Rant: Troll 2

I needed this past week to recharge my creative juices – and for all of those who like to frequent this: the most popular movie blog on the internet – I appreciate you allowing me the time.

There was one other major reason why I needed to take a week off – and that reason was – Troll 2.

Please understand – this is difficult for me to write – as this film really hurt me. It’s like no other film I had ever seen before. Think that I’m exaggerating all you want – that’s fine – but it certainly feels real.

Normally, when people talk about bad movies they talk about box office failures, films that have overly ambitious people working with small budgets or just movies that make very little sense. Troll 2 was all these things – and quite a bit more. It left me thinking; “Was anybody really trying? And if they were – how scary is that?”

The vulgarity that this film was made in the first place makes it one of the most terrifying films ever – and I’m not speaking of the film – I’m just speaking about the fact that it was made at all.

Sure, Plan 9 From Outer Space was “bad” – but Ed Wood Jr. was really trying. He had ambition – and some studio resources – and he put his all into the film – and over all it was entertaining – so how “bad” could it be? Manos: The Hands of Fate was made with ambition but no budget by a fertilizer salesman in Texas – so there’s an excuse as to why the film was so bad. Troll 2 felt like a combination of the two – but without the ambition – or at least I think.

If there was ambition behind it – how do you explain what the secret weapon was? I have not been the same person since I found out what the secret weapon was. I’m pretty sure that once it was revealed – my soul split in two. Half was laughing – and half was so violent and destructive that it may have caused someone somewhere harm. My body is a shell of what it once was – and I’m speechless.

I worried ever since I saw Troll 2 that I was not going to be able to conjure up the will the not only write about movies – but to watch another movie. I’ve seen Monster A Go-Go, Manos, Red Zone Cuba, Transformers, Battlefield Earth, Freddy Got Fingered, Night at the Roxbury, Waterworld and countless other horrid films but not one of them has ever made me not want to watch a movie to wash-out my mind of the residue of it’s badness.

Troll 2 really hurt – and I don’t even want to go into why it was such a bad movie and “review” it – because so much of it is sitting there in the front of my mind hurting me. It’s simultaneously better and worse than it’s predecessor – which has flaws that are understandable and quantifiable – and a perfect example of a film that had better ideas than execution.

Don’t get me wrong – I thought the entire thing was funny as hell with how bad it was – the overacting – the plot – the special effects – the corn porn – the costumes– and the dialogue was something to behold! I think that’s what made it hurt even more! It’s like you are laughing while someone is torturing you.

I’m not going to rate it – I’m just writing this to reverse the curse and hopefully my old witty movie loving self will come back. But if I never return to being as entertaining as I once was (assuming I ever was) – it’s because I found the movie that broke me.

Beware.