Directed by: Claudio Fragasso
Written by: Claudio Fragasso, Rosella Drudi
Starring: Michael Paul Stephenson, George Hardy, Margo Prey
IMDb Link
This film is another "famously bad" film like Birdemic, gaining it's status not just for how incredibly awful it is, but also for some of the trivia surrounding the making of the film.
For starters, let's talk about the title. This film is called Troll 2, but it's about Goblins. Trolls are never mentioned in any way, shape or form throughout the entirety of the film's runtime. This is because distributors felt that the film (originally just titled Goblins) would not be successful if marketed as its own IP, so they tried to sell it as a sequel to the 1986 film Troll, despite Troll 2 having nothing to do with the original in any way. Distributors would later do this with another film originally titled The Crawlers, changing it to Troll 3 despite that film having nothing to do with either of the first two. You can't make this stuff up.
Then there's the debacle that was the film's production; while all of the actors are English-spoken, the director/writers are Italian, wrote the film in broken English, and refused to let the actors say the lines in any way other than how they were written. It's probably why the film is filled with so many golden lines that are either way too literal or make no sense ("You can't piss on hospitality, I won't allow it!" is my personal favourite). Everything that was done to make this film seems to have failed; even the original poster for the film features a werewolf that is never in the film, and a child that is never in the film, with nothing actually relating to the film appearing on the poster. Before you've even seen the film, it's one of the most astoundingly bad things you've ever heard of.
As for the film itself, Troll 2 is completely strange from start to finish, from plot to dialogue to acting to music and direction, there's so many things with this film that aren't just poorly done, but done in a way that it doesn't seem possible that a human could have done it and thought that it was OK. The language barrier really must have been a defining factor here, because so many lines are delivered as if the actors don't know what they're actually saying, or rather that the director doesn't really know what they're saying. Every line is rushed or has an odd pause or is spoken half loudly and then quietly, delivered with either no enthusiasm or too much, the most popular example of this film's awfulness being the "Oh my Goooooood" line. No-one in this film talks as if they're talking to each other, an actor will just say their line and then shortly after another actor will say their reply, but as if their two lines have no relation to each other.
The plot is what baffles me the most, however. While the dialogue would have much more regular "...what?" moments the plot contains all of the biggest and unexplained ones. The film opens with a narrated tale of a man being pursued by goblins, which turns out to be a story a grandfather is reading to his grandson, to warn him about how goblins can only eat plants, but they're evil so they choose to turn people in to plants so that they can eat people instead. The grandfather is warning his grandson because the family is taking a holiday to a town called Nilbog (yes, 'Goblin' spelled backwards), and knows what the rest of the family doesn't (somehow), that the town is controlled by these evil Goblins. As bizarre as this set-up for conflict is, what absolutely blows it out of the water is when it turns out that the grandfather has been dead for months and that his grandson is actually talking to his ghost, that none of the other family members can see. The grandfather often comes along to save his grandson and the family or offer some helpful advice, including freezing the rest of the family so that his grandson can piss all over some goblin-infected food to prevent the family from eating it (yes, the "piss on hospitality" line was literal). Speaking of the food, it's another strange behaviour from everyone in this film that they just don't comment on the fact that all the goblin-infected food is covered in green goo, as if that sort of thing is totally normal. There's so many other moments or aspects of this film that I could point to as points where the plot makes absolutely no sense, but my personal favourite involves the witch ruler of the goblins having a strange sort-of sex scene with a man that involves them eating an ear of corn and then getting completely submerged in popcorn. That's all that happens in the scene, and there doesn't seem to be any reason for her to not eat the guy afterwards, but we never see the man again. It's an example of this film's strange tonal shifts, where at first it seems like a horror that's trying too hard and ends up being unintentionally funny, but then the film seems to switch to intentional comedy for thirty seconds every now and then. As bad as this film is and these moments are, however, I can't help but laugh at some of these intentionally funny moments, so there may be some genuine enjoyment to be gotten out of this film for some people.
One last thing I want to talk about is some the music, which I un-ironically love because of how 80s it is in style, with a lot of guitar rifs and synth that may actually work in another film, but here just come off as strange when the rest of the soundtrack is long-held single notes to try and emphasise horror in a moment that's supposed to be scary.
The Verdict: Troll 2 is considered by many to be one of the definitive "so bad it's good" films, and I find that to be at least true to have ironically enjoyed my time watching and re-watching it. It's so terrible that it must be seen to be believed, but I can only recommend it if you can stomach these kinds of terrible movies. There's a strange joy to be had watching this film, it's truly a bizarre experience, as if it were written by aliens trying to tell a story, without knowing what a story is.
Rating: What else? 1/10. This isn't the worst film I've ever seen, but it's easily in my bottom twenty, yet it holds a special place in my heart for actually trying despite failing so much.
Published February 10th, 2017
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