How could Hobgoblins possibly have a sequel? Wait, who am I kidding? Troll has three sequels. Wait...there's another Troll movie? I'll get to that eventually, but the fact is, plenty of bad movies have sequels and remakes. Heck, there's a movie that's literally called Violent S#!t (1989,) and it has three sequels (the fourth released last year.)
I recently found out about Hobgoblins 2's existence. There aren't too many reviews for this one around, so I figured I'd take a shot. I still wanted to see the first Hobgoblins first though, and it was well worth it. Will Hobgoblins 2 entertain the same way? Let's find out.
THEY SENT A CAR ACCIDENT VICTIM TO A MENTAL HOSPITAL! What else do I need to tell you? OK I'm getting slightly ahead of myself, sorry. Some company named Halfway 2 Sanity pictures was behind the movie, but I can't find anything about the company on Google - and we all know that's always a good sign.
The movie starts at a mental hospital, which is probably where the producer should go. A group of five teens are walking beside the hospital, and they look somewhat like the teens from the first movie. More specifically, they are supposed to be the teens from the first movie.
Some douchy doctor tells them that they're late and they follow him into the building. Inside, we find out that the entire hospital has exactly one security guard. Genius, because one guard is all you need for a raging psycho rampaging through the hallways while running away from his hallucinations of the devil chasing him. Nick then asks,
"Is any of this going to show up on the final exam?" What? The five of them are taking some course together? When the security guard shows up, the doctor asks about recent problems with patients. The guard tells the group about one patient who jumped off the roof and another who created a machete out of a juice box. How is that fricken possible? And now we have proof that this hospital needs more than one guard.
The douchebag doctor decides to ask someone else about problems, so head nurse Rosie shows up. Rosie is, um...accompanied by sleazy jazz music and a cleavage exposing uniform. Heck, she even tries to talk in a sexy voice while posing with a needle. Looks like this movie is continuing the first movie's habit of having too many lame sexual jokes while remaining quite tame.
We see the patient being held against a wall by two male nurses, but nobody looks like their trying hard to do...anything. Heck, we hear the patient screaming while we see him with his mouth mostly closed. We cut back to the group, where some mental patient asks prude girl if she wants to play a game. Something tells me this movie's not going to be as fun as the original.
Anyway, the patient asks how many fingers he's holding up. Prude girl answers, and then the patient pulls out a knife and cuts off one of his fingers. What the frick? How did the patient get a knife in the first place? None of the doctors run toward him to take the knife. Heck, one older nurse slowly walks over and tells the teens to ignore him. How is that going to help someone who cuts off his own finger as a joke? Worse yet, Nick and horny girl laugh. Maybe they should be patients here too. We're only five minutes into this movie and all logic is already thrown clean out the window. The first movie at least took 13 minutes to do that.
(Finger cutter boy makes less sense than a bowl of talking Jell-O in a war movie)
The group of teens walks in on the support group. The nurse then asks and old man to share something. He turns around and greets the group of teens. The nurse then says that he's in the hospital because he blew up a TV studio. You mean to tell me that he's the old security guard from the first movie and yet Kevin doesn't recognize him? He even has the same name as the guard from the first movie. He was a major character - how could they screw that up? Anyway, his real name is McCreedy, and I'll be using that for this review.
The douchebag doctor leads the teens into his office and hooks some machine up to McCreedy's head. It shows a bunch of really cheap special effects one a computer monitor. Eventually, it shows a hobgoblin on the monitor. Kevin asks what they are. YOU SHOULD KNOW YOU FRICKEN IDIOT! One movie ago you helped McCreedy take these creatures out!
The movie cuts to outside the hospital after the tour, where McCreedy greets them. Wait? If he's supposedly a dangerous patient, why are you letting him outside the hospital? This isn't just an illogical movie, it's an anti-logic movie. Anyway, he warns the teens not to say Hobgoblins three times, and then the douchebag doctor shows up and says Hobgoblins three times. The three teens walk off, with Kevin glaring at McCreedy for a couple seconds; no idea why he does that but whatever.
Douchebag doctor sits in his office and again says hobgoblins three times. The lights in his office begin to flicker, and a hobgoblin pops up behind some machine. The doctor screams and we cut to the security guard's office.
Next up, we see Nick practicing moves with a shovel. Horny girl pops by and asks what he's doing. She urges him to start mowing the lawn. He continues to twirl around his shovel until she flashes her bra from the window. Nick walks toward the window, only to step on a rake and it hits him in the face. She laughs at him like a maniac while I groan at the joke's predictability. I don't know guys, I'm 12 minutes in and I haven't laughed once yet.
