"The Italian-produced, Utah-shot, so-bad-it's-good hall of famer is less about goblins (not a single troll, and especially not the one from 1986's Troll, appears in the film) and more about icky food dyed in sickly green colors. In the film, these gross foodstuffs are the poisoned creation of a witch and her flock of vegetarian goblins to trap innocent humans and turn them into plants, and only young Joshua Waits (Michael Stephenson) knows of its danger when his family arrives in the rural town Nilbog for a house-swap vacation."
"Far from being scary, all the scenes featuring food - and the visceral, sticky transformations that follow - make you feel nauseous. When paired an ensemble of universally clueless and wooden performers, Troll 2 is as baffling as it is icky, channeling its anti-vegetarian satire into a simulation of adolescent-friendly American horror like Gremlins, The Gate, and The Monster Squad, revealing through its defects how those beloved films rely on carefully assembled charm and heart."
"By the time we got Gremlins and its coat tail-chasing spawn - Critters, Ghoulies, The Gate - Hollywood had moved away from scary movies about creepy kids like The Exorcist and The Omen. The childlike acceptance of fantasy and witchcraft had turned them into unlikely heroes against waves of little monsters, acting as neat, ideal surrogates to young audiences who secretly harbor fantasies of fighting off monsters without grown-up supervision."
Troll 2 emphasizes grotesque, artificial green food and nauseating transformations over genuine scares, portraying poisoned meals created by a witch and vegetarian goblins to turn humans into plants. The film centers on young Joshua Waits as the lone aware protagonist amid a wooden ensemble, making the horror feel repulsive rather than suspenseful. The movie imitates adolescent-friendly monster films like Gremlins and The Gate but lacks the emotional pull, charm, and heart those films assemble. The result reads as baffling, so-bad-it's-good camp that exposes how successful children's horror balances creature spectacle with relatable warmth.
Read at Inverse
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