More homemade horror on Tubi. Bar is set low, as the no-budget indie stuff is not gonna knock your socks off eight times out of ten, but I’ve been surprised before. I do try to watch a bunch of these, and not completely discount the efforts of the aspiring filmmakers, but with a wider margin for error – can’t review with the same mindset that I’d review a bigger-budget effort with.
This internet-age horror concept revolves around a traveling one-man vigilante-for-hire internet show. An aggrieved person will “sponsor” their nemesis to be abducted by an anonymous punisher called “The Troll.” The Troll zip ties them to chairs in a basement (the entire movie takes place in this basement room) and nauseatingly-slowly explains to the four victims, as well as the viewing audience, why they’ve been sponsored for revenge.
The pacing is laborious, taking a very basic premise and stretching it into an 80-minute movie, but I stuck with it. It wasn’t easy, but I stuck with it. I wanted to give this thing a fair shake and not just bail out at the 30 minute mark like I so desperately wanted to.
The first half hour a dude in a tyvek suit paces around the basement lecturing the four bullies (is what I gather their crimes amounted to, common bullying) about why they should be ashamed of themselves while they all yell and curse at him.
Then he starts his tortures, with a staple gun and some pokey things and a pliers and one person he just bonks over her head with a keyboard. You don’t see it, though. Just before the graphic violence happens, “Cameras Off!” he shouts, screen goes blank and you hear the bonks and the crunches and the yelling, then when the cameras come back on everyone looks tired and there’s a little blood on their skin. So if you were hoping for torture porn you’re going to be terribly disappointed. No “porn,” just a suggestion of heavy-petting.
That’s kind of a bummer, I mean we’re not here for the acting, and we’re not here for the script or the story. I’m starting to wonder what they’ve got for us. The punishments are few. The scares are, well…
What am I watching here??
Seriously, for almost the entire movie the only thing that happens is lecturing. That’s it, guy in a tyvek suit just lectures four people in a basement for an hour and a half. It’s torture porn – I’ve just been tortured for an hour and a half of watching this movie, and finding anything remotely funny to write about it? Agony. I’m waiting for some kind of payout… so maybe the dialog is tiresome, and the delivery of that dialog (well, monologue really) is fairly flat, and the story goes nowhere and there’s not even any horror really. It’s an internet etiquette life lesson they’re shooting for, a great big morality tale. “Don’t be a dick on the internet or a chubby dude in a onesie is going to tie you up and talk at your during a long lunch break.”
I don’t even know why The Troll put plastic on the floor, the only things that landed on the floor was a mess of papers and a shoe. It was… well shit how do I objectively respond to this? It was coherent. By this I simply mean that I get what they wanted to present. It was a plausible concept. I get it. Internet morality play with hard emphasis on accountability. A long, dull, anti-climactic morality play. Camera work was 5 out of 10, sound production was 4 out of ten, set design was the director’s basement, the lighting was occasionally effective, and since the budget was reportedly $100,000 I’m hoping the provided lunches were good because I can’t imagine any of the cast or crew were paid very much.
This movie got some awards, it has a bunch of people liking it on Rotten/IMDB’s, so maybe I’M the stupid one here, for taking a shit all over this thing. I dunno, man, YOU be the judge.
Will you like it? (shrugs) I dunno. Is it the worst thing I’ve sat through? No. That would be “Tyler Perry’s Boo! 2 A Madea Halloween.” That was just the worst thing ever. I still have nightmares… that I’m still sitting and watching that piece of shit. I think the very kindest thing I can say about “TrolledSOS” is that it was not, in fact, “Tyler Perry’s Boo! 2 A Madea Halloween.”