To which I must reply: What do you mean, "Why?"
It's been almost a year since the Cap'n directly addressed Troll 2, when it made its HD debut during The Greensboro Summer Fest Massacre Part 2, and nearly one year to the day it figured prominently into Bad Movie Night.
Appropriately, Troll 2 is back in the zeitgeist, and given my relationship to that particular slice of "bad movie" lore, it's only fair to look back as we look forward. You see, Best Worst Movie, the documentary mentioned below, is playing in Winston Salem this weekend for the River Run Film Festival. Since Best Worst Movie is about, well, Troll 2, they're also apparently showing the subject of BWM to give the uninitiated proper context.
Since I'm probably not going to catch Best Worst Movie until next weekend (it plays one last time on April 23rd), the Cap'n will instead give you my initial reaction to said doc's existence, followed by both write ups from last year. You're welcome.
---
Will Wonders Never Cease?
Well I'll be damned. It turns out that "cult" films can happen all by themselves and you can totally miss out on it.
Case in point: I had no idea that Troll 2 had a cult following, one based purely on how horrible it is. That at least is the purpose of this new documentary, Best Worst Movie, made by one of the stars of the film and featuring the director and most of the cast. It turns out they didn't know that piece of crap was a cult film either.
Sure enough, it runs at midnight in the same places that show The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and that amazes me. Never in a million years did I think that of all "in name only sequels to already midgrade-mediocre horror movies", Troll 2 would be the one with a rabid following.
For those who don't know, Troll 2 has nothing to do with Troll. In fact, there aren't even trolls in Troll 2. There are goblins. If you read that "How to Survive a Horror Movie" excerpt I posted last fall, you might have noticed one rule about staying away from a town named "Nilbog", with a note from the contributor sharing amazement you caught the reference. That would be the town that Troll 2 takes place in.
If by some chance you aren't dyslexic or tend to gloss over words like Nilbog, that would be Goblin backwards*. That's about as clever as Troll 2 ever gets. I'll give it this: the movie is woefully inept, poorly acted, and full of non sequiturs that will cause you to laugh uncontrollably.
To give you some idea of the kind of quality Troll 2 represents, here's one of those ubitquitous YouTube compilations:
Case in point: I had no idea that Troll 2 had a cult following, one based purely on how horrible it is. That at least is the purpose of this new documentary, Best Worst Movie, made by one of the stars of the film and featuring the director and most of the cast. It turns out they didn't know that piece of crap was a cult film either.
Sure enough, it runs at midnight in the same places that show The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and that amazes me. Never in a million years did I think that of all "in name only sequels to already midgrade-mediocre horror movies", Troll 2 would be the one with a rabid following.
For those who don't know, Troll 2 has nothing to do with Troll. In fact, there aren't even trolls in Troll 2. There are goblins. If you read that "How to Survive a Horror Movie" excerpt I posted last fall, you might have noticed one rule about staying away from a town named "Nilbog", with a note from the contributor sharing amazement you caught the reference. That would be the town that Troll 2 takes place in.
If by some chance you aren't dyslexic or tend to gloss over words like Nilbog, that would be Goblin backwards*. That's about as clever as Troll 2 ever gets. I'll give it this: the movie is woefully inept, poorly acted, and full of non sequiturs that will cause you to laugh uncontrollably.
To give you some idea of the kind of quality Troll 2 represents, here's one of those ubitquitous YouTube compilations:
| .. Wow.... it's worse than I remembered. It's reasonable to see why this movie has a cult following, albeit one I wouldn't have expected. Like, why Troll 2 and not Ghoulies 2? Why not Megalodon: Shark Attack 3**? Since I put it on last night for the first time in years, why not Batman & Robin? No, really. Batman & Robin is even worse than you remember it was. It's embarrasing how hard that movie fails in just about every way, or why anyone thought it was a good idea. The hockey fights with Mr. Freeze's henchmen? The gratuitous butt shots of Batman and Robin at the beginning? Letting every other line out of Arnold's mouth be a pun? We're not even getting to the nipples on their suits... Yeesh. But here we are, a documentary celebrating a movie I'd almost forgotten existed which is inexplicably a cult phenomenon. Good for you, Troll 2, maybe this will help drum up interest for the Troll remake coming later this year***. Cult films work in mysterious ways, I suppose. Here's the trailer for Best Worst Movie, now showing at South by Southwest. .. * Technically I suppose it would be gobliN. ** Seriously, why not? Do I need to repost the most awkward hook up line ever? *** No joke. |
---
Bad Movie Night, Day Two
Now that I've seen Troll 2 as an adult, I bow down to its reputation. That movie makes the cast of The Giant Claw look like polished professionals and the story makes even less sense than it did 20 years ago. Holy cow is this movie funny for all the wrong reasons.
My favorite subplot has to do with the guys who follow the Waits family to Nilbog and stay in an RV outside of town. They seem to think there's plenty of girls to score with if they just hang out in the RV. Somehow they just end up naked in bed together or in similarly compromising positions. Finally one of them gets lucky with the Goblin Queen (?) and has the greatest scene involving popcorn ever**.
It is totally fair to call Troll 2 the "Best Worst Movie" and show it at midnight. I only wish a nearby theatre offered such an experience.
Things we learned: Italians hate vegetarians, Part of Stonehenge is in Nilbog, Kicking a guy in the nuts will in fact turn him "into a homo", the Biscuitville in Nilbog is open past 2:30 pm.
---
Summer Fest Day Three
I think everything I said about Troll 2 here is still accurate. The only additional thoughts I have are about how good it looked in HD, which is just weird. The popcorn scene is funnier the second time, along with the strange homoerotic overtones in the camper van those guys share. Realizing that movies are shot out of sequence, I understand that maybe there was no "continuity" crew member, but its kind of silly to have characters clearly realize something is totally wrong in one scene and forget in the scene that immediately follows it, even if the same characters are involved.
I speak, of course, of the "Church" scene where Josh's father saves him from eating that nasty Goblin ice cream and freak out about their handling of his son only to welcome them with open arms into his house not three minutes later and accept their evil green food.
Troll 2 is some kind of awful, which in this case translates to some kind of special, but you need to be prepared for a movie that struggles to advance a simple plot forward and subplots that don't make sense, period. If you can do that, this "Best Worst Movie" is right up your alley.
---
Finally, that fan made picture for something we'll never see.
Sigh.
1 comment:
That picture scared the hell out of me at first. I thought Criterion had lost their damn minds.
Post a Comment