Misunderstood Masterpieces: Troll 2
Posted by Will Helm on 10.21.2003
. . . or, AWFUL Spelled Backwards Is LUFWA!
As we continue with “Horror Movie-mania 2003,” you might be wondering to yourself, “Will, just why are we doing horror films? They’re usually the flotsam of the cinematic medium.” Well, sometimes they’re just not horror films; sometimes, there’s more going on under the surface that needs to be uncovered and brought to light . . . light which will sometimes cause the film itself to burst into flames. Oh, wait . . . that’s a vampire. Sorry about that. Seriously, though; many films of this genre are well known for their underlying messages and hidden meanings. For example, some have said that the “classic” The Blob is not just a story of an extraterrestrial Jell-O mold terrorizing a Midwestern town, but instead a commentary of the rampant consumerism of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. Um . . . yeah. I’m not exaggerating, either. Then there are the usual suspects of nuclear war, environmental concerns, world peace; the list goes on and on and usually crosses over into the science fiction of the times as well. (Even Star Wars has been given right-wing and left-wing connotations from time to time.) One film that continues the tradition of allegory in the horror film genre (sounds like one of those obscure technical Academy Awards categories) is the 1990 “masterpiece” Troll 2. As we delve deeper and deeper into the veiled core of this film, take note at the brilliant genius present in the picture. This is certainly a diamond in the rough . . . or not.
You know you’re in for a treat when the movie begins, without warning, in the middle of a fairy tale. Thank you, movie . . . that’s like running headlong into a brick wall. Some fey guy named Peter is walking through the forest until he is accosted by a herd of goblins. Is “herd” the correct term for a group of goblins? Should it be “group”? “cluster”? “gaggle”? I’m just wondering. Anyway, the film is already shameless in ripping off a much better film, The Princess Bride, because a grandfather is reciting the “tale of Peter” to his grandson. Peter Falk and Fred Savage they ain’t, unfortunately. Back in fairy-tale land, the goblins chase Peter through the forest while ‘80s instrumental rock plays in the background. You know, I think pan flutes would’ve been more appropriate; then Zampfir would be proud. After some aimless running from dwarves in horrid costumes, Peter stops for a rest, only to be seduced by some girl with painted-on freckles. At this point, the insufferably whiny grandson, Joshua (Michael Stephenson) interrupts his Grandpa Seth (Robert Ormsby) yet again, ticking off the geriatric. Joshua best take heed, though, as Grandpa Seth insists that the goblins are real. To prove his point, he finishes the story, in which the goblin food the freckled nymph gives to Peter makes him sweat chlorophyll, melt into slime, and then the goblins eat him. That’s a pleasant thought.
Also a pleasant thought: Grandpa Seth has been dead for six months! M. Night Shyamalan would be proud! We learn this through the helpful exposition of Joshua’s bizarrely sedate mother, Diana (Margo Prey). Something tells me she took her father’s death a little too hard and is now, yes, hopped up on goofballs. This becomes important later. In another room of the house, Josh’s sweaty-yet-nubile sister Holly (Connie McFarland) works out to more bad ‘80s rock. It puzzles me, though, why she is bench pressing rather than doing aerobics or something else more typically late ‘80s/early ‘90s. I guess the splayed position allows the camera operator to get some prurient shots of Holly’s nether regions. It turns out that Josh’s redneck dad, Michael (George Hardy) is planning a little vacation to the sleepy hamlet of Nilbog, population 26, where the family will adopt the lives of farmers, living off the land and all that. Gee, it sounds like a reality show in the making. Diana, still feeling the effects of whatever drugs are in her system, pesters her husband about goblins. She just has that wonderfully empty look in her eyes, so you just know she’s sincere . . . or stoned.
A little while later, Josh wakes up in the middle of the night to find a horny teenager outside his window! Oh, it’s just Holly’s creepy boyfriend Elliot (Jason Wright). He’s there to pay his ladylove a visit, but he picked the wrong window. So, instead of giving up, he sneaks into Holly’s room while her workout routine distracts her from his presence; breaking and entering can be so romantic. One thing that bothers me, though: Josh has a Chicago Cubs pennant and a Detroit Pistons pennant hanging in his room. I can understand if these were just placed there because stereotypical “kids” are supposed to like sports and such, but last I checked, Detroit and Chicago don’t mix. It reminds me of Cameron Frye in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off; I always wondered why, for the bulk of the day, Cameron is running around in a Gordie Howe Detroit Red Wings sweater while the movie takes place in Chicago! At least Wayne’s World, set in Aurora, Illinois, had the decency to work Stan Mikita into the film! A little attention to detail, people, never hurt anyone. Back in Holly’s room, Holly and Elliot (neither of whom can act a lick) plan on escaping to the veritable Arcadia that is Nilbog together, ostensibly for some TEENAGE LUST!
