Anna Madden is an 11 year old girl, who one day starts having fainting spells at school and when playing with her friend. She’s suffering from glandular fever, and must stay at home and finds herself bedridden much to her dismay. She draws a house, and when she falls asleep she starts having disturbing dreams about this house. Later she draws a face in the window, and the next time she dreams there’s a boy there. His name is Marc, and he’s suffering from muscular dystrophy and cannot walk. She keeps adding things to the drawing in order to form the house more to her liking, like adding stairs and furniture. She also tries an attempt at fixing Marc’s legs, but this proves futile. Something’s not right in her dreams, however, and in real life Anna’s having troubles with her relationship with both her mother and her absent father who’s struggling with alcoholism and is often away for work at long periods of time. One day when her doctor comes for a visit, Anna finds out that the doctor has another patient whose name is Marc. And now she’s starting to realize that the house in her dreams may not just be a pure fantasy after all.
Paperhouse is a dark fantasy film from 1988, directed by Bernard Rose who later directed Candyman (1992). This movie is based on a novel from 1958, called Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr. This novel was also the basis of a British TV series made for children in the early 1970’s, called Escape Into Night. This movie, however…is clearly not a movie suitable for the young’uns, despite being originally marketed as a children’s fantasy film. Sure, the horror elements aren’t very explicit and it takes a while for them to settle in, but there’s a definite ominous atmosphere throughout, and the scene where her blind father appears in her dream (blind because she didn’t draw his eyes properly) and starts hunting her with a hammer, isn’t exactly Saturday morning material.
I have to say that the work they did on the dreamworld is pretty well made, where everything looks like it’s trapped in a closed space where nothing else exists. It’s filmed in a desolate field, where you can see the ocean nearby but it’s all just vast and empty. No other islands to spot, no trees, other buildings, absolutely nothing. The surrealism and weirdness of the place is spot-on, and the strange interior of the already strange and crooked-looking house only adds to the vibe.
Paperhouse is a pretty strange coming of age movie, not outright a horror movie but it certainly has some elements thereof. The surreal tone, the somewhat unconvincing acting (especially by the lead actress, who also never played in any other film after this one) gives the whole film a very weird vibe. Also some nice music from Hans Zimmer which strengthens the incredibly dreamy and outlandish mood. Worth a watch if you want something strange and different.
Director: Bernard Rose Writer: Matthew Jacobs Country & year: UK, 1988 Actors: Charlotte Burke, Jane Bertish, Samantha Cahill, Glenne Headly, Sarah Newbold, Gary Bleasdale, Elliott Spiers, Gemma Jones, Steven O’Donnell, Ben Cross, Karen Gledhill, Barbara Keogh IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098061/
In this odd little sequel we meet the young couple, Jesse and Kate, who move into an old mansion, which is not the same house we saw in the first film, just to point that out. The house has been a multigenerational home for Jesse’s bloodline, and I can bet I’ve seen the exteriors of that building in numerous movies, without being able to mention a single one. Anyway – Jesse’s parents were murdered when he was a kid, and after some exploring they find an old picture of his great-great-grandfather where he’s holding a crystal skull while standing in front of an old temple. OK, he was the real Indiana Jones. C o o l.
And things slide straight into weird land when Jesse and his best friend Charlie decide to…uhm…dig up his dusty corpse to get the crystal skull. Because why not. After some digging, they get met with a skeletal zombie simply credited as Gramps, but no need to worry, cuz he’s friendly, even though they tried to steal the crystal skull from him. Whatever, because nothing here makes any sense either way. Now that he’s been resurrected, barely, he joins the life of Jesse and Charlie and lives in the house’s basement.
And… lives go on, until things get even weirder. Because we also need a kind of a villain shoe-horned in here, and Gramps has a nemesis from the old west who also wants to claim this crystal skull. And now that the house has opened several portals to alternative dimensions, it’s a matter of time before our villain finds his way inside the house.
House II: The Second (NeverEnding) Story is a cluttered mess overstuffed with camp, molded cheese and zero logic. The most noteworthy is the horror elements that are mostly wiped out. We have two half-rotted skeletons, one friendly and the other not so much with his skeleton horse, and that’s pretty much as far as the horror goes. The first one also had its overtly goofy aspects, but here it goes overboard with childish acting, a series of nonsensical scenes just thrown at each other. Several sets and scenes also gave me some Full Moon/Empire vibes, which is not a bad thing. And then we have some innocent, cute-looking claymation puppets, one of which looks too alike the Luck Dragon from The NeverEnding Story (1984). The only link this sequel has to the original is a house that has portals to other dimensions.
