America’s Dumbest Family embark on a disastrous house swap holiday where they encounter creatures whose master plan is to turn them into vegetables and eat them.
Troll 2; it’s not a sequel and there aren’t any trolls in it. No, really. And yes you should take that as a measure of the overall quality of this film. Totally unrelated to the original and no doubt superior Troll, Troll 2 actually features goblins with the dietary requirements of vegetarians who have honed their favourite meal to vegetables which are both man in size and man in origin. The trouble is, only Joshua, youngest of the Dumb family, knows their secret, for the cunning of these creatures is plenty as they masquerade as humans with a great sense of hospitality who, consequences abound, inhabit the town of Nilbog, which just happens to be the family’s holiday destination. So it is left to Joshua to save both his family and presumably mankind from becoming goblin fodder, which he does with the help of his dead Granddad and a bologna sandwich (a reference to the film in general, or just the hammy acting?)
I don’t know what is more disturbing about this film, the fact that it was ever made or the fact that it was made in 1990. Currently occupying position number 8 in the IMDB’s bottom 100 films poll and with a user rating of 1.8, this film belongs to the ‘so bad it’s good’ school of filmmaking. Despite all the actors being American and it actually being filmed in America, this is an Italian film, which may explain a few things (those guys sure made some weird crap didn’t they?) This film is so bad it’s quite unbelievable, though it is hugely entertaining for this very reason. This is definitely one of the best worst films I’ve ever seen; the acting is diabolical, the dialogue quite shockingly bad (there are so many superbly bad lines but my favourite has to be ‘you just pissed on hospitality’), terrible editing (I’m not really one for noticing continuity errors but there are some shockers here), crap effects (an awful lot of green poster paint and not a lot else) and costumes (potato sacks and masks no self respecting trick or treater would venture out in) , and just plain old peculiar story ideas (lust among popcorn being just one of them.)
Troll 2 is so worth a watch if, like me, you’re partial to really bad films and they make you laugh when you know they’re not supposed to. It seems to be generating a bit of a cult following theses days which is good to see because this film shouldn’t be written off as rubbish, there’s too much unintentional entertainment value to be had here. Although there were times during this peculiarly anti-vegetarian film when I did wonder if it was actually meant as a bit of a joke, or can it really be that bad? So, is it a joke on us or another nail in the Italian filmmaking coffin? I know where I stand on that one.
This is a tricky one to rate as it makes no contribution to filmmaking whatsoever in the usual sense, so in that respect it’d probably be ½/10. As sheer entertainment value goes I’d give it 8/10. If you come across a cheap copy bag yourself one and I promise you’ll have a laugh.
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