Just when you thought that the plans for paradise by the tractor light were to come to fruition, Elliot stands up Holly and she whines unmercifully in the car. Obviously Josh learned quite a bit off his elder sister. Josh’s mom, however, is still eerily sedate; she maniacally forces Josh to sing “Row Row Row Your Boat” to ease the tension. Later, she’s probably going to hijack a school bus and then be killed by Clint Eastwood. Meanwhile, Elliot and his boyz give chase in their well-appointed Winnebago. How a bunch of teenagers got a well-appointed Winnebago is beyond me. Maybe they stopped to win it on The Price is Right or something. And then they discovered that Rod Roddy is actually a cyborg torso and they had to hightail it out of there. Or not. In the Waites’ car, Josh must’ve gotten into to his mom’s stash, as he has an acid trip and starts sweating green goop and sprouting branches from his hands. It’s all a dream, though . . . at least we think it is, as then Josh forces his dad to stop the car because he has another vision of his dead grandfather standing on the side of the road. Sadly, it’s just a creepy, dirty hitchhiker. Oh well; they can still give him a ride and then bury his corpse on the side of the road. At least Josh’s mom has a viable excuse, what with the drugs and all.
In Nilbog, beautiful Nilbog, the townsfolk are predictably xenophobic. Then again, anyone would be if a disturbing dysfunctional family with a penchant for hallucinogens driving an Astrovan showed up in the middle of your town. Inside the surprisingly clean farmhouse, the Waite’s discover a feast laid out for them as a gesture of hospitality . . . a feast of all green food! It’s the revenge of the Keebler elves! Josh is the only one suspect of the villagers’ motives, but because he’s a little kid, no one believes him. Luckily, Grandpa Seth is on hand to stop time so that Josh can think of a way to stop his family from eating the corrupted food. Josh’s preferred method: urination. You have got to be kidding me. At least that’s what I gathered from the tenor of the moment; while Josh’s mom advocates a non-violent resolution, Mr. Waite exclaims to his son that you “can’t piss on hospitality!” I really hope he meant that figuratively, but I suspect it was literal, as he follows punishing his son by dramatically tightening his belt. Because adjusting your accessories is always good for instilling guilt in children.
Somewhere up the road somewhere, Elliot and the boyz sit around in the Winnebago drinking Mountain Dew and watching a television program involving a very fake monkey that flies by farting fire. Arnold (Darren Ewing), the token nerdy guy, gets fed up with all the ennui and goes outside for a smoke. He gets more than he bargains for, as he spies and then chases after a paranoid girl. What is she running from? Well, it seems that in the woods there be monsters! The horror! And not just any monsters . . . oh, no! Snorting goblins! Speaking of which, some of the goblin costumes look awfully familiar; I remember seeing a goblin-like creature in one of those cheesy Deathmaster or Beastslayer or whatever Conan rip-offs from the late ‘80s and the costume was very similar. What struck me as funny about this particular goblin was the fact that, although his mouth barely moved when he spoke, the goblin spoke in clear, articulate English. No snorting or grunting for this creature of folklore! Digressions aside, Arnold, the nerd, tries to reason with the goblins, as that is fitting for his particular idiom. He gets impaled by a goblin’s spear for his troubles; it serves him right.
Arnold and the paranoid girl escape to some strange house in the middle of the woods, which happens to be inhabited by a very pale mental patient with bad teeth and a Russian accent named Creedence (Deborah Reed). Ah . . . a Russian accent. See, this is the whole underlying meaning of the film that I was referring to in the introductory paragraph. It seems that Troll 2 is just another in a long line of Cold War propaganda films; in other words, the goblins are just stand-ins for the Communist threat and the Waites are an unsuspecting America. Think I’m crazy? Well, the iconography and symbolism of the goblins involve nature and drugs . . . hallmarks of the damned pinko hippies! Meanwhile, the only ones who see the threat are the old, dead patriot and his young grandson, which means . . . something. I’m still trying to figure that part out. Bear with me, please. Fittingly, the paranoid girl drinks some green juice (absinthe, perhaps?), turns into goo, and gets eaten by the goblins. Arnold, unfortunately, has an epiphany, but it comes too late, as he has already been unwillingly recruited into the fold.
