Troll 2 - Will's Review

I SHOCKTOBER SPECIAL: BEST WORST MOVIES

In honour of Halloween, we're taking a special "Shocktober" break from the Time-Out 100 Best Horror films, to focus on some of the worst...

Completely unrelated to Troll (there are no trolls in it; at script stage it was titled "Goblins") it's hard to understand why it was re-branded as a sequel - it's not like the origional was a runaway success, with a large sequel demand, but in any case, it was released stright to video as a sequel to an already obscure and pretty poor movie. 

I first reviewed this movie for my solo October-Only blog, and at the time it just didn't 'click'.Watching the documentary (reviews on this very blog and my own) gave me a new appreciation for it, and I've watched it a few times since. Yesterday, when I watched it to write this, I was reminded that it just never stops amazing me.

It's rare that a movie so frequently maligned lives up to its hype, but in the case of Troll 2 it really is hard to overstate how bad it is. Many movies have a few bad actors, some movies have nothing but bad actors, some movies are badly written, many have bad effects, some movies are badly filmed, and some are badly directed. Troll 2 somehow fucks up EVERYTHING!... And it's wonderful for it!

The first time you see it it's hard to believe that this was ever intended to be a good movie, the costumes look like they came from a piss-poor costume shop (or were home made) the effects are laughable, the script appalling, the acting sub-dreamlanders, and the filming amateurish.  It's 0% rating (15 reviews, all negative) on Rotten Tomatoes is well deserved. and yet, probably because it's completely lacking in cynicism, it manages to be the perfect storm of bad movies, crossing the line twice, into "so bad its awesome" territory.

A family go on a house-swap holiday to the town of Nilbog (read it backwards) where the residents, all secretly goblins) want to turn them into vegetation in order to eat them (goblins are vegetarians you see). 

Apparently, the way to turn someone into vegetation is to get them to eat a special herbal mixture, which looks like green play-doh. The goblins aren't very good at hiding this green paste: using it as icing on cakes, filling in sandwiches, and smearing it on corn-on-the-cob. Oddly, no-one seems to notice, and the family are grateful for the banquets. 

And so, it's up to the son of the family, assisted by the ghost of his grandpa, to make sure everyone gets out of Nilbog alive. 

I can't do this movie justice in words - I can neither adequately explain it's ineptness, not tell you how it remains watchable in spite. 

Be warned though, Troll 2 is a mind virus; once you have seen it, you'll want others to see it too... The truth is that the whole reason I scheduled bad movies these last four weeks was to make Lisa watch this (sorry Lisa).

I don't know what else to say... If you like bad movies AT ALL, get yourself a copy, get your friends around, make some (green) snacks, crack open some beers, and get ready to have a riot!

Night of the Lepus - Will's Review

SHOCKTOBER SPECIAL: BEST WORST MOVIES

In honour of Halloween, we're taking a special "Shocktober" break from the Time-Out 100 Best Horror films, to focus on some of the worst...

Based on the novel "The Year of the Angry Rabbit", and starring Janet Leigh, DeForrest Kelley, and a bunch of other people you'll recognise if you watch a few 60's / early 70's movies, the most striking thing about Night of the Lepus is how po-faced the whole thing is!

You'd think a movie about giant killer rabbits had to be a spoof, but you'd be wrong; the filmmakers have honestly made every attempt to make this a genuinely good / frightening monster movie... and that's exactly why it works!



Even within the movie, no-one seems to pause and go "Rabbits?.. Really?"; it's just taken at face value that this is a thing now... at one point a police car pulls into a drive in movie theater and evacuates the place, telling the patrons that "there's a herd of killer rabbits headed this way" (not even mentioning that they are giant killer rabbits) and everyone just calmly starts their engines, and do as the cop says!

So-Bad-It's-Good movies that were intentionally made as So-Bad-It's-Good movies rarely work; the true masterpieces of bad cinema are almost always serious films that were either incompetently made, or just so fucking ludicrous that they had no hope in hell of being taken seriously... This falls into the latter camp

While I'm sure a bunny the size of a car, lolloping towards you with blood on its mouth would be terrifying in real life, on film its just too goofy for words!

That a farmer would have access to experimental biologist to solve a simple rabbit infestation, that those biologists would be using an "experimental serum" sent to them by the department of health, that the department of health would somehow come to possess a serum that they have literally no idea what it does, that said serum would not only cause a rabbit to grow to several feet tall in a matter of hours, and that the gigantism would be contagious; these things alone make the movie laughable beyond words, that fact that a giant rabbit isn't remotely scary is just the icing on the cake!

The rabbits seem to change size a lot, depending on what else is in shot with them, and they are very rarely seen in the same shot as a human... I can understand why, it's because CGI wasn't invented, and stop motion / guy in a suit would have looked awful; but at the same time the way they have worked around that (Actors looking up and screaming, cut to: shot of a rabbit in extreme close-up) often makes it look like someone has edited bunnies into another movie for shits and giggles.

The actors do a remarkably good job; Leigh especially is a trooper, saying the line "It's okay now, he's gone... the rabbit is gone" to a hysterical adult without even the faintest hint of a smile.

Effects wise, we're talking red paint for blood, but I must admit that some of the miniature sets were astounding (even if they couldn't just pick a scale and stick to it).

I love this movie... I'm sure that the film-makers would be disgusted to hear the ways in which I love this movie (although surely, they've heard it enough times by now), but I loved it.

I'm using the "So Bad It's Good" tag here, and it's never been truer.

This review can also be found at Will's solo blog, which runs every October.