Ernest P. Worrell (Jim Varney) started in a series of television commercials shot at the Nashville-area home of producer John Cherry III and Jerry Carden. Starting in 1980, they eventually did 25 different versions of each commercial and Varney would just insert the name of the company paying for the ad, then yelling for his friend Vern and saying "KnoWhutimean?"
Carden and Cherry gort requests from major national companies to use Ernest, but they already had non-compete deals with their existing clients such as Cerritos Auto Square, Audubon Chrysler Center, John L. Sullivan auto dealerships, ABC Warehouse, Braum's Ice Cream and Dairy Store, Purity Milk, Blake's Lotaburger, Tyson's Toyota and Lewis Drug. That's why Ernest started making movies with the first being Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam.
The fifth movie in six years - plus the TV series Hey Vern, It's Ernest! - but man, I have no idea what everyone was smoking. Starting with a montage of clips from Nosferatu, White Zombie, Phantom from Space, The Brain from Planet Arous, The Screaming Skull, Missile to the Moon, The Hideous Sun Demon, The Giant Gila Monster, The Killer Shrews), The Little Shop of Horrors and Battle Beyond the Sun, the movie soon moves to the secret history of Briarville, Missouri. The troll Trantor was turning children into wooden dolls before Ernest's ancestors sealed him under an oak tree. Before he is trapped, he curses the entire Worrell family, making each new generation dumber until one day, the dumbest of them all will unleash him.
Ernest has already built a treehouse for his friends - he has no adult friends and is a grown manchild - yet learns from Old Lady Hackmore (Earth Kitt) that the tree contains Trantor. Soon, the dreaded beast - looking like something out of a direct to video horror movie and not a film released by Disney - is loose and turning all the kids into wooden figures. Only Ernest and his dog Rimshot can save them.
The reason why this looks so frightening is because the Chiodo Brothers worked on the trolls and they basically built them to move and be destroyed like the Killer Klowns from Outer Space.
So why did this movie underperform when all the other Ernest movies before do so well? Could it be the fact that a troll stealing the souls of children was too much? Director, co-writer and producer John Cherry III said that Trontor "hurt the box office by $10,000,000."
If you're looking to get your kids into horror or you know an annoying child who is easily frightened and needs taken down, let me recommend this film. I missed out on Ernerst as I was too old for him, but my wife was the right age and watched this even when it wasn't Halloween. She still watches it now.
Carden and Cherry gort requests from major national companies to use Ernest, but they already had non-compete deals with their existing clients such as Cerritos Auto Square, Audubon Chrysler Center, John L. Sullivan auto dealerships, ABC Warehouse, Braum's Ice Cream and Dairy Store, Purity Milk, Blake's Lotaburger, Tyson's Toyota and Lewis Drug. That's why Ernest started making movies with the first being Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam.
The fifth movie in six years - plus the TV series Hey Vern, It's Ernest! - but man, I have no idea what everyone was smoking. Starting with a montage of clips from Nosferatu, White Zombie, Phantom from Space, The Brain from Planet Arous, The Screaming Skull, Missile to the Moon, The Hideous Sun Demon, The Giant Gila Monster, The Killer Shrews), The Little Shop of Horrors and Battle Beyond the Sun, the movie soon moves to the secret history of Briarville, Missouri. The troll Trantor was turning children into wooden dolls before Ernest's ancestors sealed him under an oak tree. Before he is trapped, he curses the entire Worrell family, making each new generation dumber until one day, the dumbest of them all will unleash him.
Ernest has already built a treehouse for his friends - he has no adult friends and is a grown manchild - yet learns from Old Lady Hackmore (Earth Kitt) that the tree contains Trantor. Soon, the dreaded beast - looking like something out of a direct to video horror movie and not a film released by Disney - is loose and turning all the kids into wooden figures. Only Ernest and his dog Rimshot can save them.
The reason why this looks so frightening is because the Chiodo Brothers worked on the trolls and they basically built them to move and be destroyed like the Killer Klowns from Outer Space.
So why did this movie underperform when all the other Ernest movies before do so well? Could it be the fact that a troll stealing the souls of children was too much? Director, co-writer and producer John Cherry III said that Trontor "hurt the box office by $10,000,000."
If you're looking to get your kids into horror or you know an annoying child who is easily frightened and needs taken down, let me recommend this film. I missed out on Ernerst as I was too old for him, but my wife was the right age and watched this even when it wasn't Halloween. She still watches it now.