Demons 2 (1986)

The first Demons was a gloriously insane little ride that was mostly about people spewing green stuff out of their mouths while heavy metal songs played over scenes of them all dying. This one is kind of like that, only without any of the things that made the first one good or even interesting. All the cool lighting and directing touches are gone, the music is less prominent and the kills are less interesting. Sound fun yet?

Director: Lamberto Bava

Starring: Bobby Rhodes, Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, lots more

IMDb

Co-written with Nathan.

I guess this is a sort of weird ‘movie within a movie’ where you think you’re watching a story about a bunch of kids trespassing in the ruins of the movie theater from the first Demons and waking up a demon – it's weird that all five of them can't take one demon that was just asleep a second ago. I guess not everyone can be Ash from Evil Dead! It's just that these guys are like baby kittens completely helpless in the world. Pathetic, really.

This all turns out, confusingly, to be a movie within a movie, watched by a bunch of boring simpletons in this kind of weird hellscape of an apartment building. The entire movie pretty much takes place here, inside this giant Kafka-esque block of an apartment. It’s kind of a strange, claustrophobic setting that could’ve been effective if they’d known what they were doing. But it doesn’t seem like much more than an excuse not to spend money filming in actually interesting locations.

Instead, you mostly just get scenes that play like something out of a bad comedy. Like, this one girl is having a huge birthday party and locks herself in her room in the middle of it and watches the Demons movie. A demon starts coming out of the TV and, when it goes to static, she just tries to change the channel – shows how deep TV gets you. People get addicted to the shit enough to prefer it over preventing their own imminent death. The funny thing is, this movie is so bland that this isn’t even social commentary – it’s just another in the line of stupid, meaningless shit that happens.

The movie basically then becomes a lot of people turning into demons and killing people and stuff. It’s all a lot of noise – a lot of people who stand in place screaming as the demons kill them. It’s not really much of a challenge for the demons here, guys. You’re like easy pickings now. At least put up a little bit of a fight! It’s barely even a fucking horror movie if the characters just sit and wait to die. At that point it’s, what, just a dinner for the monsters? A potluck maybe?

They try and compensate for it by having the actors over-do all their scenes like they’re having epileptic seizures. That can be kind of funny at first, but after like an hour of just screaming, it’s like being in the middle of a bunch of cranky infants. Not really what I look for in a horror movie, guys!

There are various characters, but none who are really interesting. Oh man, tell me more about the gym guy who shouts at everybody to lift more weights! He’s such a compelling character I think my brain is gonna explode. William Faulkner and Alfred Hitchcock only could have DREAMED about a character this good.

Oh, the pregnant woman faces off against a small child turned into a demon – you have to be pretty weak to not be able to beat up a child. I know normally you wouldn’t want to, but this thing has mottled green skin and eyes like an inferno. Not sure the normal rules apply. It should be easy enough to defeat the kid but, by horror movie rules, the pregnant chick has a really hard time of it. Then a monster does an Alien-style chest burst out of the kid and out comes a tiny little goblin-like thing that looks like a shitty rubber McDonalds toy. Truly, what am I even fucking looking at with this?

I’ve been grasping at straws trying to talk about this, but it’s tough because there’s so much shit happening and all of it is so boring and inconsequential. There’s never a sense that anything in the story is moving forward. It’s all just random scenes, arranged arbitrarily, as if drawn from a hat and then slapped together. It’s as exciting as waiting in line at the DMV, but at least in that situation you have the ability to escape the screaming children there after less time than this movie’s runtime takes up.

I guess there’s some scenes of people in an elevator trying to hide from a demon, which are somehow more dull than if you were actually stuck in an elevator with someone in real life. And the climax is set in this underground parking lot, you know, the PRIME fucking location for ANY horror movie to be set in! My God! What a revelation, a climax so exciting that I will never enjoy any other movie again. Fuck any other cinema, this is the true zenith of all film creation!

I dunno, I really have nothing else to fucking add here. This is just a vapid, dull, awful movie and I would rather go watch the first one again.

Image copyright of its original owners, I don't own it.

