Nomination Year: 1996

SYNOPSIS: This movie should have been named The Pits instead. Seems that this autistic kid, Jamie (though he's not that autistic), is feeling neglected and abused by his family, friends, and neighbors. Which is understandable, because he IS neglected and abused by his family, friends, and neighbors. He wanders into the woods and finds this wide pit, down at the bottom of which are really dumb-looking ape-like creatures which, out of the blue, he dubs "Tra-la-logs." He befriends the Tra-la-logs and though they don't speak, Jamie knows they want MEAT. Preferably HUMAN meat. Jamie spends most of the rest of the film finding clever ways to feed his new subterranean friends, until eventually he learns the true meaning of love and family and spills the beans about the pit. The wound in the earth is filled in by the authorities and thus are Jamie's psyhological wounds healed as well. In time, he even finds a little girl his own age to play with, and it turns out they have a lot in common.

Smithee Award Nominations

Oblivious

"Go Deep!" Jamie persuades the local school jock to play a little football with him. Jamie cleverly misses the ball on purpose and it lands in the woods where the Tra-la-logs wait. He tells the other kid to "catch!" and tosses a pass. The dumb jock for some reason doesn't see this four-foot-wide PIT directly in his path as he leaps for the Nerf ball like a Pavlovian dog chasing a tossed stick. The ball is caught directly over the pit, and the rest, as they say, is lunch.

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Stupidest-Looking Monster
One Day, in Tra-la-log-Land... It's hard to catch a solid glimpse of a Tra-la-log (they shun the light, you understand), but when you can see them, as in these shots of them eating, they look like short guys in furry grey rugs with ape masks on. Kinda like prehistoric, cannibalistic Teletubbies.	Sorry, this clip has not yet been made available!

Crummiest Ending

Single White Homocidal Boy Seeks SWHG for Play Date It's the end of the film. The Tra-la-log's pit has been filled in, and Jamie seems cured of his antisocial tendencies. Look! He's even found a little playmate, a cute-as-a-button young moppet of a girl his own age. As they scamper out of a field and into the woods near her house, they stop. There, in the ground, is another pit, just like Jamie's old one, complete with Tra-la-logs at the bottom! "Stay back!" he warns her, "They're Tra-la-logs! They eat people!" She simply says, "I know." And pushes him in. Freeze-frame in mid-fall. Roll credits.

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Worst Acting
No-Talent Meets Funny-Person In this scene an annoying little girl (Andrea Schwarz) rides annoyingly around and around on her bicycle, and intones at Jamie, in an annoying, wooden voice: "Stay away from my bike, Funny Person."	Sorry, this clip has not yet been made available!

Directors

Director	Claim to Fame
Lew Lehman

Cast

Actor	Character	Claim to Fame
Sammy Snyders	<Not Yet in Database>
Jeannie Elias	<Not Yet in Database>
Andrea Swartz	<Not Yet in Database>

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