Troll 3: Contamination

I'm prompted to write this review because my cable company is promoting this... feature film... as a PAY PER VIEW. I kid you not.

Let me open by saying that it's not the worst film I've even seen. That honour goes to US Seals. It's not even the worst horror; there's a dubbed Swedish monstrosity involving terrified cats being thrown at bored actors that just (JUST) edges out Crawlers.

Let's count our blessings though. The production company that "funded" this movie is an Italian outfit that thankfully hasn't managed to branch out beyond the likes of "Troll 2" and "Quest For The Mighty Sword (aka Ator III: The Hobgoblin)". And both of the writers had never written anything before - and haven't written anything since. Let's be thankful for that.

The future of bad movies seemed grim and uncertain during the mass-destruction of the American drive-ins...but with dreck like THE CRAWLERS continuing to pop up, there may be hope for the future of schlock after all.

About the film...it involves a small town being threatened by creeping carnivorous tree roots(rubber garden hoses, in all honesty). Take this hopeless premise to further lows by putting it in unsteady hands of monolithic movie-making incompetence. Now, provide a cast of featureless thesps, and give the dire results of these efforts a misleading re-title which implies that it's a follow-up to something which in no possible way could have generated enough enthusiasm to merit such an endeavor. PRESTO! there you have it. Instant bad-movie gold.

I own a copy, and you should, too. 3.5/10

I don't know what to make of the title "Contamination .7" or "Troll 3." I saw this on video as "The Crawlers." There is nuclear contamination in the movie, but the figure ".7" and what it might mean was not mentioned (that I caught), and there are no trolls in the movie, but I haven't seen Troll or Troll 2, so I can't comment on what it might have in common with them.

The best thing about this was the cover of the video box. It has a pretty good illustration. Actually, the DeSoto was pretty nice too.

The movie starts dividing our attention between two young women on a bus. One gets stranded at a small gas station, while the other is returning to her small town home after having left it and her fiancé when she was in high school. For some time we keep cutting between the two of them, which is awkward.

Most of the acting was pretty poor, unfortunately. The Sheriff and his deputy, the nuclear plant's executives, goons, and whistleblower were are particularly bad. The threat in the movie is roots which have been contaminated by radioactive waste. They're now extremely long and carnivorous. What isn't clear is if they are just roots crawling around like worms, unconnected to anything, or if they are the roots of some tree or trees that are likewise mutated. We never see.

At one point, the townspeople show up to fight the roots. How that came to happen is not explained. Inexplicably, their solution is to find the barrels of nuclear waste that had been dumped in the forest and dig them up and put them in their trucks. They start to do this without any protective suits! Another solution is to bury the barrels under even more dirt, which doesn't make much sense either. Why the roots would stop attacking, or why they would die, when the barrels are carted away or further buried is entirely unclear.

The ending is particularly bad. It involves two horror clichés: the end that is not an end, and the freeze-frame.

Kidding.

Okay, you're right, this is THE single worst movie of all time. But there are some GREAT lines: Hit-man one to hit-man two: "Shut up. And drive." Well, one great line. And that was pretty much the highlight of the movie.

The poor guy who played the helicopter pilot is a friend of mine, so once a year a bunch of us get together for a Crawlers party, to make fun of, and abuse, our friend. "I've lived among the trees all my life and I've never seen anything like it." As far as I can tell, the only reason to watch this movie is because you know someone who acted, and I use the term loosely, in it.

Dear God, what were they thinking when they made this thing? I'm glad they did, but...Lord-love-a-duck this thing stinks!

So this is the infamous Troll 3. Would you look at that? Nothing's happening! No trolls anywhere to be seen here! That's only one reason why this film SUCKS!

It's not one you can watch alone because part of the fun would come from joking about it with someone else. Watching by yourself is just torture! TOR-CHAR!

Maybe this movie should have been called "The Living Dead who Refuse to Rot" because the majority of the "actors" talk like zombies! Like the Sheriff character. Oh my goodness! Here's probably one of the worst actors to ever be in a non-porn movie. And I thought the mother in Troll 2 was bad! But he's not the only one! The boss in the power plant and just about everyone here is terrible!

Worst line delivery: "Ok, doctor we'll just evacuate the entire country before you can say Jack Robinson". Actually anything said by the sheriff makes you want to kill him. He's amazing in the sense that every single line he says sounds exactly the same!

There are no little creatures here, no trolls, no goblins, no nothing. Whoever renamed this movie to "The Crawlers" and removed the "Troll 3" name shows me there is hope for the world after all. Because this movie HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH TROLLS!

They must've saved a lot of money by using killer roots instead of creatures.

Who finances this kind of c**p and why? I can only think that the targeted audience is that of non-english speaking countries where the people are used to dubbing.

I bought this (for $3.75) expecting at least the fun I had with Troll 2 because in spite of that movie's long list of shortcomings it had some very funny elements. None of those elements are present in Troll 3. There is however a hysterical scene where the killer roots kill a man in a suit who's chasing the "hero" with a gun. The guy takes forever and a day to die and he screams pathetically through it all.

Troll 2 had a little boy and a monster on the video cover, neither of which were in the movie. Troll 3 has a sexy girl on the "Crawlers" cover who, you've guessed it, is nowhere to be seen in the movie.

Troll 3 just plain sucks.