| Troll 2 | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Drake Floyd |
| Produced by | Brenda Norris Joe D'Amato, And Asher Zulkosky Larson |
| Screenplay by | Drake Floyd |
| Story by | Rossella Drudi and Drake Floyd |
| Starring | Michael Stephenson George Hardy Margo Prey Connie Young Deborah Reed Jason F. Wright Darren Ewing Jason Steadman |
| Music by | Carlo Maria Cordio |
| Cinematography | Giancarlo Ferrando |
| Editing by | Vania Friends |
| Studio | Filmirage |
| Distributed by | Epic Productions |
| Release date(s) | 3 October 1990 (Germany) |
| Running time | 94 min |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | English |
Troll 2 is a 1990 horror film directed by Claudio Fragasso (under the pseudonym Drake Floyd) and starring Michael Stephenson, George Hardy, Margo Prey, Connie Young (here credited with her maiden name, Connie McFarland), Deborah Reed, and Jason Wright. Although produced under the title Goblins,[1] United States distributors were skeptical about the film's ability to succeed as a standalone picture and renamed it Troll 2 in an attempt to market it as a sequel to the 1986 Empire Pictures film Troll.[2] The two films, however, have no connection, and no trolls are actually depicted in Troll 2.
The plot concerns a family pursued by vegetarian goblins who seek to transform them into plants so that they can eat them. The English-language script was written by Fragasso and his wife Rosella Drudi, neither of whom actually spoke any English at the time. Despite filming the movie in Utah, and casting the movie entirely with American actors (many of whom had no prior acting experience and had responded to the casting call hoping to be extras), Fragasso also employed an exclusively Italian crew, who likewise spoke no English. The resultant communication breakdown, coupled with the cast's lack of experience and Fragasso's insistence that his script be read verbatim, has led to the movie being considered one of the worst movies ever made.
Despite the film's reputation, it has gained a very large cult following. A documentary, Best Worst Movie, was released in 2010, chronicling the film's large fanbase.
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For summer vacation, the Waits family has decided to vacation in the town of Nilbog (goblin spelled backward), a remote farming community, where they will swap houses with one of the local residents and spend the summer living off of the land. The night before the family is set to leave, young Joshua Waits (Michael Stephenson) is contacted by the ghost of his dead grandfather, Seth (Robert Ormsby), who warns him about monsters known as goblins—malicious vegans who turn people into human/plant hybrids in order to eat them.
Meanwhile Joshua's sister, Holly (Connie McFarland), receives a visit from her boyfriend Elliot (Jason Wright), with whom she has been having relationship problems: Holly is concerned that Elliot spends too much time with his friends, and is worried that he is a homosexual. Elliot assures Holly of his love for her, and tells her that he will prove his loyalty by accompanying her family to Nilbog.
The next morning, Elliot fails to show up at the Waits house; parents Michael (George Hardy) and Diane (Margo Prey) grow impatient waiting for him to arrive, and the family disembarks for Nilbog. En route they meet up with Elliot, who has decided to bring along his friends Brent (David McConnell), Arnold (Darren Ewing) and Drew (Jason Steadman) in an RV. The family also runs across a hitchhiker whom Grandpa Seth uses as a medium to channel himself, warning Joshua that the town of Nilbog is the Kingdom of Goblins and that his family has been lured there to be made into food. Although Joshua tries to warn his family, they press on towards Nilbog.
Arriving in Nilbog, the Waits family discovers that the residents have left a large, all-vegetable meal for them. Grandpa Seth appears again, freezing time and warning Joshua that the food is actually a potion that will turn them into vegetable people. He tells Joshua that he can only keep time frozen for a brief while, and that when time starts moving normally again he will have to act quickly to prevent his family from eating the food. When time resumes, Joshua jumps on the table and urinates on all of the food.
