The first time I was lucky enough to see Troll 2 was, like many things that have happened to me, probably the result of my own laziness. It was late at night during the Halloween season and I had just finished watching the original The Hills Have Eyes, which was showing during the annual marathon of horror movies they typically show on AMC around that time of the year. So, The Hills Have Eyes finished and I saw, to my chagrin, that Troll 2 was next up. Having never seen the film, I based my initial feelings toward it solely on its predecessor, Troll, which I remembered from my childhood as a campy tale of a vindictive troll taking over an apartment building to find some ring while battling his witch ex-wife mostly in the form of a little girl and turning the tenants into plants. Needless to say, my immediate thought was, "No." However, as has happened so many times in my life, my plans were foiled by the incredible distance of the TV remote from my already comfortable position (I was on the couch and the remote was on the TV stand). So, rather than subject myself to 1) Getting up 2) Walking 3 feet and 3) Returning to the couch, I decided to let it ride and take my chances. That was the best horrible decision I've ever made in my movie-watching life.
The movie opens with a grandfather reading a story to his grandson (sort of an eerie version of the opening of The Princess Bride) about a young boy named Peter (who appears to be about thirty in the scene accompanying his voice-over) who has lost his way in some mystical forest and is being chased by what look to be little kids in horrible Halloween costumes carrying sticks. Seriously, the masks these tiny actors are wearing look like the cheap variety my friends and I would buy at Rite Aid when we were 11 or 12 because, well, we were idiots. You know, the ghoul or goblin masks with the huge eye holes that smelled like latex mixed with BO? Yeah, those guys. Anyway, it's obvious early in the grandfather's story that he's taking the crap he's reading to his grandson way too seriously (At one point, Joshua, the grandson, asks his grandfather what the creatures wanted with Peter and if he had done anything to them. Grandpa Seth, with a creepily serious look on his face responds, "That's the point. Goblins don't need to justify their cruel acts.") So, yeah, this guy obviously has some pretty strong feelings toward goblins. Who doesn't? Needless to say, from early on, one cannot help but ask, "What the hell is this crap?" Anyway, it is in his telling of this story that we are first introduced to the green "concoction" that becomes so prevalent later on in the...I can't bring myself to say film. After being chased by the goblins while music reminiscent of the dance competition at The Max on "Saved by the Bell" plays in the background, Peter falls, bumps his head, and is then awakened by a "beautiful" young woman with either dirt or freckles on her face who offers him green sludge to eat. Peter, without questioning what the hell this green stuff is, eats it and begins sweating what is described by Grandpa Seth as "chlorophyll green." Now, as you've probably already guessed because it's the only logical explanation, the group of goblins (of which the beautiful girl is actually a member) has fed the green goop to Peter to turn him into plant matter so that they can eat him, as Grandpa Seth describes, "with a voracity that has no equal on earth." Now, I know what you're asking yourself. "What kind of grandfather tells his grandson a bedtime story like this?" Well, it's the dead kind, because we find out from Joshua's mother that Grandpa Seth died six months ago.
OK. So, as an aside, I want to tell you here that the acting in this movie as a whole is so horrible, it's almost as if these people have never had conversations with any actual people, ever. But, the actors who play Grandpa Seth and Joshua are only mostly horrible, whereas the actress who plays the mother is completely and utterly horrible. Not to mention that she has, quite possibly, the craziest eyes any human being has ever had. I knew at this point in my first viewing that this was, and always would be, the worst movie I'd ever seen. But something interesting also happened: I could not stop watching it. It's like a cinematic train wreck that you cannot help but suspect of being completely intentional.
So, we find out that Joshua's father, Michael, has planned a month long vacation to a town called Nilbog so that the family can "live like their ancestors did 100 years ago" while a Nilbog family stays at their house (sort of like a timeshare exchange). First off, who, in their right mind, would plan a vacation to a town called Nilbog (which is almost immediately recognizable to anyone except every single character in the movie as "goblin" spelled backwards)? If you want to get away from the city, you go to a cabin in the mountains or a house on the lake, but not if the cabin is on Nilbog Mountain, or beside Lake Nilbog. No one looks at something relaxing or beautiful and says, "We should name this Nilbog." Because Nilbog is a stupid name. But anyway, the family leaves the city and heads to Nilbog. On the way, the father and Joshua's sister, Holly, begin arguing because he did not wait for her boyfriend, who was supposed to come, but didn't show up at the agreed on departure time. After some horribly awkward back and forth, the mother has had enough and tells them to stop. To ease the tension in the van, she asks Joshua to "sing that song she likes so much." And what is Mom's favorite song? Why, "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," of course. I think it was the song she and her husband danced to at their wedding.