Maximum Overdrive (1986)

In 1987, a horrible event happened that changed the course of human history. Machines came to life and slaughtered everybody for no reason. It happened so fast nobody could predict it or tell what the Hell was going on. If it hadn’t been for a bunch of idiots at a random gas station in the middle of nowhere, people today would still be enslaved to a bunch of 18-wheeler trucks. Oh the horror! Let us recount the terrifying events of that day in the Stephen King directed vessel Maximum Overdrive…

Director: Stephen King

Starring: Emilio Estevez, Laura Harrington, Pat Hingle

IMDb

We start off this movie with the King himself flabbergasted that a bunch of machines and electric signs at the bank are saying some rather rude things to him when he tries to withdraw money:

Well I mean obviously THAT already happens at the bank every time we use it. It's just delivered in a more direct manner here.

We then get what probably took up most of the special effects budget for this as a bunch of cars and trucks crash on a bridge that won’t go down like it’s supposed to, causing a horrible accident. Some people fall off the bridge. May their sacrifice be remembered … let us bow our heads for a moment of silence for these fallen brothers and sisters, the first casualties of the Great Truck War of 1987.

Let us also remember the Great Watermelon Genocide of 1987. Never forget!

After that, we finally get our main destination for the movie – this truck stop diner out in the country, where a guy named Bill is pissed off that he has to work extra hours for no pay. But his boss, a fat jackass named Bubba Hendershot, sees things differently because Bill is a convict out on parole.

If they handed this guy the keys to the kingdom and told him he could rule the Earth, I for one would be fuckin' terrified. His power trip in this movie is bordering on the massive. Never underestimate the power that a gas station owner holds, I guess.

Geez, the Green Goblin’s concept design for The Amazing Spider-Man 3 is really out there and not what I expected:

Sony production executives consider it an interesting twist on the character. People on the Internet bitched and moaned for days even though there was no script or even a trailer yet.

For the next half hour or so, the movie is at its best – just random death scenes via machines. Like at a baseball field, where one guy goes to get a soda and kicks the machine. What he didn’t count on was that the soda machine had FINALLY HAD ENOUGH and so it kills him. While I do wish there were more scenes here of the kids hitting soda cans with their baseball bats, I have to say the one kid who blocks them with his catcher’s mask is just priceless – easily one of the funniest things in the movie.

That's fucking badass. This kid is going places. Like, he will probably grow up to be a Die Hard-esque action hero.

One of the kids ends up escaping and runs off to witness more of the wanton destruction. I’m sure he’ll have a great time watching Sylvester Stallone’s take on the Brave Little Toaster.

Meanwhile, a girl who looks suspiciously like she belongs in a Mark Twain novel is riding in a car with some sleazebag who keeps on touching her thigh. When she tells him (rightfully) to fuck off, he gets self-righteous and starts talking about Jesus and complaining that kids today are SO vulgar and foul-mouthed. I’m just amazed at the subtlety with which King is attacking Christians – truly a masterwork of religious satire!

"Does it bother you that you're the cliche perverted douchenozzle with no moral compass who tries to invoke Christian moral values incredibly hypocritically?"
"Not really."
"Man, it's tired and dated that King is still trying to shoehorn in un-subtle messages about the hypocrisy and belligerence of hyper-religious far-right Christian assholes?"
"I guess. I just can't believe they're letting us go on this long about it."

On another note, when an ice cream truck goes evil and kills its owner, WHY would it still have its tinkly ice cream music playing?! Just for ironic laughs? I guess maybe it wants to tell all the other evil trucks and household appliances that it still has ice cream left over. I wonder what it would do in a fight – maybe open up the back doors and spill ice cream all over its enemies. There are just so many possibilities with this. I hope to one day see a Michael Bay Transformer sequel with this ice cream truck character in it.

Actually I probably still wouldn’t watch it – but sshhhh, it’s the joke that matters!

We also get to meet the best characters in the film. Some newlywed couple is driving down a country road aimlessly after being married. I dunno, maybe they’re going to celebrate their honeymoon in Children of the Corn country. The wife is loud and annoying, and the guy is … eh, mostly just bland. The wife’s absolute asinine nature makes up for that though. They come across a bloodied up dead guy and the wife asks “Is he dead?”