Meanwhile, Arnold takes a walk in the woods outside of Nilbog and runs into a woman being pursued by goblins. They seek shelter in a chapel that turns out to be the residence of Creedence Leonore Gielgud (Deborah Reed), who feeds them what turns out to be goblin potion—the woman disintegrates into a mass of green ectoplasm, while Arnold becomes a plant/human hybrid. Creedence reveals herself to be the druid queen of the Goblins, whose "Stonehenge Magic Stone" is the source of all the goblins' power; a horrified Arnold watches as goblins consume the ectoplasm, realizing that he will be next. (This is the infamous "Oh my God!" scene that has become a viral video in its own right.) Although Drew ultimately finds him and attempts to free him, he is killed by Creedence.
That night, Holly is unintentionally contacted by Seth via a mirror and she and Joshua swap rooms. On Seth's instructions, Joshua destroys all of the food in the house, which only results in Michael taking him on a trip to the town general store the next morning. While his father shops, Joshua sneaks away to a church where the goblins have congregated to hear a sermon about the evils of eating meat. The goblins capture Joshua and attempt to feed him ice cream spiked with Goblin potion, but Michael arrives, prompting the goblins to let Joshua go. A suspicious Joshua and Michael return home, only for the family to be met by seemingly the entire town of Nilbog, who want to throw them a party to "make up for the misunderstanding" at the church. Joshua runs upstairs to try to contact Grandpa Seth through the mirror, only to be confronted by Creedence in goblin form. Grandpa Seth suddenly appears out of thin air and chops off Creedence's hand with an axe, prompting her to retreat.
Grandpa Seth and Joshua go back downstairs to prevent the family from eating any food. The town preacher (Mike Hamill) attempts to stop them by trying to banish Seth to Hell, but Seth causes a magic lightning bolts to ignite a molotov cocktail, killing the preacher. When the preacher dies, he transforms into his true, goblin form; Seth's presence and the sight of the dead goblin finally convince the family that they are in danger. Seth disappears, and the family barricade themselves inside the house.
Meanwhile, Creedence transforms herself into a beautiful young woman and appears at Elliot's RV in an exotic negligee, where she seduces Brent using an ear of corn. As they begin to have sex, the corn spontaneously explodes into a flood of popcorn. Brent is quickly swallowed up and left immobilized but alive; with the family's last hope of rescue neutralized, Creedence heads back to her chapel.
Back at the house, Joshua, Elliot, Holly, Michael and Diane hold a séance to communicate with Seth. Seth appears and tells them that in ten minutes he will be permanently cut off from the mortal world. Although goblins invade the house and kidnap Joshua, Seth is able to pass him a brown paper bag, which Seth informs him has a weapon that will save him from mortal danger; he is further able to tell Joshua that if he can touch the Stonehenge Magic Stone, it will drain the goblins of their power.
In Creedence's chapel, Joshua opens the paper bag and discovers a bologna sandwich. He eats it, "tainting" his blood with meat and preventing the goblins from consuming him. The Waitses and Elliot then arrive, and together, they all touch the Stonehenge Magic Stone, destroying Creedence and all of her goblins.
The next day, the Waits family heads back home; Diane eats food in their refrigerator, not realizing that it was placed there by the family with whom they exchanged houses. She is transformed into a human/plant hybrid and eaten by the remaining goblin family; the film ends with a screaming Joshua being offered a piece of his mother's corpse to eat.
