Best Worst Movie 2: The Trollening

If you read my write-up on Best Worst Movie, you must surely be asking yourself, "so... did you actually watch Troll 2?"

<Balki> Well of course I did, don't be ridiculous! </Balki>

I mentioned in discussing Best Worst Movie that Troll 2 doesn't feature a single troll. Here's what it does feature. A family of four takes a vacation to the tiny farm town of Nilbog, trailed by the older sister's immature boyfriend and his three stupid friends. The young boy of the family is haunted by visions of his dead grandfather, come to warn him that the residents of the town are all goblins in disguise. The goblins wants you to eat some of their food, which will magically convert you into a strange green pudding that they in turn will eat. (They can't just eat you directly, silly -- they're vegetarians!)

It's every bit as stupid as it sounds and more. It has preposterous and unearned plot developments. The characters seem to be competing in a "who can behave most stupidly" competition -- and it's a dead heat. It's all backed by a truly lame synth soundtrack. By any measure, this is a grade F film.

The theory goes, of course, that it's so bad it's good (SoBIG). Indeed, sometimes it is. But for me, comparing it to The Room, it isn't as consistently SoBIG. The movie is more often unintentionally stupid rather than unintentionally funny. And not all of the actors are cringe-inducing; a few of them really are trying to be good.

However, I must acknowledge that while this movie may not deliver the goods (bads?) consistently, there is one scene in it that is the indisputable SoBIG champion -- the most hysterically awful, awfully hysterical thing ever committed to film. It involves a witch seducing a dumb jock with an ear of corn. I'm not kidding. It's unfathomable that anyone involved with the movie could ever have thought for one moment that this scene would be anything but a laugh riot. Even if everyone was insane enough to believe in it on the page, I can't imagine that on the set, as they were throwing buckets of popcorn on the actors, that nobody stopped for a moment to ask "what the hell are we doing?" Or that the editor, when he was layering in the "You Can Leave Your Hat On" sound-alike, didn't have a moment of clarity and suggest maybe this didn't belong in the movie.

But don't take my word for it. Watch for yourself:



This is the highlight of Troll 2. If you're into bad movies, you'd probably enjoy watching the rest. But in any case, The Room remains king of its ignominious hill in my book.