And what is up with the old DVDs that display the house from Psycho on the covers? And if my ghoulish little brain isn’t already confused, the cover says “Endelig uklippet!” which is Norwegian for “The uncut version!“. Huh, yeah right. I assume they misunderstood this for being House III: The Horror Show, which ironically didn’t get a fully uncut release until 2017.
House II is overall a fun, charming little whimsical 80s cheese flick most suitable for the youngest audiences. Very light-hearted, oddly entertaining, and family-friendly that could easily be aired on Disney Channel alongside with Mr. Boogedy. The polar opposite could be said about the unofficial sequel that is the aforementioned House III: The Horror Show. Because when that film starts rolling, it’s time to get the kids in bed.
Writer and director: Ethan Wiley Country & year: USA, 1987 Actors: Arye Gross, Jonathan Stark, Royal Dano, Bill Maher, John Ratzenberger, Lar Park-Lincoln, Amy Yasbeck, Gregory Walcott, Dwier Brown, Lenora May IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093220/
– Troll 2 is a film that examines many serious and important issues. Like eating, living and dying. – Director Claudio Fragasso
And speaking of dying, dear grandpa Seth is dead. RIP. Even though it’s been six months after his funeral, the ten-year-old kid Joshua has regular meetings with his ghost in his room before bedtime. Grandpa Seth sits in a rocking chair as he tells goodnight stories about goblins and witches who turn people into trees, bushes and everything green.
Because you see, once upon a time there were goblins who were vegetarians, and the only way for them to eat was to turn people into everything green. But this is actually not any fairytale. Oh no, these goblins actually exist. So beware. Now, sleep tight and have a good night.
The brilliant idea of vegetarian goblins came from Rossella Drudi, the wife of Claudio Fragasso, who co-wrote the script. Here’s a quote from Best Worst Movie, a documentary from 2009 about the making of Troll 2:
– I didn’t want to write your typical horror movie. So, I came up with a story about troll (goblins) who were vegetarians. Because at that point in my life, I had many friends who’d all become vegetarians, and it pissed me off. So I had the idea of replacing the vampires in the vampire story with vegetarians (like Duckula). –
Only Joshua can see grandpa Seth (of course) and no one believes him. His mother has grown tired of him talking to his ghost and has a quick, serious conversation with him:
Banish him, you hear, boy? And yes, this is the actual piece of dialogue that was written which Josh’s mom says to him with the most dead and soulless eyes ever, as if she was straight from The Westboro Baptist Church. Good night and sweet dreams. Brrr! I prefer the ghost of grandpa Seth, thank you very much. With a script written like this, also by two Italians with very little to no knowledge of the English language, one would assume that the whole script was written in Italian and roughly Google-translated with no corrections. In reality, the script was written in such broken English that even the actors suggested to director Claudio Fragasso that they should at least ad-lib the lines to prevent the dialogues from sounding as retarded as it did on paper. Fragasso, the maestro that he is with an ego bigger than Jupiter, flat-out refused as his script was set in stone and perfect as it was.
But this little flavor of absurdity we just saw here is only the very top of the iceberg of this incompetent circus of a horror movie. It gets really batshit, to say the least, and it’s the reason why Troll 2 is praised by the same audiences who almost died from laughing at modern so-bad-it’s-good-classics like The Room,Birdemic: Shock and Terrorand all the films of Neil Breen.
Back to the film: Josh’ parents are taking him and their teen daughter Holly on a summer vacation trip to a small country, hillbilly town in the state of Utah, called … Nilbog. And the place looks like a complete ghost town which has seen better days. Grandpa Seth is still here, though, watching over Josh’s shoulders. They swap houses with a family that welcomes them with a ready dinner table. Talk about hospitality. But that’s not real food, Grandpa Seth tells Josh. It’s Goblin food which will turn anyone who eats it into vegetables – the favorite food of the goblins! Grandpa Seth displays some of his magic ghost force to stop the time for a brief moment, so Josh can prevent them eating the food. He has only ten seconds. The tension and suspense is unbearable. Josh stands on the table while the rest of the family is frozen-out, opens his zipper and – you guessed it – pisses on the food.
Or in Claudio Fragasso’s own frustrating words while trying to explain to a confused ten-year-old who didn’t understand the context of the scene, and who the hell could blame him: – You don’t worry, you jump on table, you unzip zipper, we cut, piss on table! –
Aha, okey then…
His dad, Michael (played by Aaron Eckhart’s doppelganger, George Hardy), gets furious and carries Josh up to his room where he delivers his famous line:
And yes, this is the actual dialogue. This is also the line that George Hardy used in his audition for the film. In full seriousness, he shouted You can’t piss on hospitality in front of nine cigar-smoking Italian casting agents. And they didn’t understand a word he was saying. The only reason he got the part was because they liked his energy.