Back in town, Josh whines yet more, while Holly dances and pretends to threaten Elliot’s wellbeing in the mirror. Instead of her randy lover, Grandpa Seth shows up instead. He’s an old dead pervert. Oh, and it’s here that we learn, from Mr. Waite, that Holly learned some things from her mother, specifically dope smoking. I knew it all along! She learned it by watching her! After things have settled down a bit, Josh communes with Grandpa Seth, who (as well as being a sexual deviant) is also a senile specter. In addition, he hates his daughter and son-in-law. Even though he’s dead, Grandpa Seth has some issues he needs to work out. Elsewhere, Elliot and the boyz (sans Arnold) share an early-morning bonding moment. Perhaps the reason Elliot blew off Holly earlier is because he’s not really interested in her; I mean, what else would you think when you see two shirtless young men lying near to one another in bed? At the farmhouse, Mr. Waite mumbles something. I’m sure it was something profoundly American, that’s for sure!
Later, whilst jogging, Drew (Jason Steadman), the dork, hitches a ride off Sheriff Freak (Gary Carlson), who shares a green donut with the young teen. Hmm . . . green donut; it must be St. Patrick’s Day! At the Nilbog General Store, you can tell something’s amiss just from the fact that everyone save Drew is wearing flannel in sweltering heat. Unless they’re just tough country folk, but I have my doubts. My doubts are confirmed as it turns out that the General Store stocks neither meat nor foul because all the Nilboggians (?) are vegetarians! I was right all along; it’s the damned dirty hippies! Speaking of vegetables, back at the creepy house in the woods, Creedence flirts with ½-tree Arnold. You know . . . if it weren’t for the bad teeth, lack of pigmentation in her skin, and utter insanity, she’d be kind of hot. More on that later.
Minutes later, we learn that Drew is not the only outsider in town, as Josh and his dad waste some time there. During the layover, Josh makes a “shocking” discovery: NILBOG spelled backwards is GOBLIN! Feel the suspense! Taste the rainbow! Drew, the dork, meanwhile, oozes green goop while Creedence goes to visit Mrs. Waite and Holly. In town yet again, Josh makes another “shocking” discovery: an evangelical goblin revival! Ah, so that explains the origins of Tammy Faye Bakker. Makes sense. Of course, Josh’s innocuously-yet-precariously-placed skateboard somehow gets levered down into the meeting hall, leading to Josh’s capture. Over at the Winnebago, Holly visits Elliot and decks him, for no discernable reason. Back in the First Church of the Goblin (Reformed), the congregation attempts to force-feed Josh some yummy goblin ice cream. Mr. Waite finally DOES something, jumping to Josh’s rescue. Of course he’s still skeptical, as Josh still is a kid with a hallucination problem. Then again, if Mr. Waite was a little more accepting, this film could come to a much quicker resolution. At the Winnebago, Mr. Waite feels the need to interfere in Holly’s love life while returning to the farmhouse . . . of complete damnation! Or not.
Drew, who is now a dork in a drunken stupor, arrives at the old mansion in the woods, only to find ½-tree Arnold! Drew bumbles his way through an attempted rescue, but Creedence discovers him, knocks him out, and then takes a chainsaw to ½-tree Arnold. That poor nerd. Later, Creedence mixes up some tasty Arnold-juice for Drew. That sentence was much dirtier than it had any right to be . . . but there’s a reason! You see, you really need to include the homosexual subtext in order to hammer home just how evil the Communists are! Yeah . . . that makes sense! Back at the farmhouse, the entire population of Nilbog, all 26 of them, is having a party in the Waites’ honor! Isn’t that nice of them . . . next thing you know, their hearts will be bleeding Rooskie Red. Just you wait! As always, Josh is the only one capable of seeing through the Nilboggers’ façade, so he whines in front of the magic mirror. Instead of Grandpa Seth, he gets a goblin! Luckily for him, Grandpa Seth was following the menace close behind and lops off the goblin’s hand with an ethereal axe. Sadly, it turns out that the goblin was actually Creedence in disguise; as a result of getting her hand chopped off, she seems to have developed morbidly chapped lips. I don’t get it.
At the Waites’, Grandpa Seth arms Josh with a Molotov cocktail; perhaps the dear, sweet ghoul is a double agent for the Commies after all. Perhaps not, though, as the goblin priest catches them and attempts to send the geriatric ghost to Hell. Unfortunately for the cursed cleric, Grandpa Seth magically ignites the incendiary device, immolating him for all his troubles. As the corpse of the priest is now, amazingly, a dead goblin, the Waites finally realize that Josh was speaking the truth all along. They don’t have very much time to congratulate their young progeny, however, as it seems that jurisprudence regarding the murder of a goblin is swift and severe: Sheriff Freak immediately sentences the family to death! What’s funny about all this is that the guilty party is already dead. Isn’t that a hoot? At the house in the woods, crazy Creedence gets herself a mystical extreme makeover and turns ULTRA-FOXY! I always knew she had it in her. At the farmhouse, the assembled lynch mob threatens the Waites with headlights, violence, and sandwiches. In retaliation, the Waites plan a séance in order to contact Grandpa Seth . . . because he always seems to know what to do. Except when it comes to spying on his young granddaughter. Then everything just gets all weird.
