Troma Founder on Lemmy, ‘Victor Vran: Motörhead Through the Ages’ Game
Read the full interview at Glixel.
Gothic fantasy video game Victor Vran is getting special add-ons that not only feature legendary rock band Motörhead but also Lloyd Kaufman, founder of Troma Entertainment. The game was designed with contributions from Lemmy Kilmister before he died in 2015, along with the band’s guitarist Phil Campbell and drummer Mikkey Dee. Kaufman, a close friend of Lemmy, is making a cameo as a bartender at the Pub at the End of Time in the upcoming expansion, and he spoke to Glixel about how it all happened.
The septuagenarian admits he’s not typically one for video games – “I’m 71 years old, and I can never find anyone to play with me. So I have to stay home and play with myself” – but he’s impressed with what he’s seen of Victor Vran. The game was released on PC in 2015 and follows the titular demon hunter through the city of Zagoravia. It features monsters and plenty of visual jokes, like the undead doing Gangnam Style dance moves.
Executive producer of Haemimont Games Achim Heidelauf is “obsessed with Troma,” according to Kaufman, and is the reason for the collaborations. “He also was obsessed with Motörhead and I think somehow got to meet Lemmy when he was 16 years old. … Achim made a video game about 15 or 20 years ago, Toxic Mayhem, Mayhem in Tromaville, something like that. Then he had this idea for this Victor Vran game. I told Motörhead that I thought the project was worthy and that Achim was a great guy and he would make sure we all looked good, that it would be a good game. It wouldn’t be baby food.”
Kaufman went on to explain how, 20 years ago, he became friends with Lemmy. “There were some buyers who were watching trailers for the Toxic Avenger and there’s Lemmy sitting in our office. I don’t know how he got in, but he was a fan,” he says. “He loved the Toxic Avenger and I think what got his attention was a movie called Bloodsucking Freaks. Then he started watching Toxic Avenger and Class of Nuke ‘Em High and, the next thing we know, he has the most lines in Tromeo and Juliet.
“He was a great guy. He pretended to be cranky, but he never refused us anything,” Kaufman says. “He’s in the film that we just finished, the second half of Return to Nuke ‘Em High, a.k.a. Volume 2, and that’s Lemmy’s last screen role. It’s bittersweet unfortunately. A very, very good guy.”