Like in the original film, we get introduced to a witch by the name Creedence Leonore Gielgud. And this one is from the west and as evil as a Saturday Morning Cartoon character. She lives in a small church where she brews a green, magic, toxic potion that turns people into vegetables, so she can feed her goblins.
Alice Cooper was apparently busy feeding his Frankenstein, so the role of the witch went to Deborah Reed. And ‘boy, her performance is a trip. I have not before or after Troll 2 seen overacting on such an absurd animated level, as we see here. It’s all up to eleven and beyond, and I bet she must have burned some calories after reading her goofy lines the way she did. I’d love to se her audition reel and the reactions of the nine cigar-smoking Italians. Reed died last year due to cancer at age 73, but she will always be remembered in her iconic role. RIP.
The Oh My God clip is the most flawless piece of cinema put together. The way that the music is synchronized with his delayed scream is just perfection, not to mention the fly on the guy’s forehead. That’s Stanley Kubrick-level of perfectionism right there when it comes to subtle details with hidden meanings.
Then we have the creature designs, or the goblin costumes, the pure definition of schlock that even makes the creatures from the original film look like something from Stan Winston.
Troll 2 was filmed during thirty chaotic hot summer days in Utah where all the cast and crew were Italians who, of course, didn’t speak English. The actors were local amateurs, the one worse than the other, and all of whom auditioned to star as extras, but somehow instead ended up in the main roles. That also explains one thing or two. Michael Paul Stephenson, who plays the annoying kid Josh, already had the (un)pleasure of starring in another film by Claudio Fragasso, with Beyond the Darknes (a.k.a La Casa 5), released the same year as Troll 2. He also made the documentary Best Worst Movie.
The original title was Goblin, but was released as Troll 2, because that’s what Italian distributors always do to shamelessly cash in on the success of other films.
Troll 2 was one of the lost gems, also called The Holy Grail of bad movies, that were rediscovered many years after its release. It wasn’t until the comedy theatre group Upright Citizens Brigade started to screen the film at their base in Los Angeles that the phenomena that was Troll 2 spread throughout the United States like a turkey on fire, and soon after globally. Then the now legendary Oh My God clip was shared on YouTube and the rest is movie history.
Director Claudio Fragasso was also curious about the buzz and how the Americans had finally rediscovered his masterpiece, and flew to the states with his wife to get a sense of the phenomenon. Too bad he seems to have zero sense of irony. I’d earlier had an assumption that the guy was a first-class troll (no pun intended), like Birdemic director James Nguyen, but after re-watching some clips from the documentary Best Worst Movie, I’m not so sure. The clown really believes deep down that he made a genuine solid piece of cinema with Troll 2, and during an awkward Q&A after a screening of the film he looks completely lost, confused and irritated, and is about to implode. People were laughing too much at his film, even at parts that weren’t meant to be funny. Uh-oh! And he didn’t like that. His spicy narcissism and true colors really shine at the end of the documentary where he gets jealous of the actors’ popularity, giving them the death stare and even calling them dogs and liars. Classy.
There are many factors why Troll 2 ended up like it did for all the wrong hilarious reasons, but the main one is on none other than Claudio Fragasso, or the pseudonym of Drake Floyd he was credited as here. It’s the typical Ed Wood syndrome, just with an even more bloated ego, pompous arrogance, insanity and a head stuffed so far in one’s own delusional fantasy-butthole while refusing to hear a single input than your own bubbling farts. And to be fair, Fragasso hardly directed the film, costume designer Laura Gemser did, the one and only on the crew that spoke English fluently and translated the director’s directions to the actors. He also looked down on having any assistance from any English-speaking crew or cast because he was too lazy to learn some of the language himself. Mamma mia. Working on the set of Troll 2 must have been such a pleasant experience. I would like to see a biopic about the making of this turkey, like The Disaster Artist. Leonardo DiCaprio would be a great fit to play Fragasso.
There’s far worse movies than Troll 2, surprisingly enough, and at the end of the day, Claudio Fragasso has unintentionally managed to put together one of the best unhinged horror comedies of all time (if not the best) with not a single boring moment followed by a whole notebook of quote worthy lines. That’s a great skill and an achievement in itself. And that the guy to this day seems to be ultra-bitter about the films’ cult status and never seems to come to peace with it, is a bit sad. But that’s what happens when your ego becomes your own worst enemy.
