Thursday, October 15, 2015

Which Is the Worse - Troll or Troll 2?


Yeah, I'm pretty sure that almost every horror fan has either heard or has seen what is considered one of the worst movies ever - the infamous Troll 2!

The original Troll film (1986) was a blend of fantasy and horror. It centered on a Troll terrorizing an apartment building in San Francisco. A teenager named Harry Potter, Jr. (Yep, that's right!) must team up with the witch that lives upstairs in order to save his younger sister as well as parents from the Troll's menace. The film didn't exactly make a dent at the box-office, mostly due to horrible reviews from critics. However, it found new life at the video stores throughout the 80s.

Troll 2 was released in the USA in 1990, but it's no way connected to the first film. Actually, it doesn’t even contain any trolls in it. The film was written and directed by Claudio Fragasso, but was credited as either Drake Floyd or Drago Floyd. It was filmed in Morgan and Porterville, Utah in the summer of 1989 with a cast of unknowns. Since the director couldn't speak fluent English, neither did the script which contained broken broken dialect. It's been told that the cast tried their best to change the script dialogue, so it would sound better, but they were only given the script scene-by-scene.

The movie centers on a the Michael Waits, his wife Diana and his children, Holly and Joshua, going on a home exchange vacation in the small town of  Nilbog (Goblin spelled backwards), where they are going to live in a farm for a month.

Now Joshua is a little weird as he can communicate with his deceased grandfather, who has warned him that there is danger in Nilbog and that he should do whatever it takes to get his family to leave as soon as possible; resulting in the boy pissing on the family's meal, which all the food is green and will turn whoever eats it into a pod.

To find out, the whole town are freakin' goblins wearing really bad Halloween masks and they feed off of the pods. Then there's the crazy goblin queen, Creedence Leonore Gielgud, whom helps finds victims for her clan. Of course Joshua and his grandfather's spirit tries to save the family as well as Holly's boyfriend, who showed up in an RV with his friends, from the evil goblins.


Made for around $200,000, the film was originally to be titled Goblins, but the USA distributors thought it would do better under the title, Troll 2. At the time the movie a critical failure and dubbed one of the worst films ever made. Over the years, mostly thanks to VHS rentals in throughout the 90s and DVD/Blu-ray releases, it now has a cult following. There is even a documentary made about the film, Best Worst Movie, directed by Michael Stephenson (he played Joshua in Troll 2).

Though I had cable access during my childhood, there wasn't any premium channels, so I either rented movies from the town 30-minutes away (well, my parents did) or I watched the edited versions of horror flicks on MonsterVision, which is where I recall watching the first Troll movie. I wasn't aware there was a Troll 2 until I was forced to go with my parents, an uncle and grandparents to Iowa for Thanksgiving at my uncle and his family's house. I hated being there! Everyone has a family members that they are forced to tolerate, well, that's how I've always felt about that part of my family, so I wasn't a very happy campier there.

Anyway, I happened to sneak out of all the madness of that day and went into the den, where there happened to be television. I grabbed the remote control and began channel surfing. I'm not for sure what channel it was on, but I came across a movie where a teenager is running through the woods and these creatures with bad masks were chasing after him. I only saw about twenty minutes of the film until I was yanked away from my retreat.


I always wondered what the name of the movie was, and once I first got the internet in 2002, it was one of the first things I "googled" for was this film. Then and there I learned that the movie was called Troll 2. I did attempt to find the movie at the my local video store (which is now out of business), but I could never find the movie. I've had an Amazon Prime for nearly a year, but I hardly ever watch any of the movies on there. However, on one sleepless night I woke up in the early morning hours and I ended up browsing  through the movies on Prime. I came upon Troll 2. With nothing else to do, I finally watched it all the way through and it was just as campy and stupid as I remembered it.  Lets just the film left me craving a double-decker bologna sandwich. (If you've seen the movie, then you'll know what I mean). Honestly, Troll 2 is a really bad horror movie, but at least it's entertaining and kept my interest for 90-minutes. Shockingly, I bought the Blu-ray at my local Walmart for $6.50, which I watched yesterday afternoon.




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