The other three walk toward the house and Nick pops by to have another staff fight like from the first movie. Really? You completely forget that Kevin and McCreedy worked together but you bring up the staff fight scene again. Horny girl runs out excited to watch, even though she was yelling about cutting the lawn earlier. Kevin declines the fight and walks inside. Nick then laughs like a goofball until the scene ends. Ugh, I'm so bored.
(This room's tackiness is the most interesting thing in the whole movie)
The movie starts with a commercial for a fake movie called Chainsaw Chicks. Meanwhile, Nick and horny girl start to make out on the couch. Kevin tries to kiss miss prude, who denies him and says,
"Kevin! Love bites leave marks." What the frick does that mean? We then see some lame footage of the commercial, showing a very boring chainsaw duel - didn't even know that was possible. Kevin tries to put his arm around miss prude, who again denies him. You know movie, you're taking this prudish thing way too far. She even says, "Careful it's hot," when Kevin tries to reach for the popcorn.
(This product placement probably paid for Hobgoblin 2's entire budget)
Horny girl then tells Nick to get drinks. All three guys head to the fridge of product placement and grab a glove full of ice. Why is that there? Meanwhile, miss prude complains that this boring fricken commercial is scary. Nick touches the ice to horny girl's throat. She screams and falls off the couch as the others all laugh. Come on, do something stupid funny for once, so far this movie's just annoying stupid.
Kevin sees something out the window, but just like every other cliché horror movie, nobody else sees it. The movie then explains away the cliché as if it was supposed to be a joke. Yeah, the movie ruined a joke that wasn't even remotely funny to begin with. I'm starting to have Disaster Movie flashbacks here. Someone then knocks on the door.
Horny girl answers the door, and a cop is standing ten feet away, tapping his nightstick into his hand like he's ready for a fight as he informs her that something happened to the douchy doctor at the mental hospital. The cop says that he's not allowed to tell the group anything, but they’re supposed to see the doctor the next morning. The cop walks away, and a hobgoblin pops up outside the grass and growls cheaply. OK, where do I begin?
Firstly, why is the cop standing so far away from the door? Why is he swinging his nightstick around like that if he's just telling the group to go to the hospital the next morning? Thirdly, if he's supposed to be a hallucination, then why isn't he just trying to kill the teens now? The hobgoblins in the first movie never waited, they just went for it. And what ever happened to the hobgoblins being attracted to bright lights? Despite having the same characters as the first movie (being portrayed by even worse actors however,) this really is a sequel in name only.
The next morning, the group shows up at the hospital and follows the support group leader to a room. Inside, the douchebag doctor is shaking violently in a straight jacket, but on a regular hospital bed. Why isn't he in a padded room?
"Don't let them get me," he says. I'll give the movie credit, the doctor did deserve it. McCreedy pops by and says that he warned the doctor. The nurse accuses him, blah blah. The scene seems to repeat itself, and we cut outside.
Here we learn that horny girl and Nick are banned from the library just because Nick asked if they have an adult section. What? You're so desperate for porn that you look for adult movies in a library? That would get you banned? Real librarians would just write you off as a jerk and ignore you. Also, in this day and age there's the internet. How do I know that this movie isn't based in the 80s? Because they were watching a DVD earlier.
Anyway, McCreedy grabs Kevin to the side and warns him about the hobgoblins. He tells him that they can sense people's worst fears. I thought they caused you to hallucinate about your deepest desires and...know what screw it. This movie has almost nothing to do with the original save for the names of the characters.
The movie tries to have an intimate moment between Kevin and miss prude, where she talks about how she's always been afraid of the puppets her family gave to her as gifts. So this movie's painting her not just as a prude, but a wimpy girl who has trouble getting over childhood fears and refuses to get too close to anyone?
Kevin then shows up at the hospital with flowers to visit the douchebag doctor. Why? I don't know. Anyway, the room is empty and apparently he was never a patient. The doctor is outside, and tells Kevin that he locked McCreedy away. He then reveals that he's also Kevin's teacher for...something. Really? You're a full time doctor in this mental hospital and you're leading a course as well? Does anything in this stupid movie make sense? Kevin gives the doctor the flowers, and the doctor immediately throws them out, never even saying thanks. Yeah, told you he was a douchebag. It also makes the hobgoblins much less scary than they should be if they can't either drive someone crazy or kill them. In the first movie they hallucinated several people to death. I'm starting to hate this movie. Worse yet, I'm only half an hour in, so I'm going to start rushing through this.
So Kevin is attacked by a stuffed animal that's supposed to be a hobgoblin. It looks even sillier than the first movie. He throws the thing away, and it seems to disappear entirely. What was the point? Anyway, he wanders back into the building and encounters the finger cutter again. He tells Kevin that he was just fixed again, and then pulls off a headband to reveal that he just had a lobotomy. What? How is he talking after he had a frontal lobotomy? Heck, he's still acting crazy too. Then the hot nurse shows up again and gives the finger patient an empty bottle. I don't...whatever.