"Nah, he's just taking a nap."

What, are you fuckin’ blind? The only way he isn’t dead is if he just happened to take a drunken nap after being doused in a vat of fake blood and movie make-up gore effects. What follows is a scene where a truck tries to kill them. The wife screams a lot, which probably had the effect of making even dogs in the audience go deaf. They end up getting away unscathed, luckily for them – BUT NOT FOR US! We still have to sit through the rest of the movie with these two characters. Particularly the wife will make you want to claw your eardrums out. Thanks for that one, Stephen King!

Well, it's happened; annoyance finally has a face.

Back at Country Truck Stop Diner Land, we see that another condition of employment, besides having to work random extra hours for no extra pay, is having to light the boss’s cigars for him:

Their jobs also include shining his shoes and wiping his ass.

Shit job. But you know what’s really a shit job? When you’re trying to have some peace and quiet on the John and the main character in a Stephen King movie looks over the wall of the stall at you.

"I really couldn't have just talked to you without looking over the stall because.....uhhhh...."

Jesus, man! Personal boundaries! Get with the program! I guess King really wanted Bill to be a coprophiliac – that gives him an edge over other King main characters.

Because otherwise, we see Bill becoming the cliché Stephen King main character: he’s a young, scruffy guy with a checkered past just trying to beat the odds, and now he also has a hot chick who likes him! Probably just ‘cause they’re the only two characters in their age bracket in the diner. All the others are either old, fat or disgusting – and c’mon, nobody wants to see a sex scene with someone like THAT.

Yup, a sex scene, right in the middle of the apocalypse. I kinda get it – make the best of what could be your last hours alive. But it’s fucked up in this movie because THESE TWO ARE SUPPOSED TO BE THE MAIN CHARACTERS. I mean, they were trying to solve the damn problem before this. And now they’re willing to just throw their hands in the air, say ‘fuck it’ and then … well, actually go fuck it?

It’s just backwards. What the hell am I even doing? Let’s get back to talking about trucks going evil and turning on humanity. How about more scenes with the newlyweds trying to escape Optimus Prime’s disgruntled brothers-in-law?

Oh, put a sock on it.

We see them trying to escape more evil trucks. After narrowly escaping a confrontation, the wife turns to the husband and screams “I NEVER SHOULD’VE LET YOU DRIVE AGAIN!” Because, you know, whenever HE drives, 18-wheel trucks try to take over the planet. For the love of Christ, just let her drive for the rest of the marriage.

"Video games AND shower facilities? That's everything a girl could want!"

It doesn’t even make sense – I mean he IS keeping her ALIVE for fuck’s sake. You could show a little gratitude!

They get to the diner and are promptly welcomed with open arms, as they are clearly among good company with the other annoying people in this movie. I’m so glad we finally get to see a collection of the annoying stereotypes you make when you’re telling a story while mad at a relative all gathered together in one place. There's also this other lady, who in the middle of the night feels an uncontrollable urge to run outside and address the trucks in her best impression of a drug overdose, screaming "WE MADE YOU! WE MADE YOU!"

This is what Shakespeare really wanted back in the day and was actually trying to capture when he wrote such characters as Lady Macbeth.

I guess we finally get some action when they start trying to fight the trucks. Bubba pulls out a rocket launcher he just happened to have around the gas station, and starts blowing the fuck out of everything.

He may be a complete detestable jackass, but never let it be said that he lies down like a welcome mat for evil trucks bent on world domination!

Yeah, well, I certainly feel safe going to piece-of-shit gas stations now that I know the intolerant redneck assholes owning them carry rocket launchers. Peachy! Things are going pretty well, as far as apocalyptic truck versus human battles go, until a military cannon tank shows up and begins killing everyone. I guess the humans were asking for it though, as they just kinda stand around and look dumbly as the cannon begins to fire. Yes, they clearly have time to move. No, they do not take advantage of that time.

"Yeah...I could have ducked or tried to dodge, but I'm a fuckin' idiot."

