Troll 2 (1990) Review

CORKY…

…What?  Oh, sorry, still not completely over the suckiness of that God-forsaken movie.

If you all recall from my Corky Romano review last week (actually, it was more of a frothy-mouthed rant), I wrote that Troll 2 was so bad, it’s good, while Corky was so bad, it had nothing redeemable.  That got me to thinking, what makes a movie so bad that it is actually enjoyable to watch?  How can Troll 2, which I admit is technically worse that Corky, be so much more entertaining?  I mean, compared to Corky, Troll 2 has worse acting, worse special effects, worse music, worse dialog, worse editing, worse everything.  And yet, I found Troll 2 to be a much better movie.  Mathematically, this did not make sense.

I guess the main reason why I am more capable of forgiving Troll 2 is the fact that the odds were very much stacked against its production.  This movie was filmed in Utah, yet the director, Claudio Fragasso, was Italian, and the production crew that he brought with him did not speak a word of English.  Also, the leading actors of this movie originally auditioned for roles as extras and had very little acting experience (one of the actors was actually a patient in the nearby mental hospital).  And to top it all off, Fragasso made the actors read the script verbatim for filming, despite the fact that he and another co-author wrote the whole thing in very broken English.

In spite of all these faults (or maybe because of them), Troll 2 has a huge cult following.  It is played religiously in the many film festivals devoted to campy sci-fi flicks such as this one.  The stars of the movie (including George Hardy, a real-life dentist who played the father) are now instantly recognizable icons to the many fans of this film.  There is even a documentary about Troll 2’s success called Best Worst Movie (which I haven’t seen yet, but I would love to do a review of it sometime in the future). This begs the question:  Who in their right mind likes this horrible movie this much?

Well, I do.  I know that this might greatly discredit me as a reviewer, but I enjoy these types of infamously bad films.  It is the same kind of enjoyment I get whenever I watch an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (if you haven’t seen this show, shame on you).  I know it’s bad, I know it’s insulting to my intelligence, and I know I could be watching much better films than this one.  And yet, I am entertained by it, and I don’t regret watching it.  To me, the stiff acting, the ridiculous costumes, and the unconvincing special effects are much more hilarious than anything Corky tried to put out.

If you are susceptible to bad acting, then you should avoid this movie.  Michael Stephenson, playing the main character Joshua Waits, is the bad child actor’s bad child actor, delivering each line with the same whiny inflection I used when I begged my mom to buy me action figures at the store.  The rest of the actors, especially Connie McFarland who played Josh’s sister, have really forced readings and would have been laughed off of an audition for a community theatre production.  These forced readings do provide the audience with a plethora of unintentionally hilarious scenes.  My personal favorite is the scene in which Josh’s father yells at Josh after he peed all over the family’s food (“And you can’t piss on hospitality!  I WON’T ALLOW IT!”).

If you get tired of laughing at the acting, you can always laugh at the horrendous special effects.  The “trolls”, which are actually goblins (long story), all wear these obvious rubber masks along with burlap-sack jumpsuits.  The blood and green goo that excretes from the characters are clearly painted on the actors.  Bodily transformations only occur in between jump cuts.  In one scene, in which a character supposedly has melted into a pile of ooze except for her head, you can easily see the outline of the tub that the rest of the actress’ body is hiding in.  There is not a single effect in this movie in which I cannot explain how they did it!

If I were an official movie reviewer, hired by some sort of publication, I would rate Troll 2 1 star.  However, I feel that I should review this movie based on its entertainment value and not solely on its production quality.  In that case, I would highly recommend this movie, as long as everyone who is watching it knows that it is laughably bad.  If you have this sarcastic attitude about bad movies, you will find that Troll 2 is one of the most unintentionally hilarious films of all time.

Rating: 4 Stars

Distributed by Epic Productions

            Running time: 95 minutes