The script—originally titled "Goblins"[4]—began as a way for director Claudio Fragasso's wife, Rosella Drudi, to express her frustration with several of her friends becoming vegetarians. Drudi told the makers of the documentary Best Worst Movie that "Some of my friends had recently become vegetarians...and this pissed me off."[5] The film was shot on location in Morgan and Porterville, Utah in the summer of 1989; a large "M" erected in the mountains outlying Morgan is visible in some shots. The production crew was made up almost entirely of non-English-speaking Italians brought to America by Fragasso; the only fluent English speaker on set was costumer designer Laura Gemser, who had built a reputation in the 1970s and '80s for her roles in various notorious Italian grindhouse movies and erotic films. Fragasso and his crew largely relied on a broken pidgin English to communicate with the cast, who recalled not being able to understand much of what went on.[6]
The cast had few experienced actors, and was primarily assembled from residents of nearby towns who responded to an open casting call. George Hardy was a dentist with no acting experience who showed up for fun, hoping to be cast as an extra, only to be given one of the film's largest speaking roles. Don Packard, who played the store owner, was actually a resident at a nearby mental hospital, and was cast for—and filmed—his role while on a day trip; after recovering and being released from the hospital, he recalled that he had no idea what was happening around him, and that his disturbed "performance" in the film was not acting.[7]
As neither Fragasso nor Drudi spoke fluent English, the shooting script was written in the same broken pidgin dialect in which they both spoke; the cast would later recall that the script was only given to them scene-by-scene, and that they had difficulty understanding their dialogue as written. Some of the cast members offered to correct their lines to sound more grammatically and syntactically correct, but said that Fragasso demanded they deliver their lines verbatim.[8] Despite the majority of the cast ascribing to the same story, Fragasso has vehemently denied their version of events; he angrily interrupted a panel discussion for the filming of a making-of documentary, calling them "dogs" and accusing them of lying about how much of the script the cast had access to.[9]
Troll 2 is widely considered to be of poor quality. The film has a 0% "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[10] Cult Internet critic Brad Jones, in character of the Cinema Snob, said that "the best thing about Troll 2 is that it's the perfect bad example. Pick something about the movie, anything you want. Not only does this movie do it bad, but it does it bad tragically, almost like this movie is a father who intentionally spills his drink on the table as to show his son that that's what happens when you screw around."[11]
The acting and dialogue have become notorious for their camp value. In particular, the scene in which Darren Ewing's character is captured by Creedence has become an internet meme. After being transformed into a plant/human hybrid, Ewing sees the Goblins begin to consume a young woman he had been attempting to rescue. With a fixed, blank expression on his face, Ewing nervously states in monotone "They're eating her... and then they're going to eat me... oh my God!" With a distinct lack of emotion in his voice, Ewing draws the word "God" out for several seconds as the camera zooms in on his face. As the camera nears, a fly lands on Ewing's forehead - something to which Ewing is seemingly oblivious.
In addition, the film's poor production values have come under fire: The goblins' costumes consist of burlap sacks stuffed with foam rubber, and latex masks, only one of which features a movable mouth. The musical score consists of only a few synthesized themes repeated numerous times.
Despite the poor reception, Fragasso maintained that the movie was a "masterpiece" and that it addresses important social issues. He has become hostile when confronted with the reality of the film's reception in America; during a videotaped Q&A session, he responded to a fan's question "Why aren't there any trolls in the movie?" with an angry "You understand nothing!"[12]
Troll 2 was given a RiffTrax, presented by Michael J. Nelson and Richard Kyanka.
In 2007, a major Troll 2 event took place in Morgan called Nilbog Invasion. The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema's Rolling Roadshow turned Morgan into "Nilbog" again for a weekend, and screened the film for an audience of fans from around the world. Much of the cast attended and appeared in a panel discussion, as well as the writers and director of the film. Michael Castro was present, and Fragasso was presented with the key to the city by the Mayor of Morgan.
At the event, Fragasso and writer Rossella Drudi announced plans for a sequel to Troll II, and the audience was polled for their opinion on what the film should be called. The winning title was Troll 2: Part II. Fragasso later asked Stephenson to appear in the sequel.[13]
In December 2009, late-night host Conan O'Brien recommended Troll II on his list of DVDs and books in his "New Oprah" segment.
IGN ranked Troll 2 and its companion documentary, Best Worst Movie as #7 on their 25 Best Movies You Didn't See in Theaters list. [14]
MGM and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released Troll 2 on Blu-ray and DVD in the United States on October 5, 2010, in honor of the 20th anniversary of the film's release. MGM also made an agreement with Netflix to allow for instant streaming of the title.[15]