Shmee.Me

Troll 2 is one of those amazingly bad movies that it is so impossible to believe it got made and released.  It is defiantly one of the worst movies of all time, and one of those rare treats that is so bad that it is good, especially when watched with a good group of friends.  It was released in 1990 and directed by Claudio Fragasso.

The story is about a family that decides to go to a farming town Nilbog (goblin backwards) for vacation, only to find that the place is full of goblins, and that the goblins are vegetarians so the people have to eat some green stuff to turn in to plants so the goblins can eat them.  Oh yes, and the son Joshua is haunted by his grandfather, who for some reason knows everything about goblins, and thus can help his grandson out.  Notice I did not type the word “Troll” at any point because there are none in this movie, and it has nothing to do with Troll 1.

The goblins are supposed to be scary, but it seems that in most situations they pose no threat to anyone because they are slow and only have spears that they can throw at people, but they only do that once, and I would remiss if I did not mention that there is a scene in which two people make out with a piece of corn between them and it turns in to popcorn, yes that happens.

The fact that a studio paid someone to make this movie boggles my mind, at least with Manos: The Hands of Fate it was just a bunch of people getting together to make a movie, and then realizing that was something they did not know how to do, but with this it was supposedly made by professionals, and had real funding.  Not a lot probably, but more than the bologna sandwich that saves the young boy at the end of this film.

Rarely do movies like this see the light of day, and if they do get published they land on the direct to video isle, or stuck on late night TV as a joke, but every once and awhile a movie this bad reaches the public at large and it is hilarious.

With Brad Pitt’s new zombie movie doing well in theaters I thought I would watch one of my favorites zombie movies Zombieland.  It came out in 2009 and it was directed by Ruben Fleischer, and written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. I love this movie because it adds some humor to the zombie lore.

The movie follows Jesse Eisenberg’s character as he at first is trying to get to Columbus, and is so named for the rest of the movie, but he soon meets Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Wichita (Emma Stone), and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) and he decides to follow them.  He has survived the zombie apocalypse by living by thirty-two simple rules that will flash up on the screen when his life is being saved by them or someone is dying because they didn’t follow them.

This doesn’t sound like a funny setup to a movie, but the humor comes from them not trusting each other, and the crazy things they do with and too the zombies.  Plus since these characters have lived so long with zombies, the undead don’t pose a huge threat to them until they are cornered.

The actors all do their jobs well.  Woody Harrelson plays a man who has lost everything, so he has decided to destroy the zombies with glee.  Jesse Eisenberg’s has never trusted people so not trusting zombies comes naturally, and Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin play two sisters that are just looking out for each other.

The special effects in this movie are great too.  The zombies look like zombies and they are satisfyingly gruesome, and they explode wonderfully when hit by bullets.  They must have used a ton of cornstarch in this movie, but that is the way it should be, and Columbus’ rules are always popping up at the perfect times for maximum humorous effect.

This movie makes me laugh the whole way through, but they made the characters lovable, so you actually care if they survive or not.  If you are looking for a great movie that provides tons of laughs and a couple scares then look no further than Zombieland.