See if you can spot the addition I made to Troll 2‘s incredible movie poster:
Yes, when your movie is called TROLL 2 and has nary a troll in it, I think that’s a good barometer for how the rest of the movie will pan out. (Wikipedia says that it was renamed Troll 2 to tie it to a “better known” movie or whatever but who cares. It’s still got “Troll” in the title.)
Troll 2 starts out in a boring fashion as a family in a quiet suburb has decided to do an exchange with another family from a small town called Nilbog. (Spell it backwards.) Youngest child Joshua is a normal boy, save for the whole “talking to his dead grandad” part of the equation. Dead Grandad used to read Joshua bedtime stories about evil goblins (I wonder what that could be…backwards) and shows up fortuitously to warn Joshua that the town of Nilbog is a place of great evil. Grandpa’s reduced to being a disembodied head in a mirror with an added dash of doom and gloom.
Joshua’s nagging and annoying older sister somehow convinces her boyfriend to come along for the ride but tears into him about bringing his friends along everywhere. The reason I mention this is because the boyfriend’s stupid enough to bring his friends along to Nilbog . He’s also stupid enough to listen to the screeching overtones of a harpy that’s let her perm sit too long and sink into her brain.
The family heads out to Nilbog but Joshua is informed via Dead Grandpa not to let any of the family eat any food in Nilbog. It turns out these goblins spike people’s food and turn them in vegetables, which in turn they eat. It turns out they’re vegetarian goblins and he warns Joshua that the family is in mortal peril.
It leads to one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen in a movie – Joshua takes a leak on the family’s dinner to prevent them from eating it.
It’s understandable that Joshua’s dad is more than a little peeved; he utters a quote that psycho-rabid fans of the movie love. “You can’t piss on hospitality!” Indeed, Joshua’s dad, indeed. However, it does appear that you can urinate on roofied food that will turn you into an ugly spatter of zucchini slime. I don’t think that counts as pissing on hospitality.
The rest of the movie is basically the family and the caravan of the boyfriend and his friends running around the town, getting vegetabled? vegetated? vegetized? as the family comes to the shocking realization that Joshua’s actually right. Of course, it only takes their house being surrounded by the entire town and telling them that they will eat their food or DIE VIOLENTLY to kind of shake them awake to reality, but come on guys – when haven’t you found yourself in that situation?
It’s not without some hilarity though. Troll 2 is not just a “worst movie ever” for it’s lack of trolls. It’s also famous for employing non-professionals in acting capacities, so the entire movie is kind of acted out like this:
Whoever this man is, I want to thank him for greatly enriching my life. It’s been a long time since I giggled that hard and it was worth the Dr. Pepper that went up my nose for it. “OH MY GAWWWWDDD,” truly. The actors making up the townsfolk either work in two ways: You are either treated to a shot of a catatonic person with terrible hair, or you’re treated to scenes of “acting”, by which I mean that every scene consists of high drama and creepy overdone physicality ALL THE TIME.
What’s hilarious is you have to wonder if someone realized a day into this shoot how terrifically awful this film would be and said, “Aw, fuck it, let’s just make it awful as can be”. At least that’s what I’d like to believe and I admire determination, myself.
I guess the icing on the cake for me is that shortly before Dead Grandpa goes bye-bye he offers up a brown sack to Joshua to use in a case of “mortal danger” – a secret, dreaded weapon that can wipe out the goblins. What would it be? What could possibly wipe out the hordes of latex-covered, sack-cloth wrapped, food doping goblins?
Believe me when I say, my sweets, that I’m not lying about this – HAND ON THE HEART – that the secret weapon is a double decker bologna sandwich. Oscar goddamn Meyer is the ONE THING that takes these hideous, vegetarian creatures out. Good old fashioned American pork byproduct saves the day again!
I haven’t told you all the good (bad) stuff about Troll 2, mainly because it’s fun to watch (if you’re planning on knocking back a few). And who knows, you might want to watch it and have a few funny scenes come your way, but please be prepared (and don’t forget your bologna sandwich).
I don’t even know why people take drugs when there’s movies like Troll 2 to be watched.
1416 and Counting 