STEWART: So I think we can agree that it’s a really, really bad movie, but I’d say there’s a fairly obvious satire playing out between meat-eaters and vegetarians. This is a very pro-meat movie!

Take the homosexual subtext found amongst the boys of the movie. Holly’s boyfriend Elliot is a complete buffoon. He brings all of his friends to visit his iron pumping brick shithouse of a girlfriend.

He tells her, “I’m the victim of a nocturnal rapture. I have to release my lowest instincts with a woman.” (Sounds like he already sealed the deal elsewhere) Holly responds by punching him in the junk, “Release your instincts in the bathroom!”
He then asks, “Are you nuts? Are you trying to turn me into a homo?” (What? Elliot who said anything about homo? What do you… what a minute. Ahhhh… I read you. Wink, wink.)

I think this is Elliot simply trying to reassure us of his heterosexuality. I don’t buy it. Holly warns him, “If my father discovers you here, he’d cut off your little nuts and eat them! He can’t stand you!” Yeah right. The effeminate speech, light blonde air and threat of neutering of Daddy Waits is probably the very reason Elliot showed up. When the boys “acquire” the RV, they claim to be in search of “women” on their trip to the middle of no where. Yet they sleep naked together, wear pink hot pants and are so sexually stoked they forget to buy supplies like milk and coffee. And the milk they buy from the crazies in town (all of whom are dudes) is very questionable in its viscosity (ick). The gay themes of the film only play into the depiction of an evil anti-meat world run by evil anti-gay vegetarian goblins. How closed-minded can you be?

Bells (Mike Hamill) preaches to the Nilbog townsfolk about the nasty properties of meat to which the crowd grimaces in disgust. Creedance (Deborah Reed), aka the Goblin Queen, is hell-freaking-bent on getting her victims to eat plant broth, chlorophyll potions and then potting their fichus-ass in the corner of her temple dwelling. She wields an ear of corn and makes out with Brent in the RV (the corncob being the phallic imagery necessary for the seduction of a teen in the closet). If you ask me, her overacting is not necessarily over-the-top considering the maniacal ends some people go to keep the Bambi’s of the world safe. Not the most flattering depiction of a supposed healthy alternative lifestyle. It’s all very obvious - vegetarians are evil and the inherent good of carnivores will always triumph. In the end a bologna sandwich saves the day.

BILL: A double-decker bologna sandwich!

STEWART: As Josh plows into the plump layers of lunch meat Creedance exclaims “Aaahhhh! Think about the cholesterol. Think about… the toxins!” But the little boy heroically takes bite after bite. Of course this was just one battle in the war on food. The film ends with Josh’s horrified scream as he finds his mother being consumed by the goblins in his house. Stupid boy! Vegetarianism isn’t something you can just digest overnight. Herbivores are everywhere just like rats in the cellar, roaches in your drywall and goblins in the woods! It would take all the meat-a-sauruses on earth eating bologna sandwiches at the same time to banish the veggies to the green hellfire from which they spawned. Just ask Grandpa Seth, if you can find his stupid ass.

BILL: The end is reminiscent of INVADERS FROM MARS, where the boy hero awakes from the dream-that-is-the-film, only to discover it’s all going to happen for real. INVADERS FROM MARS was good, though.

STEWART: I looked TROLL 2 up on the net and found quite the cult following. In 2006 IMDB.com dubbed it the worst movie ever! IMDB.com also states that director Claudio Fragasso demanded the script be read verbatim. None of the crew spoke English. Perhaps this explains the performances, although none of these actors went on to do anything. Micheal Stephenson, the actor who played Josh is making a documentary called BEST WORST MOVIE (YouTube link here!). I think we should watch it when it comes out on DVD.

BILL: And George Hardy, who played the father, was supposedly a local dentist. Also according to the IMDB, there was a TROLL 2 retrospective showing this past year where the cast made a special appearance. That would have been fun to attend!

STEWART: I don’t understand the ambiguity of Josh’s dead grandpa Seth. I wish we knew how he died. And why was he so clueless? As a gaurdian from beyond you’d think he’d be better equipped to handle evil-doers than a Molotov cocktail (why??) and a fire extinguisher. You were right on the money with the Burl Ives thing Bill. He looks like a creepy younger brother. The whole bedtime story framework reminded me immediately of the fantasy-flick PRINCESS BRIDE. I was thinking that’s how the rest of the film would continue but I’m obviously a fool for hoping.

BILL: Oh, I would much rather watch TROLL 2 than THE PRINCESS BRIDE any old day, so I’m glad it took the incomprehensible paths that it did.

STEWART: The mother (Margo Prey) looks catatonic in most of her shots. Her hair just kind of sits shredded on top of her head and her eyes have a cloudiness reminiscent of a cadaver. The sister Holly (Connie Young) is stupidly energetic doing an entire dance and monologue in front of the mirror in preparation for meeting her loser boyfriend. But it was probably the father (George Hardy) with the uncontested best line of the film, “You can’t piss on hospitality!”

In some ways the acting is so pitiful that the performances almost transcend bad and enter experimental film territory. The lines become so zany and out of context you question why they’re even being said. It’s like community theater from hell. My, what a redundancy in terms.

BILL: I find them all to be strangely adorable… and I think I have a crush on Connie Young. Have you seen what she looks like today? Zow-ee!

STEWART: I thought TROLL 2 was an incredibly good awful movie. The circumstances for creating such badness is like planets aligning, hell freezing over and whole cemeteries of the dead rolling in their graves all at once. I doubt if such trash could be replicated ever again and I defy anyone to try, although I’d have to go back and watch FOR YOUR HEIGHT ONLY to be sure.

I give TROLL 2 four goo-coated stars. What a ride.

BILL: You can’t intentionally make a movie like this. It just has to happen. Movies that are bad on purpose — like ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES — never do it for me. For its ability to entertain in all the ways its makers didn’t intend, I give TROLL 2 four green stars, too!

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