Troll 2
Don’t let the title fool you, there are no trolls in this movie. In fact the word troll is not uttered once throughout the entire hour and a half runtime. This movie is a miracle of bizarre dialogue, strange plot devices, odd music choices, and truly inspired acting. Clearly “influenced“ by the reading scenes from the Princess Bride, we open to Grandpa Seth telling his grandson Joshua a questionable bedtime story. He weaves the tale of Peter, an unfortunate chap who forgets that he is running for his life through a forest when he runs into a beautiful blond with some natural sharpie freckles. She feeds him some green goop, and suddenly Peter is a feast for the Goblins. You don’t get much time to dwell on this fact though because we soon discover that (gasp!) Grandpa Seth has been dead this whole time, and is only visible to Joshua.
The Goblins, it has to be said, are properly frightening for a horror movie. Somehow the Goblin monsters obviously just being a group of children in some ill-fitting masks doesn’t make us feel any better. We don’t know if it is the way that the masks hang loosely, or the fact that the mouths don’t really move so all “eating“ requires the food to just be smeared into the hole, or perhaps it’s the lifeless, yellow, milky, bug eyes that they possess. All we know is that the Goblins will follow you for months after this movie.
If you still insist on watching this movie until the end you should know that the whole plot hitches on the belief that there is such a thing as a month long Farmer exchange. This is where the Waits (Joshua’s family) are going to trade houses with the Presents (yes, that is their real surname) for a month as a vacation. Grandpa Seth is vehemently against this vacation and continuously instructs young Joshua to sabotage this vacations and prevent his family from eating a crumb of food.
When the Waits arrive at the vacation home the are treated with a feast left by the other family, none of the adults are at all concerned that everything on the table is covered in green goo. A color you will become familiar with, so familiar in fact that you will start to wonder what the budget was for green dye. Grandpa Seth briefly stops time to give Joshua a chance to remove the food. Joshua could have chosen to do anything, flipped the table, or thrown the food away, but the choice he made is when the soul of the movie really begins to shine. Joshua stands up on the chair and urinates all over the food.
Since you have made it this far we won’t ruin the rest of the movie, but we will say that Deborah Reed, the actress who plays Creedence, gives quite possibly the most underrated performance of all time and we won’t listen to anyone who says that she is somehow the worst actor of the bunch. Be on the lookout for her corn dancing scene, it will make you laugh so hard that you start crying.
This movie is perfect to watch with a group of friends who love to watch movies while yelling and throwing popcorn at the screen. We recommend watching it at 4pm in the evening so that you have plenty of time to watch it again and confirm that it wasn't all a weird dream.