There wasn’t made a Troll 3… or maybe it kinda was if we use our imagination a bit. We actually have two titles that were released with a.k.a Troll 3. The first one is Quest for the Mighty Sword (1990), an Italian fantasy film by Joe D’Amato. If the alternative titles wasn’t head-scratching already, this one is also known as The Hobgoblin and Ator III: The Hobgoblin. The other one is The Crawlers (1993), also a Joe D’Amato production about killing plants and was also filmed in the same area in Utah where Troll 2 was filmed.
Director: Claudio Fragasso Writers: Rossella Drudi, Claudio Fragasso Country & year: US, Nilbog, 1990 Actors: Michael Paul Stephenson, George Hardy, Margo Prey, Connie Young, Robert Ormsby, Deborah Reed, Jason Wright, Darren Ewing, Jason Steadman, David McConnell, Gary Carlston, Mike Hamil IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt0105643/
Harry Potter Jr. is to be drawn into a world beyond his wildest fantasy and he’ll need a little magic of his own to get out of it alive.
The Potter family of four (dad Harry Potter Sr, mom Anne Potter, their son Harry Potter Jr and daughter Wendy Anne Potter) are moving into an apartment complex in the Bay Area of San Fransisco. As the daughter Wendy Anne (Jenny Beck) starts exploring, she goes down to the laundry room in the basement where she encounters — drumroll — a troll! This little goofy-looking monster creature, which looks as menacing as a fluffy baby panda, wears a magic green ring that allows him to take the appearance of other people.
And no, just for clearance, this girl is not the twin sister of Heather O’Rourke, nor does she spit acid on people’s face (for those who took the V: The Final Battle reference).
The troll, now in Wendy Anne’s innocent appearance, goes from apartment to apartment and transforms the tenants to trees, bushes and whatever. One of the tenants, played by a young and unknown Julia Louis-Dreyfus (four years before she got the big break), gets the pleasure to get transformed into a nymph and spends the rest of the screentime running around half-naked in her forest-transformed apartment as she giggles and laughs like an overstimulated little girl high on too much sugar. The whole complex is to turn into a schlocky B-movie madhouse which is soon to crawl of mythical creatures.
As they emerge in the apartments they have acatchy little satanic chant that could as well have been written by Danny Elfman for a Tim Burton movie. A scene I ‘d guess the kids of the 80s were pretty mesmerized by while the parents had a thumb ready to click the off-button.
As things get more and more weird around the complex, Wendy Anne’s brother, Harry (played by The Neverending Story star Noah Hathaway) gets in contact with the elderly woman Eunice St. Clair. She’s a witch, but don’t worry, she’s from the north. And we learn that she has some close connection to the troll and that he must be stopped. Is Harry Potter Jr. the one to save the day from evil trolls, wizards and whatnot?
Or what do you think, J. K. Rowling?
Beg your Pardon..? How could she know, when she denies to have even seen the movie. Yeah right. And I have never seen a porno movie. The filmmakers took it pretty far, though, and even considered to file a law-suit against Rowling after they suspected her of copying both the name of Harry Potter and the magical theme from the film. A remake was also planned to be made in the mid-2000s where John Carl Buechler, who also directed this film, was to return as director – but the success of Rowling’s Harry Potter and its film adaptations somehow made it convoluted due to copyright. What a mess. So yeah, Charles Band and company had their reasons to be a little bitter.
And speaking of Charles Band, this was the only film under the Empire Pictures banner (pre Full Moon) to have a PG-rating, if I’m not mistaken. Except some very minor hint of body-horror this a safe enough film to play at your kid’s sixth birthday. Despite the kid-friendly approach, the film has the Charles Band/Full Moon fingerprints all over the place with its silly humor and overall goofy, whimsical nature with actors who seem both confused and disoriented. The effects reek of 80s cheese and the troll costume worn by the Willow actor Phil Fondacaro is cute. Some of the other puppet creatures were recycled from The Dungeonmaster (1984).
Troll is also notable for having the Seinfeld star Julia-Lous Dreyfus in her first film role. And she couldn’t be more proud to be a part of this film and look back with some humble, nostalgic joy. So proud in fact that she called Jay Leno an asshole twice after he screened some clips from the film when she was a guest on his Late Show. Not much of a thick skin on that lady’s meatsuit or much sense of self-irony, being a comedian and all. Just like Jennifer Aniston’s view of her first filmrole in Leprechaun, she’s seriously ashamed as if she got reminded of that time she ripped a wet fart in public that went on repeat for ten hours. She should at least consider herself damn lucky for not being a part of the unofficial sequel that is Troll 2, because oh my God!