Single guy tells the other three that he's been talking to a girl on the internet.
"So when are we going to meet this mystery girl," Horny girl asks. Déjà vu anyone?
Single guy then signs into some webcam show about the same call girl from the first movie. She dumps a bunch of Jell-O all over herself and...this is so stupid. Kevin barges in on him and tells single guy about the hobgoblin that attacked him. Single guy makes fun of him and Kevin leaves, after mentioning that he bailed the loser out of spending thousands on internet sex shows. Ugh, this is even worse than the first movie with his stupid girlfriend jokes.
Kevin is attacked in his car. All we see is a view of Kevin in the car intercut with blurring lines, and then we see a van roll over. It's not even the same van Kevin was driving, and yet the next scene shows Kevin on a hospital bed being jerked around by three male nurses. McCreedy watches him roll by and...why isn't he still locked up? Wait...doesn't this mean that they sent an accident victim to a mental hospital? Why would you send a car accident victim to a mental hospital? That's like going to the dentist because your leg got stabbed. Anyway, Kevin's friends visit him for exactly 10 seconds and leave; what great friends he has.
The second Kevin's friends leave, Kevin gets out of bed, quickly gets dressed, and leaves. The security in this hospital is wonderful, isn't it? No wonder finger cutter guy never escaped.
McCreedy and Kevin talk about the Hobgoblins, and tell them that they primarily target the weak minded and easily frightened. Kevin runs towards home to protect his friends. Keep in mind that it's daytime right now - remember that.
At home, horny girl starts dancing to the same stupid music from the first movie. A girl scout comes to the door and refuses to leave until she buys a box, and as horny girl gives in. After horny girl grabs her purse, the hobgoblin pops up from behind. The Girl Scout runs off and drops the box of cookies without taking any money. That's literally all we see of the girl scout...glad she was on the movie's cover.
Horny girl heads back inside and gives Nick the cookies, who immediately starts munching away. While sitting on the couch, the hobgoblin touches horny girl's legs and disappears. She immediately blames Nick, even though he's too busy eating the free cookies to touch her. Horny girl then looks on the floor for a while and doesn't touch anything. As she sits back on the couch, she orders Nick to get a drink. Are we really supposed to buy that these two are a couple? All he ever does is annoy her. Anyway, he says,
"Sugar never cured anything."
"Yeah, it cured me of whispering," Horny girl replies. Can somebody please explain to me how that's supposed to mean anything. Nick heads to the fridge and shakes up the can of pop he grabbed. The hobgoblin shows up again and touches horny girl on the neck. She turns around and screams, grabs the goblin, and falls back. That's really the only way they can attack, by being grabbed. The budget here is so low that they can't even pay someone to throw the stuffed animal at the actors. Even the first movie had that.
Nick teases his screaming girlfriend by saying,
"I thought nothing scares you."
Horny girl fights the creature away before Nick comes back. He tries to comfort her by joking that she's going insane too. He suggests that maybe the cookies had acid on them, but she reminds him that she didn't have any cookies. The hobgoblin pops up behind Nick on the couch and growls. Horny girl sees it and warns him, but he doesn't believe her. Why not? It's growling, are you telling me you don't hear that?
Nick eventually turns around and is attacked the exact same way that horny girl was, by grabbing the stuffed animal and pulling it with him as he rolls off the couch. Rather than helping her boyfriend, horny girl just hops in place as he tells her to call 911. Honestly? You think the police are going to believe some tiny creature is attacking you? Worse yet, Horny girl says she doesn't know the number. Not only is that an old joke, but it's told in the worst possible way.
The movie cuts to Kevin, still at the hospital, hijacking a car. Its nighttime now, and he started running toward home shortly after his friends tried to visit him. Remember it was still daytime when he first started running home? The time scale here is almost as skewed as the car chase in Troll 3. A cop and the security guard try to get him out of the car, but the fricken idiots don't even try to open the door.
While driving, Kevin calls miss prude. She complains that it's late, and specifies that it's almost 8:30. Right, because 8:30 is super late for teenagers. She hangs up, and a hobgoblin is behind her on the bed. Kevin soon shows up and finds a terrified miss prude. Well, as terrified as this bad actress can show anyway. Now there are four hobgoblins on her bed. Kevin sends them to wherever Nick and horny girl live, and he tries to fight all four at once.
This fight is beyond pathetic. They "jump" at Kevin one at a time, and he throws them each away. After that he runs off, and that's the whole fight scene.
