The wolves are real, you turn and fling open the door behind you which presents you with a long and dimly lit corridor.

As you rush down it’s length you see a stairwell on your right, but the bandaged foot you see descending from the floor above eliminates that option and you sprint straight ahead. The corridor seems endless and the sound of the wolves is still there, the echoing making the distance impossible to judge, waiting any second for claws on your back or teeth at your ankles.

Another door! Hoping that it opens outward, heedless of what is on the other side…hoping that it isn’t locked…you push down on the handle as you slam against it.

It opens, you fly through and crash painfully into a metal railing, almost tumbling over it. Winded you manage to turn and slam the door closed, wolves can’t open doors right? Mummies can though…

Looking around you it seems this door has come out away from the town of Ubiquity, a path leads into some nearby woods, a sign reads ‘Llort – 2 Miles’.

You plunge onwards.

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What’s with all these well known films, I definitely have more obscure stuff in the collection! OK so this is one of those films that comes up on lists of films that are so bad that they’re good, in fact it has a whole documentary about it called Best Worst Movie. Is it though? I really think that whole so bad it’s good only works in a couple of ways. Either, it’s not actually bad, it just designed to come across ridiculous but there’s actually a lot of interesting stuff happening, I point you to films like The Toxic Avenger or Hobo with a Shotgun, OR it is actually bad but you’re watching it with friends so you can laugh about it. I can tell you right now, that first part need not apply, there is no saving grace to this film, but it is…entertaining, just more so with friends.

Before I get to the plot the thing I’m not entirely sure about, and neither is the internet it seems, is how seriously it was being made. There’s a statement that it was “always intended to be a comic film” and I get that, it’s certainly a comedy at times, but for example was the acting intentionally bad? Or just bad? Either way I’m going to judge it on what I see, if you intentionally make a film bad, it still needs those special bits to make it work, Films like Naked Gun for example are funny because it’s ridiculous but well done.

Anyway, the plot follows the Waits family as they go on some strange holiday where they swap homes with another family, like an exchange program of sorts. Our main character of sorts is Joshua Waits who seems to be haunted by the ghost of his dead grandfather, though in a benevolent sort of way, well kind of, he’s pretty intense and creepy. They head to the town of Nilbog where everyone is acting very strangely and soon they’ll learn the townsfolk aren’t quite as they first seem and it’s up to Joshua to keep his family safe.

OK let’s get it out of the way, the acting is abysmal, especially the minor parts who sound like they’ve never spoken words before let alone acted. Honestly though, the grandfather is probably the best of the bunch, he actually seems like he might be hamming it up rather than just being bad. Intentional or not, the bad acting is amusing to watch but it takes away from any suspense or intrigue that the plot may be trying to convey.

My review watch of Troll 2 was the 2^nd time I’ve seen it, and I watched it on my own. The first time I watched it was with a couple of friends and that’s definitely the way to go with a film like this. If you watch it on your own, you won’t be bored by it but you also won’t get to shout incredulities at other people about how terrible X is or what Y is doing. It really is missing something if you watch it alone…well it’s missing a lot of things, like a plot.

The plot. I’ve done my little plot synopsis above but honestly this plot goes all over the place. I probably made it sound almost intriguing above but that’s because I kept it vague, In both manages to telegraph things which might have been intriguing had they been better hidden and also throw in completely unexpected stuff which makes very little sense, like they were bolted on. Again, I know it’s not taking itself completely seriously, well hopefully anyway, but even comedies need something to follow. There are some truly bizarre scenes which I’ll definitely go into in the spoiler free section but here I’ll just say, plot is all over the place.

Surely it has some good effect right? Nope, but then this is a low budget film and honestly, it’s not terrible, well except for some of the costumes, but I guess that’s separate. The effects are just, there, they’re practical at least, it’s not low budget AND attempting to use CGI, that’s where things can really get bad.

Going back to the costumes, the regular people in the film, that’s all fine, but the antagonists, oh boy, we’re talking burlap sack onesies and Halloween masks, Troll this is not when it comes to creatures.

Is there anything redeeming about the film? Well, I hate to say it but the ‘So bad it’s good’ thing does have some merit, but I wouldn’t go that far, rather it’s ‘So bad it’s not dull’ there’s always something happening for you to find ridiculous and that really is it’s only saving grace. Being bad can only ever bring a film up from total mediocrity, it cannot make it good.

So…the score. You would think that with all the bad stuff I’ve been saying about the film that it would be my first to score a 1, but the thing is, it’s entertaining. It may be badly made, have a weak plot, and have terrible acting, but it isn’t boring. For a film to get the lowest possible score it needs to be a film I forget 5 minutes later, and this film isn’t that. It is still bad though, I’m giving Troll 2, 2 Corn on the Cobs out of 5. This isn’t a film that you should definitely watch, but if you do then my recommendation is to get a group of friends together, have a few drinks or whatever, and do a group watch.

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**WARNING** SPOILERS BELOW **WARNING**

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Welcome to the spoiler section. This is the part where I can bring up some specific parts of the film which I’d like to talk about more, whether they be good, or bad.

Ok what to talk about…there’s so much but I’ll keep it fairly brief.

Regarding what I said earlier about the plot being telegraphed. At the beginning of the film Joshua’s grandfather, in ghost form it turns out, is reading him a story about goblins. It’s fairly standard fairy-tale stuff but in it we learn that the goblins are vegetarian, can change their appearance and feed people a substance to turn them into plant matter they can digest. I mean sure, tease the goblins but don’t tell us everything about them. As soon as we get to Nilbog we’re sure that the townsfolk are just goblins in disguise, there’s no ambiguity about whether it’s all of them, or some of them. I guess we’re supposed to know but a bit of intrigue would have given this some much needed depth.

I think the part which I always remember the most is when Joshua decides the only way to stop his family from eating the food that will turn them into Goblins. He pisses over it. Honestly I didn’t see it coming and it had me laughing, then straight after this Joshua’s dad utters the great line “You can’t piss on hospitality, I won’t allow it!” See bits like this were great fun, there’s a few stand out scenes that are truly funny, but the way they’re acted and the mediocrity of the surrounding parts of the film, many of which are just bad, rather than amusing and bad stops scenes like this from lifting this any higher than the 2 it received.

The best character in the film is probably Creedence Leonore Gielgud, the Queen of the goblins who is outrageously over the top and throughout the course of the film, turns a boy into a tree, chops him up with a chainsaw, gets her hand chopped off with an axe and seduces another character with a corn on the cob. She’s absolutely ridiculous.

Talking about these specific scenes and characters I realise I’m making it sound fun, and it is, it is fun, its just also very bad.

Won rof eyb.