Director: John Carl Buechler Writers: John Carl Buechler, Ed Naha Country & year: US, 1986 Actors: Noah Hathaway, Michael Moriarty, Shelley Hack, Jenny Beck, Sonny Bono, Phil Fondacaro, Brad Hall, Anne Lockhart, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Gary Sandy, June Lockhart, Robert Hathaway IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0092115/
It’s a dark and stormy night when comic book artist Colin Childress (Jeffrey Combs) works on his horror series Cellar Dweller. He sets his final drops of ink on a sequence where a young, half-naked damsel in distress runs through the woods and ends up trapped by a satanic, hairy monster. After Colin randomly quotes some obscure phrases from a book of witchcraft, he unconsciously manages to summon both the monster and the damsel who emerges right behind his back. While Herbert West..uhm, sorry, I mean Colin, runs frightened out of his studio, the monster kills the damsel off-screen. Since the monster was summoned from the drawing paper, Colin gets the brilliant idea to set the artwork on fire, which escalates into an inferno that kills them both. The rest of his artwork manage to survive, though.
Then, we jump 30 years ahead in time. Colin’s house has now become an art institute, where young cartoonist Whitney Taylor checks in to continue the Cellar Dweller series. Miss Briggs, who manages the place, is not thrilled about this, and tells her that the basement where Colin died is a no-go zone. Of course, Whitney still goes down there anyway, and she comes across an old chest which includes the same book of witchcraft we saw at the beginning. The can of worms is open again, and as soon as Whitney starts drawing Cellar Dweller, a hairy monster begins to terrorize the house’s students in the middle of the night. It’s just too bad that the killings happen off-screen, and makes me wonder if the monster costume was so heavy for the poor person inside that he was almost unable to walk properly.
Jeffrey Combs is only featured in the opening scene before the film goes full amateur hour. To top it all off, one of the actors, Brian Robbins, has obviously used Smilex as he has the most absurdly, psychopathic grin that is just completely out of place, to a certain point where he almost overshadows the monster. A bit impressive, though. Aside from a quick decapitation scene during almost a full hour of play time, there is not much gore to find here. The drawings by the comic book artist, Frank Brunner, are gorgeous and got its time to shine, and is actually more impressive than the movie itself. John Carl Buechler (RIP) also directed Troll two years earlier, which explains some of the similarities. And if you haven’t already, then check out Troll 2, and you’ll have a perfect schlockfest of a trilogy to enjoy and laugh at.
Director: John Carl Buechler Country & year: USA, 1988 Actors: Yvonne De Carlo, Debrah Farentino, Brian Robbins, Pamela Bellwood, Miranda Wilson, Vince Edwards, Jeffrey Combs, Floyd Levine, Michael Deak IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0094850/
Anna Madden is an 11 year old girl, who one day starts having fainting spells at school and when playing with her friend. She’s suffering from glandular fever, and must stay at home and finds herself bedridden much to her dismay. She draws a house, and when she falls asleep she starts having disturbing dreams about this house. Later she draws a face in the window, and the next time she dreams there’s a boy there. His name is Marc, and he’s suffering from muscular dystrophy and cannot walk. She keeps adding things to the drawing in order to form the house more to her liking, like adding stairs and furniture. She also tries an attempt at fixing Marc’s legs, but this proves futile. Something’s not right in her dreams, however, and in real life Anna’s having troubles with her relationship with both her mother and her absent father who’s struggling with alcoholism and is often away for work at long periods of time. One day when her doctor comes for a visit, Anna finds out that the doctor has another patient whose name is Marc. And now she’s starting to realize that the house in her dreams may not just be a pure fantasy after all.
It’s a dark and stormy night when comic book artist Colin Childress (Jeffrey Combs) works on his horror series Cellar Dweller. He sets his final drops of ink on a sequence where a young, half-naked damsel in distress runs through the woods and ends up trapped by a satanic, hairy monster. After Colin randomly quotes some obscure phrases from a book of witchcraft, he unconsciously manages to summon both the monster and the damsel who emerges right behind his back. While Herbert West..uhm, sorry, I mean Colin, runs frightened out of his studio, the monster kills the damsel off-screen. Since the monster was summoned from the drawing paper, Colin gets the brilliant idea to set the artwork on fire, which escalates into an inferno that kills them both. The rest of his artwork manage to survive, though.
