terrible people. Being a decent person doesn’t normally help to get films made. But that clearly doesn’t include sexual assault and pedophilia. And here we are again — just ten days after Roman Polanski. Frankly, had I known about this before I started, I would have stuck with Mr BIG.
But Turbo Kid is a fun movie and I highly recommend watching it — especially with a free print!
Turbo Kid (2015) poster via Wikipedia under Fair Use.