Alright, so Joshua and his family head to Nilbog, followed by his sister's boyfriend and her friends, and find out, eventually, that the sleepy farming community is actually the Kingdom of the Goblins. Actually, it takes almost the entire movie before the rest of Joshua's family will believe him (he tries to convince them repeatedly, especially after seeing a sign in the rear view mirror of a car and realizing the whole Nilbog being "goblin" backwards thing). By the way, if you ever witness the following warning signs, you should exit the location you're in immediately and count yourself lucky, because you just avoided being eaten by evil, vegetarian goblins:
1) You enter a house and the food is covered in green "icing" or you are offered a sandwich by a sheriff that consists of green sludge between the two halves of a bun.
2) Your father gets really serious about "hospitality."
3) Townspeople keep referring to the building that is obviously a church as "that house that looks like a church."
4) You ask the sheriff what the girls in town do at night and he replies "The girls?" while driving off and laughing maniacally.
5) You're in a place where the sheriff's last name is "Freak."
6) The creepiest old shopkeeper you've ever seen gives you free, unrefrigerated milk and tells you to "have some of your friends try some also."
7) The semi-attractive girl that shows up outside your camper comes bearing a corn cob.
Alright, so to make a long story short, the goblins find out that Joshua and his family know they're goblins, Grandpa Seth kills the goblin preacher (who knew goblins went to church?) with a lightning bolt and gives Joshua a backpack with contents that he tells his grandson he may only use "when he really needs it." Joshua is then somehow transported into the "house that looks like a church," which is the lair of the Queen of the Goblins (who I guess is a druid, or something, because she has one of the "Stonehenge stones" in her living room), and uses the double-decker bologna sandwich in the backpack his grandfather gave him to stave off the goblins until he and his family all put their hands on the stone and the goblins explode in a flood of "chlorophyll green." The movie moves toward the end after the family has returned home, seemingly triumphant until Joshua's mom decides to eat one of the apples in the kitchen that turns out to be goblin-tainted. Joshua then runs down the stairs only to look up and watch a softball come bouncing down with the words,"YUMMY. MOM IS SO GOOD" written on it in green. Joshua then walks into the dining room to find the goblins eating the plant food remains of his mother and is, understandably, distraught. The movie ends with one of the goblins looking up to ask the boy a question (possibly the best line): "Do you want some, Joshua?"
Troll 2 is a movie so horrible that it becomes good again. The day you watch it for the first time, your life will be changed...or it won't. Either way, you'll take away these lessons: Vegetarians are evil (seriously, this guy hates them with all his being), country folk can't be trusted (Ok, so Deliverance already taught us this), and you can't piss on hospitality (but you can piss on a dinner table in the correct circumstances).
Sunday, November 11, 2012
You can't piss on hospitality! A Troll 2 Review.
***May contain spoilers****
-but none that will keep you from enjoying the movie for what it is.
I will never forget where I was when I first experienced Troll 2. This movie holds a place in my heart like no other. A special screening marked one of the first dates I had with my long term boyfriend & it caused him to say, "this was the weirdest thing ever & it was awesome!". It was at my favorite small town theater called Studio 35 (studio35.com) that I moved away from and miss on a regular basis. This movie has grown a cult following & many of the viewers had seen the movie previously. So much so, that I was the odd man out, who didn't know all the dialogue by heart. Troll 2 is by far, the worst movie I have ever seen. The acting, the writing, the editing... there is not one thing in this movie that I can say is "good". And in some weird way, it adds to the charm that is Troll 2. A story about goblins in a town named Nilbog, is that Goblin backwards? And not once is there a reference to Trolls or the fact that it has nothing to do with the "original" movie Troll (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092115/), that is was supposed to ride the coat tails of. This movie went from being a horror film to a comedy in about 1 minute and 30 seconds in. The pushed dialogue and overacting is an art form of it's own. It's obvious that the spanish writer/director left a lot of things lost in translation.
At the beginning of the movie, there is a beautiful man running from goblins in the woods. Sadly, Troll 2 was not this actors break out role, and I don't think he found one afterwards either, and that is at the deepest sadness of my loins. But he is "saved" by a beautiful girl that has drawn on black freckles on her face. Seriously, someone drew freckles on her face and thought a close up frame was a great idea. She didn't really save him, however, she turned him into a plant by making him eat neon green tapioca pudding, but you know, potato, patato. After this heart wrenching scene, the main characters appear. A family who decides to trade houses with a family from Nilbog. And I quote, "It's going to be so great to live like our ancestors did...off the land". Only to arrive at a house with plumbing, electricity, & AC...you know, like the settlers did when they traveled across the midwest with all the modern conveniences.
I think the scariest thing during the whole movie is the unavoidable "crazy eyes" of the mother. They steal every scene. And you know what I'm talking about, the eyes of a girl who says "I love you" on the first date, or talks about her cats like they are children. This sadly, turns out to be true in real life for this actress (something you can find out in a documentary called, Best Worst Movie....highly recommended). One big question I have from the entire movie is, how do 16 year olds boys get an RV? The detachment from pop culture & youth is prevalent through out the entire film with no apologies. The writer/director was ok with saying, "no, I know this is exactly how teenagers talk, even though I'm 50".
