The Crawlers (1993)

"There are circumstances in which a man cannot drink enough."  - Dr. Taylor

aka: Creepers
aka: Contamination .7
aka: Troll 3
aka: Troll III: The Contamination Point 7
People from a small town are attacked by evil radioactive tree roots growing in the forest.
Starring: Mary Sellers, Jason Saucier, Bubba Reeves

Link to IMDB

First, let's get the obvious question out of the way. The only connection this has to the infamous Troll 2 is that the director here, Joe D'Amato, was a producer on that film, and that it also doesn't have any trolls (or even goblins) in it. This also means it has even less connection at all to the first Troll movie.

Can trees even digest plaid ?

We start by meeting some of the locals of a small country town. Josie is returning home after living in the big city, and her ex boyfriend is eagerly waiting for her. Old Jack runs the gas station alongside his faithful dog, Chester. Another key character is Dr. Taylor, a scientist from a nearby power plant that is concerned about toxic waste leaking out into the forest. This coincides with the fact that "something" seems to be lurking out in the bushes.
It doesn't take too long before people start getting killed every time they go into the forest, but the police aren't believing any of the nonsense that the teenagers are spouting.



It's obvious that the boss of the factory has been hiding toxic waste in the forest, but Dr. Taylor is the only one that's onto their schemes. We don't actually see the killer roots/vines on screen for awhile, but once they decide to do more than flop around in the underbrush things start getting violent. These roots have no problem busting straight into your house to kill you! The root effects actually look decent enough, despite mostly just flailing about wildly and wrapping around people's heads. The make-up and gore is a lot fun, and keeps you excited to see more old people getting murdered by branches.

We're getting to the root of the problem !

Old Jack's grandson comes to town too, and he's an investigator of some sort, so he's ready to listen to the teenagers and help find some answers. But it's going to take the entire town (which is really only about 15 people,) and Dr. Taylor's knowledge to find a solution to stop the rampaging roots from killing everyone.

It will be over soon, Old Jack

Be sure not to miss:
- The toy helicopter crash.
- It can't be safe to touch toxic waste barrels without some sort of protection. Let the 10 year old boy do it!
- Every movie needs a local, friendly prostitute.
- For even more confusion, D'Amato also directed The Hobgoblin, which is also know as Troll 3: The Quest for the Mighty Sword. There is a troll in that movie, but we already watched it last year. For even more confusion, that movie is also considered part 4 in the Ator series.

Internet review:
"order up a pizza, get the beer flowing and have fun with this one."  -Matt St.Cyr

Should I watch it?
It may not be an instant crowd favourite like Troll 2, but it's still an enjoyable mess worth seeing.

Where can I find it?
Lots of links here. Good old gorillavid.

The Crawlers gets...