Single guy is on his online chat thing again when the girl starts insulting him. Two hobgoblins then start to attack him. Kevin arrives to help them, they struggle against the stuffed animals, and then he sees the "call girl" on the computer monitor. What does he say about it? Nothing!
The next scene shows Kevin heading into one of the nurse offices at the mental hospital. Wait, why would he head back there? He just escaped from the mental hospital - there's no reason to go back. Also, why didn't he check up on Nick and horny girl? Anyway, the nurse orders Kevin to go back to his room, and when Kevin refuses, she starts to approach Kevin with a needle. Being the genius that Kevin is, he just stands there and asks,
"What are you doing?"
The nurse screams and then the two start to fight. The fight ends with the needle somehow sticking into the nurse's neck. She falls asleep, and Kevin wanders into the halls. He runs into the head nurse (you know, the one who’s supposed to be sexy.) She tells him that visiting hours are over. Really? You're the head nurse and you don't recognize this man's supposed to be a patient? Anyway, Kevin asks to see McCreedy, and the nurse offers to go somewhere private and play doctor and nurse. Why am I watching this crap?
Finger cutter boy (who had a lobotomy earlier) then tells Kevin that McCreedy is in the exam room. He's about to get a lobotomy too. Kevin asks where that is, but the patient doesn't remember.
"You were just there," Kevin says.
"Yeah, but I had a full brain when I went in." You do know they don't take the portion of your brain with your memories, right? Also noteworthy, lobotomies are hardly ever performed in the United States anymore.
Next up, we see McCreedy sitting in a chair, unrestrained, as the douchebag doctor laughs maniacally with a drill. Kevin barges in and tells McCreedy about the hobgoblins. The doctor says,
"I never want to hear that word again."
Kevin pulls McCreedy out of the chair and pushes the doctor in. He then asks what scares the doctor the most, and says hobgoblins three times. The hobgoblins "attack" the doctor and the lights begin to flicker.
Kevin and McCreedy soon arrive at his friends’ house and McCreedy starts leading a support group. My brain is slowly dropping towards my feet. Miss prude starts, and says she's afraid of puppets because her older sister used to tease her about it. Nick starts laughing like crazy, showing what an immature man he is. Wasn't he supposed to have army training? Doesn't that include discipline? Yet he's the most immature person in this movie.
She then says hobgoblins three times, and random puppets start popping up from boxes and hanging from the ceiling. This scene wouldn't be complete without the silly circus music playing in the background. She screams at first, but then stands firm and says,
"I'm not afraid of you." Did this movie suddenly turn into a kid's film where the lesson of the day was to face your fears? A childhood fear needs far more to overcome than just a few words of encouragement. Next up is single guy. Kevin pulls the computer monitor into the living room and tells single guy to log into his favorite website. How? He only brought out the computer monitor. It's only missing, let's see, a keyboard, a mouse, and THE FRICKEN COMPUTER! Oh yeah, we learn that his "computer" apparently has a slot to insert his credit card into as well.
(Why is the call girl's face suddenly in an ugly mask?
Oh right, because nothing makes sense in this movie, forget I asked.)
Single guy cuts his credit card in front of his internet "call girl", and the girl attacks him through the computer monitor. How will our friendly neighborhood loser get out of this predicament? Find out in the next sentence! Kevin destroys the computer monitor with a fireplace pick. Explosions are imposed on the screen, and when they fade, the computer monitor is shown completely intact. What? This movie's budget is so cheap that they can't even destroy a computer monitor cover? The first movie had real pyrotechnics at least.
Nick then admits that he was dishonorably discharged because he's afraid of combat. He heads outside and says hobgoblins three times. A hobgoblin starts chasing him on a drivable lawnmower. Nick runs for a bit, trips, picks up a chainsaw, and kills the hobgoblin off-screen.
To sum up the other two, horny girl is sent into a horror movie and kills the monster to win. Somehow, this sets the house on fire. How? No fricken idea. McCreedy then informs Kevin that he faced his fears when he stood up to his professor (a.k.a the douchebag doctor.) None of the group is overly sad about their home burning to the ground. And with that, the movie is over, finally. Really though, WHAT KIND OF FRICKEN ENDING WAS THAT?
This movie was crap, but what do you expect? It's a sequel to a hilariously bad movie that was delayed for nearly 20 years. It has very little to do with the original, completely forgets that bit about "deepest desires," and utterly fails at life. It had such potential as a hilariously bad movie, but they tried to insert so many lame jokes and stupid clichés that it implodes on itself. I don't feel like talking about this movie anymore, so I'll just sum it up with my two word review.
Two Word Review - Illogically Bad
And what was with the mental hospital's lame security anyway?
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