So I guess that’s the final straw for the humans, as they are now slaves to the trucks! But wait a second – how will the trucks order their slaves around if they don’t speak the same language?! Well, it’s simple – they teach the humans how to speak their language, which is just honking car horns of course. So all the humans forget how to speak English and instead just honk like really annoying ducks all the time. And that’s the end of the world as we know it.

No, that actually was a lie – I know; how can you ever trust me again? Actually the trucks start honking their horns in Morse code, and the little kid understands it and translates. Apparently they want to be “fed” with gas – so I guess the human characters become unwilling gas station attendant slaves.

What follows is pretty much the worst climax ever. It’s nothing but people filling 18-wheeler trucks with gas. Where’s the excitement in that? I get what it was going for, but come on. You could at least put in some car-washing scenes too. Or some paint job change scenes. The possibilities for humans being truck slaves are infinite, and King does not take advantage of it!

The worst kind of slavery is the kind that makes you recall summer jobs you had when you were a kid.

I guess they eventually escape through a tunnel in the sewers. They go to a dock to find this boat which can lead them to an island with no motor vehicles. They’re about to leave when the Green Goblin truck finds them and attempts to do something – though I’m not sure what, as he’s just a truck and they are clearly already in the boat. But they destroy it anyway, finally bringing down the Green Goblin truck and, apparently, ending the entire truckpocalypse right then and there.

What? How do you even know that worked? Why are you celebrating because you destroyed ONE TRUCK?! What about the rest of the world? Isn't it a bit soon to be cheering and dancing when the rest of the world could still be in grave danger?

But of course we don’t get an answer – just a text scroll explaining that everything turned back to normal because really what was causing it was a comet passing over and showering radiation on the Earth. Oh, well that explains it. I hate when that happens. Just like the one last year that made all dairy products come to life and turn evil. The milk shelves at Wal-Mart have never been the same!

We end on the sounds of our heroes sailing off to the island anyway – well, actually we end with the squawking annoying voice of that newlywed wife character, bitching and complaining about more shit even though they just technically saved the world. Is anything good enough? Will SOMEBODY please shut her up?! It’s really fuckin’ unbelievable that they actually ended on this character’s voice – she’s so annoying she practically BEGS to be killed off. That’s what would normally happen to a character like this. But King said ‘nope, we’re letting her live to the end.’

Thank you. Thank you so much for that.

On the other hand, I am glad this movie is finally daring to tell the true story of what happened in 1987 when the trucks came to life. It was for sure a traumatic and world-changing event that we will remember for decades to come and put in the history books. I for one am just glad King made this movie so we can appreciate the real historical value of what happened and learn from our mistakes.

Images copyright of their original owners. I own none of them.

REVIEW: Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)

After the first Poltergeist movie, they decided to take the incredibly unprecedented and strange path of making another one…such a thing has never been seen before…and this time, they couldn’t get Tobe Hooper or Steven Spielberg back for this one, so you know it’s gonna be good!

Director: Brian Gibson

Starring: JoBeth Williams, Heather O'Rourke

IMDb

This one is full of over the top acting, racial intolerance and the ups and downs of drinking tequila with weird little worms in it! Sound fun? No? OK!

We start off with something very different from the first one…I don’t mean a long, wordless intro sequence that wears out its welcome; both movies have that. I mean this one starts out at the Grand Canyon with some Indians (oh, I’m sorry…Native Americans) smokin’ ancestral pot and talking about who knows what!

I say that because we don’t actually get a translation for what their dialogue is. So I’ll just substitute my own:

INDIAN #1: Hey, what do you think we’re gonna get out of this whole thing for these cameos?

INDIAN #2: I dunno, they spent all the money the studio gave them on the effects in the climax, plus additional crack and hookers.

INDIAN #1: And they didn’t even share? Damn them! Oh well, let’s just get back to smoking and ruminating on how much better our days were before we starred in Poltergeist II.

After that, we see Tangina Barrons, the midget psychic medium from the first film, back for more midget-ness as she is now an archaeologist in addition to being a spirit medium! She dabbles, you know? Spirit medium…archaeologist…these are all very important jobs for a woman to try out.

"I don't remember what I'm doing in this movie!"

After she wonders where the family from the first one is now, seeing as they are apparently in danger again, we switch scenes to them; speak of the devil indeed. Apparently they are now broke, the father sells vacuum cleaners door to door and the rest of the family just hangs out with Grandma, I guess. I’d tell you more about Grandma, but really she’s barely in the movie and doesn’t have much character. Next!

We see Diane taking Carol Anne and Robbie to the mall, where Carol Anne gets lost. Diane is such a good mother that she doesn’t notice Carol Anne is missing even though she and Robbie had to have walked several yards and even went inside a store not noticing that she wasn’t with them…ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!? This is beyond the rather sloppy parenting of the first film. This is a whole new level of asininely bad parenting! This mother should be put on trial! And what’s that? Carol Anne is talking to a tall, creepy stranger in black when they find her? Color me goddamned surprised!

Looks trustworthy to me!

This is actually the villain of the piece…Henry Kane. He’s corny, hammy and ridiculous, but also the best thing in this film by leagues and leagues. And it is not his time yet. We will get to him soon. Right now, though, we have the death of Grandma to deal with! Happy happy, fun fun. Everything is somber for about two minutes before Carol Anne comes outside and asks if she can be a ballerina…yup, one minute it’s “oh no, Grandma died!” and the next it’s “Mommy I want to be a ballerina!!” This kid isn’t exactly the sharpest crayon in the box, is she? To complete the defecation on the somber atmosphere, we get a goofy jump scare with skeleton hands grabbing at Diane’s feet and everything! Isn’t that just delightfully random and pointless? I think so.

Oh, there’s this whole thing where, all of the sudden, there’s psychic blood in the Grandmother’s family, which has been passed down to Carol Anne and also to Diane, though she doesn’t admit it. This whole plot is just convoluted and, with all the goofy shit going on here, it’s really not given that much attention. What is given attention is the fact that, rather than communicating through TVs this time, the ghosts get to Carol Anne by calling her on a plastic pink toy phone…

"Yes, Mr. President? Old Lady Cranshaw got stuck in a well again? AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!"

…yeah, well that’s retarded, but hey, at least they’re not racking up the phone bill, am I right?!

The family then meets Walter, an Indian guy sent by Tangina to protect them. Why didn’t Tangina herself just come? Because they wanted to shoehorn the guy from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest into the movie somehow, so screw it; that’s what they did. This character is actually really entertaining, even though it’s basically a caricature of a bunch of jumbled Indian stereotypes from like the 50s. He’s cheerful, patient, kind and spouts never-ending diatribes on spirituality and the fate of mankind. And so the dad absolutely hates him, and spends a lot of time just chewing him out because he’s a mistrustful foreigner!

But when THIS GUY comes by the house and spouts all kind of crazy nonsense, basically veiled threats…they don’t react nearly as suspiciously. What the hell? So a basically well-meaning Samaritan who happens to be an Indian shows up, and you condemn him for no reason…but when a creepy guy in a black coat shows up and starts saying creepy shit, you’re just like “eh, you probably shouldn’t come in here; this is a family zone!”? That’s so backwards it’s almost forwards again!

 

= GET OUT YOU EVIL FOREIGNER!

while...

= eh, he could be OK.

And really, the dad is an ASSHOLE in this! He’s way ruder and less considerate than he was in the first one! He constantly screams all the time, stomps around like the world owes him something and just generally doesn't seem to give a crap about anything besides when he can get his next drink. What the hell happened? Did he just drink a bottle of tequila with a worm in it that made him all evil now? Oh wait…that’s later on…

Right now, we have EVIL BRACES to contend with!

Yes, those are supposed to be braces. The kid was just brushing his teeth and then this happened...that escalated quickly...

That’s as strong an endorsement for better dental care as I’ve ever seen. I think this should be in a commercial for some dentist’s office…don’t stop flossing, or you have to get braces which will EAT YOU ALIVE if you’re bad! Put the fear of God into those little bastards. Teach them to eat junk food!

While that’s going on, Walter the Indian Chief was protecting Carol Anne, which the dad yells at him for, because apparently Walter has to be in five places at once or else he is a bad Indian. And really, how dare Walter stick his neck out and protect a scared, innocent little girl. Man, the dad is an ass in this. Can’t something just shut him up for good?

Later on, Tangina comes to the house and warns the family of Henry Kane, or rather, the creepy black-clad dude with teeth the size of the Mississippi River who’s been stalking them lately. She says he’s a dead cult leader who doesn’t know he’s dead, who once led a cult to an underground cave and killed them all because he’s so evil. And guess what was built over that grave site years later? That’s right – the house that the family lived in in the first movie! Don’t they just have the best luck in real estate? And hey, wait a minute. Wouldn’t a bunch of dead cult members prove an interesting subject for, oh I dunno, THE FRIGGIN’ POLICE? Why haven’t they sent, like, the FBI or some shit over to check this out? Why is it just one crazy midget lady and her Indian buddy digging through it? This makes no sense and I refuse to believe it!

So, yeah, apparently Kane’s modus operandi here is to get Carol Anne back so he can use her to open up the portal to the spirit world and let all the ghosts out. Just like in the first one. Meanwhile, the dad and Walter are out in the mountains getting in touch with the “Power of Smoke,” which apparently can repel Kane somehow.

It sure is convenient that these movies take place in driving range of these ancestral, spiritual holy Indian places so the characters can do things like this. Imagine if this stuff happened in, like, Chicago or something. Then they'd really be screwed!

But only if the dad does NOT get drunk…which he does a few scenes later literally in the very next scene. Yup, he can’t even see a damn nasty worm in his tequila; he’s so drunk. You worthless waste of a human being...

But wait! All is not lost! We do get some of the funniest scenes in the movie as the dad is possessed by Kane, and turns in an even more over the top performance than Kane himself does. He juts out his lower jaw, throws Diane around the room and shows his teeth as much as he can, and it’s all so incredibly, incredibly silly. I mean it’s just too much.

Luckily he remembers his love for his wife right before he’s about to rape her, and instead vomits up…well, whatever this shit is:

I have to hand it to Poltergeist II…it is constantly forcing me to re-evaluate my standards of oddness and come up with new ways to say “that’s some totally fucked up, weird-ass shit that has no place in the right and true harmony of nature.”

And in the next scene, they get attacked by garage tools, plus a kuh-RAAAAZY chainsaw!

Pfft, chainsaws that work by themselves? Next you'll be telling me they'll have portable phones, or computers you can carry around under your arm! Technology is just moving by so fast these days.

Really the only way they could top the weirdness in this movie so far would be to just say ‘screw it’ and go full-time green screen with the ‘spirit world’ in which they have to go to to rescue Carol Anne and Diane after they get kidnapped! And what follows is very, very trippy. As in “I’m pretty sure the editing room staff swallowed a bottle of potent painkillers before making this.”

They're trapped in the dimension of loopy green screens and Zero G test runs!

Y’know…I’m just out of jokes. I got nothing anymore. The movie is far too weird for me to even compare. It’s getting hard to even review these movies; they’re so strange and out of the blue. They’re just…collections of silly over the top horror movie randomness, like a Looney Tunes cartoon filtered through R. L. Stine’s study hall doodles. They eventually get out of the spirit realm because the dead grandmother comes back and makes sure nothing bad happens…how convenient.

Then the movie ends with Walter breaking out of the mental institution by smothering the dad with a pillow and then making a run for it…nah, actually it ends with him stealing the family car and driving off with it leaving them stranded there. Ha ha ha! What a contrived attempt at a comedic ending! It’s like building up an incredibly grandiose, complex joke and then ending with a fart joke you heard from the guy at the office who smells like the inside of your glove compartment. What a load.

This movie is confusing to review because on the one hand, it is totally god-awfully entertaining shlock, but on the other hand it just kind of sucks. While it does have its humorous scenes, the innocent Spielbergian charm of the original is completely lost. None of the characters are likable anymore; either they’re complete jackasses like the parents, or just forgettable like Carol Anne and the grandmother. The whole thing just feels dirty, unpleasant and perverted compared to the rather subtle and quiet charm that the original sometimes had with its character-building moments. This one tries to make up for not having Spielberg on board by amping up the goofy moments, but those just feel hollow and over-done, like they were just trying to be as cartoonish as possible without any actual scares. C’mon, a chainsaw flying around? A little worm that turns you into a bad Nicolas Cage impersonator? Get real.

The only aspect of this movie that really worked was Julian Beck as Henry Kane, who unfortunately passed away during filming, which is why he doesn’t appear all that much. It’s a shame because he could have been a great horror villain, but instead he was just wasted on this goofy-ass movie. All in all, this was the worst One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest sequel ever!

Images copyright of their original owners.

Troll 2 Review: Part 2

Read the first part of the Troll 2 review before reading this one!

The mastermind in question is this lady, who is incredibly hammy, dressed like a Tim Burton-vomited-out gothic caricature, and who I am convinced is trying to win a contest for Mugging Into the Camera the Most, but is still more subtle than Catwoman from Batman Returns.

She serves them some drinks – because yes, I’d take drinks from a lady who looked like that! – and then watches as the unnamed girl turns agonizingly and slowly into a plant. She then invites the dorky 80s kid to drink his drink too…yes, because I’d totally drink something after watching my companion turn into a plant in front of me…while trolls come out and devour her. This prompts perhaps the most famous scene from the movie:

Such great acting is just unheard of in other movies…OK, OK, being sarcastic about it is pointless; it's been done a million times before. The scene, just that twenty seconds, is just so fascinating though. According to the Wikipedia page, the actors were all instructed to say their lines exactly as written, even though they were all in terrible Engrish and written by people who didn’t know the language. And it didn’t help that all the actors had basically no experience. But even THAT doesn’t explain the absurdity of scenes like this! I want to know how they physically told this kid to talk like that! You would think even foreigners would have a general grasp on how people talk, enough so that your scene doesn’t come out…well…LIKE THAT!

I digress, though, as there are still more horrors and amazements to come in this film…like when Joshua and his dad go into town to buy groceries and discover that everyone in town has gone to the Mass and the store is closed. The dad sits down in a chair and…immediately falls asleep.

What, do you have narcolepsy? I kinda doubt it. I think this guy is just a flat out moron. The kid doesn’t even notice! It’s like “aw, snap, dad randomly passed out again in public…at least it’s not like the time when he did it while on the toilet…” And the kid notices that Nilbog is Goblin spelled backwards. You’d think a bunch of goblins would be smarter than to name their town after what they secretly are. I guess goblins are morons.

Why is he even looking in the side mirror anyway? Does he just like looking in side mirrors from outside a car? What a weird kid.

So Joshua, being the smartest boy alive, decides to sneak around and go invade their morning mass. He sees them talking a bunch of gibberish about vegetarianism or something, and ends up getting caught. They try to force him to eat some of their green nasty-ass gunk which will turn him into a plant, but his dad comes in at the last second, begging the question of, what kind of father passes out and lets his kid wander around unsupervised for like 20 minutes? When he asks what they’re doing, the villagers say they were going to feed Joshua ice cream. Yes. They were feeding him ice cream. While holding him down and surrounding him like a cult of creepy pedophiles. Like an idiot, the father buys it and doesn’t question a thing. Well, then again, he DOES apparently just talk to random homeless men all the time too. I guess the family is used to it.

Meanwhile in the other plotline (seriously, Troll 2 has multiple plotlines…COMPLEX?!), one of the other doofuses goes out to buy food because they were morons and forgot to bring ANYTHING of their own…he gets accosted by a crazy madman in the grocery shop who mugs to the camera almost as much as the villainess from earlier. But not quite. No cigar, crazy general store man! You lose!

Even though this guy was just some mental patient on release for a few days, it's startling how he just seems like a normal member of this town, in the context of the movie. They're all nuts!

