3/31/09: Troll 2 (1990)
We blame our middling career on society—specifically, the society that meant our social commitments in the ’90s included gatherings where thriving hipster writers for crappy thriving magazines would gather for parties where they’d laugh at the 1992 Disney musical
Newsies. Those cretins would spend all week planning clever lil’ comments for their umpteenth screening. By our third
Newsies party, we were perfectly happy if we ended up selling shoes.
We feel better about the cult of
Troll 2. We noticed rock clubs hosting
Troll 2 screenings about a year ago, and that seemed perfectly likable. We’d seen the film on cable back in the ’90s, and remembered it being a fairly moronic piece of direct-to-video trash. We probably thought the film was much older than it is. The filmmakers certainly thought America was still mired in ’80s fashion.
Anyway,
Troll 2 is a uniquely bad film that’s genuinely fun to watch. There’s a documentary coming out that’s made by the film’s child star. That’ll probably be an interesting look at the strange life of a fleeting cable perpetual.
Troll 2 certainly sports an unknown cast and crew. The only name we recognized was Laurie Gemser from some amazing
Emmanuelle movies. She’s the costumer on this production.
Troll 2 may not even be a real sequel to 1986’s
Troll. This one should really be called
Goblins. The film opens with young Joshua Waits enjoying a scary bedtime story about the loathsome woodland creatures. His grandfather is telling the tale. He’s dead. That’d be a nice opening to a better movie. In this one, it’s all bungled. Still, we learn something important from Grandpa Seth. “Goblins,” he explains, “don’t need to justify their cruel acts.” They must have the media on their side.
Joshua’s scary Mom breaks up this party by telling the kid to get some sleep. They’re about to leave on a family vacation to the rustic country village of Nilbog. We soon hear Dad spelling out the town’s name, in case the script is being too subtle. There’s some remaining business where Joshua’s sister Holly invites her boyfriend along for the trip. We don’t want to give away too much of the film’s many highlights, but this scene’s worth enjoying at the opening of this
Troll 2 highlights reel.
Maybe you’re better off just watching that clip. It’ll save us the trouble of dwelling on several bizarre moments that are worth mentioning. For our purposes, we’ll just note that the Waits family gets to Nilbog and discovers that the place might as well be a neighborhood in San Francisco. The locals want to feed them all kinds of green food, but meat is out of the question. “We’re vegetarians here in Nilbog,” sneers one local. “Didn’t you know that?”
The locals of Nilbog want to make their guests “one with the vegetable world.” That makes the visitors tastier to eat. The local preacher rants against the evils of steaks and hot dogs. You want to watch out for Earth Mother types. And bring food from home.
Here’s a SPOILER, but some folks here may not have the time to invest in a bad film. Little Joshua will save the day by brandishing a double-decker baloney sandwich. He’s threatening to eat it. “Don’t do it,” screams the town villainess. “Think about the fats in your blood! Think about the cholesterol! Think about the toxins!” This will remind us of something Grandpa Seth said earlier: “Only the power of Goodness can destroy these monsters.” That turns out to be the innate goodness of meat, so
Troll 2 still has an important message. END SPOILER, incidentally.
Maybe that’s why the scene doesn’t make that Youtube compilation. It’s the only logical part of the movie. Then we get to the real ending, which is another scene that would’ve been effective in any other film. That’s no wasted opportunity. Just more giddy incompetence, and it’s always nice to see that kind of thing being appreciated.
Make it your own: We found a big stash of
Newsies soundtrack CDs back when they were still out of print. Those got eBayed for plenty of bucks.
Troll 2 probably never even got a soundtrack release. At least it’s easy to get
the DVD, where
Troll 2 is paired with the more traditional (but still fun and lousy)
Troll.
