Thursday, October 04, 2007

TROG

(1970) *



* "For those of you who have seen the motion picture Trog, no explanation is necessary. For those who haven't, no explanation is possible."

In a male version of The Descent, three students discover a cavern while hiking in the English countryside. Against their better judgment they descend into the large cavern (which is surprisingly well-lit for being underground) and begin exploring. The three quickly discover an underground river that disappears into a dark cave. Plunging into the river, one of the more eager-beaverish students emerges into a large cavernous room replete with glowing stalactites and all that jazz. Fearful that eager beaver might discover something awesome and hog all the glory, student number 2 decides to follow and emerges just in time to see a Troglodyte mauling eager beaver. From best I can tell, TROG is a cross between Cornelius from Planet of the Apes and my uncle Rusty.


Poor Joan Crawford’s long film legacy ends with TROG, her final film.

Enter Joan Crawford as Dr. Brockton, a professor of anthropology at a local university. Upon learning about the prehistoric creature, she insists on being taken to TROG’s lair, which is exactly what I would do upon learning that some prehistoric cave-thing just fatally mauled someone there. Dr. Brockton, with a little help, captures TROG and brings him back to her lab, where she keeps him in a large cage. The rest of the film concerns Dr. Brockton’s attempts to domesticate TROQ while battling the local townsfolk. Local religious nut Sam Murdock emerges as the chief opponent to TROG’s existence and insists on destroying TROG before someone bad happens. Unfortunately Murdock proves to be correct. After attempting to frame TROG for some vandalism in Dr. Brockton’s lab, he inadvertently sets TROG free, which results in a kill-spree. This is all a lot lamer than in might sound. No wait, it’s exactly as lame as it sounds.


Jut how old is TROG? In one long stop-motion sequence we “see” TROG’s memories, which include dinosaurs (apparently this is stock footage from the 1956 film Animal World).

Notable only because this was Joan Crawford’s final film appearance, TROG is simply awful, and not in the so-bad-it’s-good way. It just plain stinks.

*From Wikipedia, “Theatre Rhinoceros in San Francisco presented a staged version of Trog in August-September 2006 with mixed results. The souvenir program contained the above note.”

5 comments:

Whirlygirl said...

Here are some definitions with example sentences for "trog" from the Urban slang dictionary:

1)A person, usually female that is really ugly.

2)Someone that is a cross between a troll and a frog.

ex. Oh my gosh, that girl is a bloody trog!!

3)skank holes, trashy people, scummy, turd people who don't work and rely on government funding so they can smoke their crack pipes until their teeth fall out of their heads.

4)An odd scottish man with a tendancy to spout odd words on irc.

5)One of a generally small group of people, not really interested on having friendly social interactions with ones outside their group, or on being a part of a "cool" clique. Sometimes they can get into small fights with social groups of "jocks". Sometimes can feel futher alienated by their own trying not to fit into a popular group, and resent their more popular peers.

ex. The "trogs" generally aren't on good terms with "jocks", or any other groups thought to be better then others.

6)An extremely ugly person.

7)Meaning ugly tramp/skank, often associated with peroxide blonde arseholes who only wash once a year.

8)Trog is a extremely nasty girl, who has the body of an troll and the head of a frog.

ex. I got really drunk and hooked up with a trog last night.

9)Poor white trash

ex. The Trog had beer cans and cigarette butts all over his front yard.

10) Verb. When a person trips mid-walk and breaks out into a jog to cover up the fact that they are a clumsy fool.

ex. The clumsy fool trogged.

11)totally reliant on the government. A person who lives in public housing, doesnt work and gets welfare.

ex. Eminem's mom is a trog

12)Military term meaning to march move on foot for long distance with heavy equipment often over rough terrain due to fat bastards in the govt cutting defence spending year after year.

ex. Come on you trogs we have a long trog ahead of us

13)The unkept people you see walking down the street.

14)white trailer trash, using our hard earned tax money, those skanks, gapping holed women who live with trashy men

15)Of Native American heritage/Navajo. Referring to them in a negative way. Can also sand for Totally Relant on the Government. Commonly used in Arizona

16)a small demon who can control people

(Sorry for any gramatical errors found, I copied and pasted directly from the site.)

Trog actually comes from the Latin word troglodyte that means a prehistoric cave dweller. Isn't the evolution of language fascinating, and in this case a little trashy.

JPX said...

Wow, thank you for schooling me in TROG-isms! I thought it was a term only specific to this movie.

DKC said...

When you first said attacked by a "troglodyte," I was thinking trylibite, something like this, so I was really confused...

Wouldn't that be an interesting movie - Attack of the Trilibites!

JPX said...

That would certainly be more interesting than the movie I watched!

Johnny Sweatpants said...

Uncle Rusty? Frankly I don't see the connection.

Thanks Whirlygirl, I'm going to try to incorporate Trog into my regular vocabulary.

Malevolent

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