Why So Blu?

Troll 2 (Blu-ray Review)

Troll 2 is a breathtaking study about the rights and grandeur of a small group of indigenous people and their struggle to survive.  This profound movie is a serious look at the human condition and how individuals can triumph despite the  societal norms and pressures placed on them.  Superbly directed by film auteur Claudio Fargrasso (under the pseudonym of Drake Floyd to remain humble), and ably supported by hand-picked actors whose haunting and nuanced portrayals bring the characters to life, Troll 2 is a cinematic treasure that dazzles us with its wit and charm. It’s one of the rare movies that teaches us some important values and lessons that will resonate through history for years to come.

Yeah right.  In all honesty, this movie is the biggest piece of crap I have ever seen in my life.  There may be worst movies out there, but I haven’t seen them because I would have either walked out or changed the channel, but  since I was obligated to watch the entire movie because it’s my job, I suffered through it so you wouldn’t have to.  I wish I could try to soften my stance even a little, by focusing on the technical merits of the movie or an actor’s performance, or even the script or special effects, but there is nothing and I mean NOTHING remotely worthy of praise in this movie.

I look at this movie as the cost for getting to review the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  I knew it wouldn’t be good but I had no idea just how terrible this movie could be.  As good as the Lord of the Rings movies are, this movie is the atrocious equivalent on the other end of the spectrum.  This movie is so bad that the child star of the movie later came out with a documentary about making it called Best Worst Movie, which has been favorable reviewed so I guess at least one positive thing came out of this movie.

A movie this bad can only become a cult classic for a small group of people by taking itself as seriously as it does.  This level of seriousness can generally only be achieved by amateur community theater actors or when it’s written and directed by the same person who is too close to the material to see it for what it is.  I think it’s pretty safe to say that the entire cast was picked out of an open casting call in Utah of unknown amateur actors who specialized in over-acting.

The film has the dubious distinction of  being named the worst movie of all time by IMDB.com and currently has an amazing 0% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes by professional critics.  To be fair, there does seem to be a group of people that enjoy this movie for some reason, just like there are fans of Jersey Shore.

Film 

That’s right…this is the first movie I’ve reviewed that received a zero rating.  The “movie” opens with young boy named Joshua (Michael Stephenson) being read goblin stories to by his dead grandfather (Robert Ormsby).  This ghost with the most isn’t your average non-corporeal being, he can move objects and kick ass when he needs to and is handy with an axe which we see later.  Of course the boy’s family thinks he is seeing things and they decide to take a vacation to the quaint town of Nilbog (which of course is Goblin backwards).  For some reason, they swap houses with a family they don’t know at all instead of just renting a hotel or camping somewhere.

Joshua’s sister Holly (Connie McFarland) in the meantime believes her boyfriend Elliot (Jason Wright) is a homosexual because he spends all of his time with his friends.  He convinces her that he isn’t by volunteering to go with her on her family vacation without his friends.   Of course, that is a lie because his friends need to come along to serve their purpose just like red-shirts must accompany Kirk and Spock on dangerous away missions.  Someone has to be turned into edible plants and vegetables after all.

Dead Grandpa returns to warn Joshua that they should avoid Nilbog and the boy has a dream that he turns into a plant and is eaten by his family.  Once they arrive at their vacation house, they are not at all concerned about the creepy  family that is about to move into their house once they see that food has been left out for them.  Joshua’s dad (George Hardy) thinks it because of southern hospitality and the family is ready to eat the food when Dead Grandpa returns to freeze time for thirty seconds to allow Joshua time to come up with a brilliant plan to stop them from eating food that will turn them into plants.   So Joshua cleverly urinates on all of the food.

Meanwhile, Elliot and his red-shirt brigade soon start dropping like flies once one of them runs into the house of the goblin’s leader Creedence Leonore Gielgud (Deborah Reed) who is some kind of crazy druid/plant lady.  As a side note, if there ever was an Academy Award for over-acting, Reed would have won it hands-down.  After catching some red-shirts she has them drink something that turns them into either trees or vegetables and then waters them with what I’m guessing is some kind of Miracle-Gro plant food to make them big and tasty for the goblins.  I can’t believe I’m actually typing this synopsis.

Soon it will be the family against the goblins and their corn on the cob loving leader.  Fortunately for the family, Dead Grandpa not only knows how to freeze time and return to life, he also has the ability to shoot lighting from his hand and  the knowledge on how to kill the goblins.  After a seance,  Dead Grandpa says that he only has ten minutes left before he’s gone for good so they all need to put their hands on the magic stone to defeat the goblins.  I’m not quite sure what effect that was supposed to have but the movie makes it clear that if you eat a bologna sandwich the goblins can’t hurt you.  Good tip.

This is without a doubt the stupidest movie ever made.  The acting is terrible, the directing is horrible, and I think you can get an idea on the quality of the effects and make-up from these pictures.  I’ve I lost an hour and thirty-four minutes of my life to this travesty of a film that I will never get back.  This movie is so bad that there should be a victims compensation fund for the unfortunate souls that foolishly watch it.  I’m convinced that this movie is continuously played on a loop in the special section of Hell reserved for pedophiles and mass murderers like Hitler.

Video 

It looks better than the previous DVD and they kept the 1.85:1 ratio, but it still has a grainy uneven picture.  Some shots look pretty good but most of them lack detail and there is speckling throughout the movie.  Since this movie was obviously low budget, this is probably the best it’s going to look.  Some daylight outdoor shots look good so the quality is hit and miss but if you own the DVD you should upgrade if you want a better picture.  If you do already own the DVD, then shame on you.

Audio 

The movie offers the original Dolby Digital 2.0 mono mix in and a 24-bit DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 remix track that is slightly better.  The track barely uses the satellite speakers and the dialogue isn’t clear in several instances.  The crappy synthesizer score comes through loud and clear so at least you have that going for you.

Special Features

I can’t believe anyone would be interested in watching any extras about this movie after watching it and the studio must agree, because all that’s on there is the theatrical trailer.  Bullet dodged.

Final Thoughts

I HATED HATED HATED this movie.  It’s a rare movie that fails on every front but this one did it with flying colors.  I honestly don’t think that anyone could deliberately make a worst movie if they tried.  The earnestness of the cast who took this so seriously and believed they were making the next Gremlins has to be the reason this movie has a cult audience.  I have my own cult movies that I love like Army of Darkness, but this is so terrible that it is in a class by itself.  I would rather watch Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space ten times than watch this again.

This movie makes my previous hatred towards Power Kids (read my review) seem paltry and unwarranted.  Don’t believe the hype that this movie is so bad that it’s good.  It’s not only bad, but it’s  so bad that I cannot remember for the life of me, a movie that I’ve hated this much.  By the way, this movie has nothing to do at all with the first Troll movie so don’t worry about continuity.  This movie makes Freddy Got Fingered look Oscar worthy.  Enough said.

*

I don’t recommend it, but if you have money to burn here are the links: