This week at the House of Shame we watched TROLL 2 (1990), that legendary train wreck of a movie from Italian exploitation potentate Joe D’Amato (EMMANUEL AND THE LAST CANNIBALS, PORNO HOLOCAUST) and director Claudio Fragasso, working here under the pseudonyms David Hills and Drake Floyd. Fragasso must have felt a bit like a grasshopper next to a sifu for only having five pseudonyms in his filmography compared to D’Amato’s astounding 59!

In true Italian spirit, TROLL 2 is a horror sequel that has nothing whatsoever to do with the original. But the defiance doesn’t end there: so you want to see a troll in a movie titled TROLL 2? Well, serves you right for thinking inside the box, winky. No trolls here, just a bunch of goblins claiming to be vegetarians, only they eat a lot of people anyway. Is this cutting criticism on the hypocrisy of on-again, off-again, self-righteous vegans? Perhaps we read too much into this delightfully inept attempt by Italian filmmakers to make a horror movie in Utah with community-theater caliber actors.

Roundtable participation is light this week due to Andy having one-too-many drinks during the screening and claiming he can’t remember anything “except some random visions of troll-like ewoks.” We never heard again from Ashlon. Maybe this was the film that finally did him in.

Okay, enough of an intro … Sing, Stewart! Sing that song I like so much!

STEWART: TROLL 2 is about a young boy named Joshua who is warned by his dead Grandpa Seth about the evil existence of goblins. Vacationing in the Amish-like town of Nilbog (Admittedly, a better-sounding name than Llort), the lad and his family confront a crazy druid witch and her band of nasty little goblins. The goblins take human form and coax the out-of-towners to eat delicious green pastries, green ice cream and sandwiches laced with green cream cheese. However, once you eat their food, green goo starts to pour from your skull and you turn into a pile of mush which the goblins then feed upon.

That’s pretty much it. Am I missing anything?

BILL: Where to begin? This was the most surreal cinematic experience I’ve had in quite some time. Hardly anything makes sense, but these exasperating moments stand out:

The mother’s favorite song, the one she can’t remember the name of, is “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”? I mean, what the hell?!

Is this family sugar deprived? They enthusiastically dig into doughnuts, cake and Kool-Aid like it was a square meal. When the locals bring more sweets for them to eat, the mother gets this wild look in her eye and screams, “They brought a FEAST!!!”

Couldn’t Joshua think of any other way to stop his family from eating than pissing on the table? Oh well, it made for pretty good after-dinner conversation.

A store stocked with cartons of non-refrigerated milk. Again, what the hell?!

Why would anyone would take a bottle of said non-refrigerated milk from a crazed country bumpkin and then drink it?

Why doesn’t the Goblin Queen choose to look like a hottie all the time? Why does she prefer to walk around looking like a schoolmarm with dirty teeth? And what’s up with this woman’s outrageous overacting? The scene between her and the monotone, brain-dead mother gave me viewer whiplash.

Why can’t Grandpa’s ghost figure out the lay of the house? Was this an attempt at comedy? It’s hard to tell when Fragasso is trying to be funny or just completely inept.

How did sister Holly’s boyfriend and his pals score an RV? Why are their shirts always open? Did they really sleep together naked, or did I dream that?

Why does the lousiest goblin mask get the most screen time?

The Goblin Queen seduces a teenage boy with… a corn cob? By the way, they stole the popping-corn gag from the softcore satire TARZ AND JANE, BOY AND CHEETAH.

Obviously nobody attached to this project ever read Syd Field. The climax is too late to introduce a major plot point: in this case, the magic stones.

If the goblins are vegetarians, why do they eat people?

Can a vegetable cookbook really be that fascinating? The father devours it like it was John Grisham’s latest legal thriller.

The scene where Joshua sees NILBOG, the town name, reflected in a mirror and realizes it’s GOBLIN spelled backwards doesn’t work since the reflection reads… uh, NILBOG.

Why the penciled-on freckles on the wood sprite? What do they add other than make us wonder how anyone could approve such an amateurish makeup job?

Would you drink a frothing cup of dry ice handed to you by a woman with rotted lips?

If you were painfully dying, would you bother to climb a long flight of steps?

Would you accept a sandwich with green icing from a cop named Gene Freak?

Finally, Holly’s Flashdance routine in front of the mirror gave me the best laugh I’ve had in months… thank you, Joe D’Amato!

STEWART: I think my most favorite moment was when George Hardy screws up the word “breakfast”. Just killed me. Still does as I write this.

BILL: Forgot about that one! I guess it pays to come to the House of Shame late — you drink less and remember more!

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