One of my best friends, Brent, knows my love of good crap movies. Somehow our latest conversation got around to this gem. Of course this movie is a gem in the way that some sick dog found it and now you have you dig around its stool for the diamond ring he ate. It’s hilarious at times and really bad the rest.
The movie starts with a boy being read a story. The story plays out for us in the audience. So we can enjoy this bit of wretchedness too. Apparently, some dork in a Robin Hood hat wanders through the woods until he stumbles upon goblins (there are no trolls in this friggin’ movie). They are as menacing as Ewoks and they give chase. He is a wuss so he runs until he falls. Then he wakes to see a lovely girl with painted freckles (Why are they painted like bad play? I don’t know)
She feeds him some Nickelodeon Gak which makes him ooze green slime from his temples. He then turns into green jelly, plant material which goblins eat. So the Grandfather is telling this tale to his grandson Josh to warn him that goblins are real and will come out to eat him. His Mom comes in to tell him to shut up and go to bed but is not at all disturbed when Joshua tells him he got a bedtime story from his dead Grandfather.
Then you get an exposition that is about as subtle as a train wreck. All you need to get from it. Grandfather is dead but parents don’t seem to care enough to send Josh to get electroshock for his hallucinations and instead want to go on vacation to a farm in Nilbog (Sounds reasonable to me). Meanwhile his sister Holly gets a visit from her boyfriend Elliot in her room. He scares her so she kicks him in the groin. “Are you nuts? You tryin' to turn me into a homo?” Wow…just wow. Then she accuses him of being a homosexual because he spends a lot of time with his friends.
Damn dude. That is a lot of abuse for this high school relationship. You are one lucky guy to have ALL THAT! His three buddies show up in the window too and I wonder if they brought their own ladder or if they are all sharing a section to stand there and peer like asses at Holly who hates them. He says he’ll meet her along the way on her vacation. She agrees only if he doesn’t bring his friends.
So they don’t meet up. This causes some family strife which is boring to watch and mental to want to keep the camera on but it keeps up with it. Josh has a dream he is turned into a tree and consumed by his parents who are goblins in disguise. He wakes up and says he has to throw up and runs to a hitchhiker that he sees as his Grandpa Seth. Seth tells him to not let his family got to Nilbog as it is the kingdom of the goblins. Just as his parents pull up Seth transforms back into a crusty hitchhiker. I am thinking Russell Crowe was saner in “A Beautiful Mind” than this kid.
Food has been prepared at the house where they are staying, complete with green food coloring but Joshua's grandfather shows up again to tell Josh to stop them from eating no matter what and freezes time for thirty seconds to help, so besides having power over time this ghost also knows that the goblins set out food for the unsuspecting family to eat. Having no brains to swipe the food in the time given, or fake a seizure, Joshua stands up on the table pisses on the food. Instead of being taken outside and beaten or taken to a doctor to find out what the pluperfect hell is wrong with him they take him upstairs and give him a stern talking too. Like a 10-11 year knows what the hell a hunger strike is.
Meanwhile one of Elliot's friends, Arnold goes out for a walk and meets a woman being pursued by the goblins. He tackles the girl and makes a really creepy line. For all you single guys out there. If a girl in a torn shirt is running away from something. Take my advice, don’t tackle them. Makes you seem like a real freak. They face off with the goblins and end up running into a church like building which is the house of the goblins' druid leader, Creedence Leonore Gielgud (Deborah Reed), who uses the "Stonehenge Magic Stone" to give the goblins power. This girl is the funniest part of this movie.
She actually looks like she is having a good time hamming this crap dialogue up. It’s like watching a horror host on television. Creedence dupes the two into drinking a magic potion which causes the woman to disintegrate into a puddle of green vegetable goo. which is then eaten by the goblins, and Arnold is turned into a plant-man. Another of Elliot's friends, Drew arrives at the house later on in search of Arnold, but is apparently killed off-screen by Creedence.
That night Holly is unintentionally contacted by Seth via a mirror and she and Joshua swap rooms. So ghost Seth can pause time but can’t figure out the pesky rooms. Seth gets through to Joshua and tells him to convince his parents to leave Nilbog and return home. Joshua looks into a car mirror to summon Seth again like Bloody Mary but only succeeds in noticing from the reflection that Nilbog is Goblin spelled backwards. No shit Sherlock. Maybe I’m the sort of person that overly thinks about words but I notice things like words backwards and anagrams (Did you know that Nosferatu is an anagram for Anus Forte? Tell me THAT doesn’t mean something.)
He concludes that the area must be their kingdom and skateboards off to an abandoned church where the goblins are listening to a sermon telling the evils of eating meat. However, he is noticed and brought to the basement where they attempt to feed him goblin ice cream. Josh’s Dad walks in and grows slightly suspicious, of the huge crowd of adults surrounding his kid and he and Josh back out.
The family returns to find that the village has prepared a surprise party. Joshua runs to his room hoping to summon Seth but instead is confronted by Creedence in goblin form. Seth appears and chops her hand off with an axe, causing her to retreat back to her house. So now the ghost can appear corporeal. Being dead is apparently only an inconvenience in this universe. The two go outside in an attempt to create a distraction but the local priest catches them and attempts to banish Seth to Hell. Seth defeats him by igniting a molotov cocktail with magic lightning powers (Seriously? I want it explained to me right now how this guy can do all this?), killing the priest and causing him to revert to goblin form. Seeing this finally convinces Josh's family of what is really happening, and the locals turn on them.
Instead of murdering them on the spot they let them mosey into the house and barricade it In the meantime, Creedence deals with Elliot's one remaining friend, Brent, by making herself sexy and drowning him in popcorn. Her powers sort of suck compared to Ghost Grampa Seth.
The family holds a séance to communicate with Seth, who tells them that he has ten minutes before he disappears from the mortal world. Joshua is sent to Creedence's house through magic plot convenience and the rest of the family is pursued by the goblins. Seth tells Joshua to put his hands on the Magic Stone and focus in order to defeat the goblins and gives him a lunch bag which he must only open if he is in danger.
Just when Seth leaves, the goblins chasing the family disappear; Creedence appears before Joshua and he is backed into a corner by the goblins. He opens the bag to find it contains a double-decker bologna sandwich, which he consumes. Somehow this works like garlic to a vampire. That is a new one to me, and I play Dungeons and Dragons. The rest of the family, guided by Ghost Grampa (whom I thought was supposed to be the gone by now), arrive at the house; Joshua passes on the instructions he got from Seth and together they defeat Creedence and the goblins by touching the Magic Stone and concentrating turning Creedence into an old hag and the goblins into green snot.
After going home, The Mom bites and apple and is killed by consuming goblin food left in the house. Joshua discovers her corpse being eaten by the goblins. Then one of the goblins says "Do you want some, Joshua?". The movie the closes with Joshua screaming in terror at the horror he is witnessing. BOO! Somehow this pile has cult status. If you have a chance to see something like this and you have a very open mind and maybe a few beers it might be fun. Otherwise avoid it like goblin droppings.
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