The underlining disgust in vegetarianism is also not a mistake. Not quit sure you got that from the film? Watch it again now, knowing that the script was written about vegetarians. I could go on about how the dead grandfather knows a lot about goblins for some reason, or that having sex with a stranger always leads to popcorn, but I won't. I won't even mention that the family is somehow so intuitive, that in the climax, without knowing Joshua was in the house with the goblin queen, they found him anyway. But what I will say is, the message of Troll 2 is clear & honest.....there is nothing a little bologna sandwich can't fix.
But after all these snarky comments and vague descriptions of what is, by far, the worst movie that anyone has ever seen, it changed me from the first time I watched it. I have seen the movie at least a baker's dozen of times. It even opened up my eyes to horrible B & even D horror movies and the joy they can bring to me as a viewer. I found a new way to view these horrible films. I love to bring up Troll 2 and invite conversations with people who have seen it. In a group of 10 people, at least 1 has seen it playing in the 90s on HBO. It's always the same response, "that movie is just so terrible!". And it is, it's truly awful, but that is the beauty that is Troll 2.
-but none that will keep you from enjoying the movie for what it is.
I will never forget where I was when I first experienced Troll 2. This movie holds a place in my heart like no other. A special screening marked one of the first dates I had with my long term boyfriend & it caused him to say, "this was the weirdest thing ever & it was awesome!". It was at my favorite small town theater called Studio 35 (studio35.com) that I moved away from and miss on a regular basis. This movie has grown a cult following & many of the viewers had seen the movie previously. So much so, that I was the odd man out, who didn't know all the dialogue by heart. Troll 2 is by far, the worst movie I have ever seen. The acting, the writing, the editing... there is not one thing in this movie that I can say is "good". And in some weird way, it adds to the charm that is Troll 2. A story about goblins in a town named Nilbog, is that Goblin backwards? And not once is there a reference to Trolls or the fact that it has nothing to do with the "original" movie Troll (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092115/), that is was supposed to ride the coat tails of. This movie went from being a horror film to a comedy in about 1 minute and 30 seconds in. The pushed dialogue and overacting is an art form of it's own. It's obvious that the spanish writer/director left a lot of things lost in translation.
At the beginning of the movie, there is a beautiful man running from goblins in the woods. Sadly, Troll 2 was not this actors break out role, and I don't think he found one afterwards either, and that is at the deepest sadness of my loins. But he is "saved" by a beautiful girl that has drawn on black freckles on her face. Seriously, someone drew freckles on her face and thought a close up frame was a great idea. She didn't really save him, however, she turned him into a plant by making him eat neon green tapioca pudding, but you know, potato, patato. After this heart wrenching scene, the main characters appear. A family who decides to trade houses with a family from Nilbog. And I quote, "It's going to be so great to live like our ancestors did...off the land". Only to arrive at a house with plumbing, electricity, & AC...you know, like the settlers did when they traveled across the midwest with all the modern conveniences.
I think the scariest thing during the whole movie is the unavoidable "crazy eyes" of the mother. They steal every scene. And you know what I'm talking about, the eyes of a girl who says "I love you" on the first date, or talks about her cats like they are children. This sadly, turns out to be true in real life for this actress (something you can find out in a documentary called, Best Worst Movie....highly recommended). One big question I have from the entire movie is, how do 16 year olds boys get an RV? The detachment from pop culture & youth is prevalent through out the entire film with no apologies. The writer/director was ok with saying, "no, I know this is exactly how teenagers talk, even though I'm 50".
The underlining disgust in vegetarianism is also not a mistake. Not quit sure you got that from the film? Watch it again now, knowing that the script was written about vegetarians. I could go on about how the dead grandfather knows a lot about goblins for some reason, or that having sex with a stranger always leads to popcorn, but I won't. I won't even mention that the family is somehow so intuitive, that in the climax, without knowing Joshua was in the house with the goblin queen, they found him anyway. But what I will say is, the message of Troll 2 is clear & honest.....there is nothing a little bologna sandwich can't fix.
But after all these snarky comments and vague descriptions of what is, by far, the worst movie that anyone has ever seen, it changed me from the first time I watched it. I have seen the movie at least a baker's dozen of times. It even opened up my eyes to horrible B & even D horror movies and the joy they can bring to me as a viewer. I found a new way to view these horrible films. I love to bring up Troll 2 and invite conversations with people who have seen it. In a group of 10 people, at least 1 has seen it playing in the 90s on HBO. It's always the same response, "that movie is just so terrible!". And it is, it's truly awful, but that is the beauty that is Troll 2.
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