Speaking of the crazy villainess, she comes back in the next scene as the doofus is lured to her house and finds the first doofus turned into a tree-man hybrid, trying to free him. She catches them and kills the second doofus, and “punishes” the first with a chainsaw…still better than any Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequels! In fact, I’m just going to pretend this scene was the real TCM 2. It’s much less mind-numbing than the real one. I digress, though…what really makes this scene is more camera mugging! Yay!

I don't even think this lady was given direction. Well, aside from "more crystal meth than a Def Leppard concert."

Then we get some fun times at a house party where all the house guests bring food labeled ‘EAT ME’ and other asinine things, and of course it’s all very green and non-meaty. Grandpa comes back again, and actually turns real this time, which is never explained. He somehow summons a lightning bolt and kills the leader of the goblins, revealing him to everyone as his true goblin form…really, though, it’s just bizarre how everyone acts like they’re not even that surprised. I mean I guess they’re a little surprised…but it’s more the “oh, hey, an old friend unexpectedly dropped in” sort of surprised, as opposed to the “oh my god, he turned into a freakish aberration of nature!” sort of surprise…movie, why do I even try?

The father and Holly go and get Elliot from the camper and beat the shit out of him, threatening all the while that he BETTER GIVE UP THOSE DAMN FRIENDS OF HIS OR ELSE! Which, I guess, isn’t hard now, seeing as he only has one left. I can see this familial bonding ending well in the future, though. Probably with lots of lawyers, court appointments, crying, black eyes and 911 domestic dispute calls.

"Aw, but I just want some time with my fri---"
"NO! No friends! Your life will consist of your marriage and nothing else!"
"...can I have video games?"
"Kid, I'm gonna kill you with a rusty chainsaw."

The last dork is left on his own to hang out in the woods I guess; hope Elliot at least left him the keys to the camper just in case. He’s approached by the villainess of the movie, who transforms into a mildly hot woman who she guesses he’d like to fuck - if you're wondering how she transformed, just stop. You're using too many of your brain cells on this. They don’t have sex so much as re-enact a Z-grade porno and then make out while chewing on a Corn on the Cob...well, whatever turns you guys on; I ain't gonna judge.

And then...

Ah the popcorn-hangover...always a pain the next morning.

Popcorn. POPCORN!!! Nothing but popcorn. Why? You could write a book and not decipher the reasons why! You could fill the walls of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with the reasons why! I might as well just write any old nonsense here; that’d be about as good as anything this goddamn shit-ass-crack baby of a movie could conjure up! Don’t ever have the indecency to ask me WHY when it comes to this movie! Don’t even let it cross your mind! And do you know what’s even “better”? We never see the kid again! This is his last scene. Movie, I could shishkebab you with a broadsword right now.

The main characters all spend the last 15 minutes running around like chickens with their heads cut off, clearly not really going anywhere but away from the trolls goblins – c’mon, you’ve gotta have some kind of strategy! Go for the door! That's all you need to do! Grandpa comes back again but this time he only has 10 minutes for some unstated reason. He eventually disappears and is not seen again...why? Because his 10 minutes were up. Why were his 10 minutes up? Because. Just because. Stop questioning me!!!

Oh, and Joshua literally saves himself in the end by eating a bologna sandwich…yes, a bologna sandwich factors into the climax of Troll 2. Are you surprised? I think in order to be surprised, you’d basically have to have slept through the rest of the movie until now. Apparently it's because it has meat in it, and so the goblins are all repulsed by it. Suck it, vegetarians!

"I've got bologna and I'm not afraid to use it!!!"

The ending is a silly scene where they go home and the mom gets killed by the trolls goblins…look at the green plant-ooze at the end; it still has boobs just so you KNOW it’s the mother!

That’s how we end…on green melting boobs…truly an image that will stay with the fans for generations to come.

PHEW. That’s Troll 2. I’m not even sure what else to say. I’ve been rendered speechless…and frankly my fingers are getting tired. What I just watched…I mean, it was something else. Something totally alien to my previous perception of films. What could have gone into its creation? What would the actors have to say about it? I have so many unanswered questions about this…isn’t there like, a documentary or something that could possibly help put this movie into context both past and present?

Yes!

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