Speaking of weird, this is where the movie turns that up to eleven. At the Winnebago, the now-smokin’ Creedence flirts with Elliot’s friend Brent (David McConnell), the goof, via television. Creedence, for lack of better terminology, has got it goin’ on. She’s all that and an ear of corn, which she conveniently carries with her for no particular reason. Hopefully she brought some Vaseline to go with it; I bet that thing would HURT something fierce without some lubrication. After sharing some clumsy seduction techniques, Creedence and Brent, the goof, passionately share the corn while being pelted with popcorn from off camera. And that, my friends, is arguably the most bizarre sex scene in the history of film . . . although I still wish that Brent had channeled Last Tango in Paris and told Creedence to “bring the butter.” It makes sense on so many levels.
At the besieged farmhouse, the Waites (and Elliot) attempt the séance while Sheriff Freak fires warning shots. It seems that the awesome power of the family’s ineptitude is enough to make the candles on the table before them blow out about five or six times. Either that, or it’s the signal for Grandpa Seth’s triumphant return! Huzzah! He tells Josh that only their combined powers can defeat the goblins and then he kidnaps his grandson. Um . . . that makes sense. The rest of the family (and Elliot): still useless. Josh, somehow, miraculously appears at Creedence’s house. Grandpa Seth gives him a mysterious bag and then tells him to touch the magic stone of Stonehenge. Back at the home, the goblins finally trap the Waites (and Elliot). Elliot, genius that he is, tries to reason with the creatures . . . listen, it didn’t work for Arnold, the nerd, and it won’t work for you, so just SHUT UP! Elsewhere, Creedence, the Muscovite minx, freaks out, as it seems that the afterglow of maize-assisted lovin’ made her turn ugly again. The rest of the goblins, surprisingly, teleport to her, leaving the Waites to wonder just what the Hell happened.
I bet you’re wondering where the goblins went, aren’t you? Well, I’ll tell you. They’re all at Creedence’s lovely chateau, threatening Josh with their revolutionary brand of Communism! Don’t give in, Josh . . . don’t become just another domino! Luckily, Josh, young patriot that he is, fights off the evil foes of Truth, Justice, and the American Way with an enchanted bologna sandwich. OK. You have really really got to be kidding now. All this time, all this trouble, and the goblins could’ve been fought off with a sandwich? Or a brisket? Or some yummy fried chicken? That has to be the stupidest weakness in the history of cinema. And Austin Powers thought that throwing a shoe was bad! At least he never got foiled by a hoagie. After Josh gets some lunch, the rest of the Waites (and Elliot) show up just in time to fondle the magic stone . . . which melodramatically discorporates the goblins! Is all this over? Finally?
Nope. We’re back in suburbia now, where Elliot and Holly go off, probably for some teenage lust; Mr. Waite leaves to do something or other; and Josh and his mom hang out at home. Josh, sentimental young fool that he is, thanks the mirror in his room. He should’ve been watching over his mother, however, as it seems that she has eaten an evil apple, turned to goo (with breasts), and is being ingested by some goblins. Um . . . I thought the goblins were gone. Were Mr. Waite, Holly, and Elliot goblins in disguise? What gives? And, just because this movie couldn’t be any more disgusting, the lead goblin asks Josh if he wants a piece of his mother. I swear, that’s just too Oedipal for words. And then the movie ends. What a downer.
Years ago, I had seen this movie. I knew it was bad, but I had forgotten JUST HOW BAD! No one in this film can act as they’re either screaming (Josh) or wooden (everyone else . . . although no pun is intended when it comes to Arnold, the nerd). The goblin costumes are just laughable; they look like something you can buy at those decrepit Halloween stores at your local mall. The plot makes absolutely no sense, to say the least. Are we supposed to hate the goblins because they’re vegetarians who love the environment? It’s sad when I have to invent the subplot of encroaching Communism to give this film any semblance of meaning. And then there’s always the sneaking suspicion that the movie is, in actuality, self-consciously bad and, therefore, a parody of the entire genre, with the Communism subtext present for anyone paying attention. On second thought . . . yeah right.
