Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Troll/Troll 2 Double Feature. Low Budget.

1. Troll, 1986, directed by John Carl Buechler, written by Ed Naha.
2. Troll 2, 1990, directed by Claudio Fragasso, written by Rosella Drudi.
3. Fun House, 1981, directed by Tobe Hooper, written by Lawrence Block.
4. The Pink Chiquitas, 1987, directed and written by Anthony Currie.

I'm not writing them up individually because it really wouldn't be worth anyone's time. If anything, Troll was probably the best of all of them and Fun House is special because I saw it in Hawaii with Matt and my brother the last time we were there, but they were all pretty lame. Sometimes there are films that are bad that didn't have to be bad (Pearl Harbor, Gigli, Vanilla Sky); like there's just one thing that's consistently off, something that could easily be fixed, like dialogue, just rewrite it. Or Cameron Diaz's voice, just don't hire her! Then there are films like these, where everything is off, and the only way to save it would be to burn it. I try not to pick too much on low budget films because everyone has to start somewhere, but when dialogue is badly written, actors are disastrously inexperienced, production is slim to none, and the entire project is just kind of random and shoddy, it's hard to watch the result. These films weren't terrible, there were some interesting parts I guess, but they were just . . . lacking. Like watching someone's German video but without the saving grace of having Eminem on the soundtrack.

Ugh. My hands are freezing. This winter has been painfully lengthy. I think Television Lady needs to be based in Kona. Who's with me?

4 comments:

Donald said...

I saw Troll when I was a kid, and it scared the hell out of me.

Troll 2 was just awful, but hilarious. One of the all time best bad movies.

I've never even heard of the other two.

Justin Garrett Blum said...

I actually have no idea why movies like these get made. Could they be profitable? Does anybody involved in the production even think that's a possibility?

I don't know...maybe they do make some meager amount of money for all I know, given how on-the-cheap they're filmed.

Anna said...

i wondered that myself. i guess it was the 80s, maybe it was all done on a massive coke-bender, super fast, and no one really realized what was happening?

Donald said...

According to Box Office Mojo, the original Troll made about $6,000,000. Obviously, that doesn't sound like a lot in terms of modern movie making, but this was back in 1986, so if they spent more than a few hundred thousand dollars on the production, I'd be surprised. They don't list the budget on Mojo, but I bet 99% of that went toward Sony Bono's salary.

Also, let's not forget that the $6,000,000 figure is just based on actual ticket sales. When I was a kid, this movie was on HBO *all the time*, so I'm guessing the studio made a pretty decent chunk of change of off that kind of thing as well.

Of course, not every low budget film has the same success of a movie like Troll, which, all things considered, is kind of a good movie. It's entertaining, has some clever ideas, and some of the special effects are pretty well done.

Now I'm going to have to go and review Troll on my blog. God damn it.

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