Horror in the 90s: 'Troll 2'

Troll 2 (1990)

Directed by Claudio Fragasso

Written by Claudio Fragasso, Rossella Drudi

Starring George Hardy, Michael Stephenson, Connie McFarland

Release Date October 12th 1990

Box Office Gross 0

"It's a ferocious analysis of today's society" Rossella Drudi on her script for Troll 2

That's a real quote from someone who co-wrote the script for 1990's Troll 2. For those aware of the reputation of Troll 2, it's hard not to assume that Drudi is making a joke. I assure you, she is not. The quote comes directly from Drudi in the amazing documentary, Best Worst Movie, a documentary about the rebirth of Troll 2 as a so bad it's good cult classic. Drudi, in a tone that betrays irritation at having to defend her work, actually says, with some conviction, how she views Troll 2 as a trenchant commentary on America.

Where do we begin with the mess that is Troll 2. From a personal perspective, I have been aware of Troll 2 for years without ever taking the time to actually watch it. I've watched numerous other critics poke hilarious fun at Troll 2 on YouTube and that's really been all the Troll 2 I have ever needed. Troll 2 is far more fun if you watch it with a group of like-minded friends or via the perspective of a very funny YouTube critic who can deliver the gist of the movie in a tight 15 to 20 minute package.

So, despite feeling as if I have seen Troll 2 via these critics, the words of friends in the bad movie community, and the remarkable documentary, Best Worst Movie, directed by the film's star, Michael Stephenson, this watch, for this project, is actually the first time that I have seen Troll 2 in its entirety. What have I learned? It's about as crazy and deeply misguided as I thought it was. Indeed, dear reader, unless you are going to a Troll 2 party, you never need to actually see Troll 2, everything you already know about it is more than enough.

Troll 2 follows a family that is engaging in a summer home exchange. They are going to stay on a farm in a small Utah town while a family from that town will stay in their home in the 'big city.' The craziness kicks off right away as our protagonist, 10 year old Joshua (Michael Stephenson) is being read a story about evil, human-consuming Goblins who roam the forest. The man reading the story is Joshua's grandfather, Seth (Robert Ormsby), a man who happens to be dead.

We learn this from some of the clumsiest, clunky exposition possible. The poor amateur actors of Troll 2 are a sincere lot but they are fully defeated by a script translated from Italian by a tyrant who was, according to Best Worst Movie, eager to tell his American actors that he knew the way Americans talk better than they did. Claudio Fragasso's comically misguided dedication to preserving the bizarre, though incredibly quotable dialogue, leads to these amateur actors having to try and perform while fighting the very script they are supposed to be performing.

Director Claudio Fragosso directs Troll 2 as if he were attempting to shame America by presenting Americans as viewed through the lens of the rest of the world. In Fragosso's world, Americans are grotesque weirdoes who engage in bizarre behaviors like Vegetarianism, and engage in a dystopia via a rigid set of expectations that when not met, can lead to murderous chaos. Americans are both the monsters and the victims in Troll 2, so the intentions of Fragosso are more than a bit muddled, but, yeah, that is apparently Fragosso's intention. Fragosso is clueless and more than a little defensive about the reputation of Troll 2 as a bad movie and his arrogance adds another layer of satisfying shadenfreude, especially as seen in Best Worst Movie.

The distance between Fragosso's intentions and the final product of Troll 2 is vast and he seems defiantly unaware of how much his movie fails his bizarre objective. Scene after scene of Troll 2 unravel into a chaotic, unintentionally comic, a series of events that you watch with a certain amount of awe until you start laughing uncontrollably. A good example of the incongruous hilarity of Troll 2 comes in a scene where the family is arguing on their drive to their new home. To break the tension, Mom (Margo Prey), asks her young son to 'sing that song I like.' In response the boy begins singing "Row Row Row Your Boat."

After the family finishes singing that timeless classic, Row Row Row Your Boat, in a round, yeah, they arrive in Nilbog, their new farming town home. If the name Nilbog strikes you as hilarious, this is certainly the movie for you. Nilbog backwards is Goblin and the idea that a community of evil, flesh eating Goblins have hidden their name in the name of their town backwards, is maybe one of the only intentionally funny pieces of Troll 2. That however, leads to the unintended laugh that comes from realizing that you are watching a movie called Troll 2 where Goblins are the main baddies. There are, in fact, no mention of Trolls in the entirety of Troll 2.

The backstory of this is not unheard of; there is a lengthy history of low budget movies being made and acquired by distributors who have the rights to a franchise and see a mercenary opportunity to combine their new purchase with an existing I.P. Troll had been released a few years earlier and had garnered a minor cult of its own. Thus, acquiring a movie that had a villain with a vague resemblance to the Troll from Troll 1, and calling it Troll 2 was a calculated attempt to capitalize on what little capital there was from the title Troll.

That kind of gross capitalist approach to movie marketing was always going to make Troll 2 notable but it's the wildly weird quotable quality of Troll 2 that makes it an iconic mishap. My favorite piece of unintended hilarity comes when the family arrives at their farmhouse home. A feast of strange, green goo covered food is waiting for them. Dead Grandpa Seth returns and tells Joshua that his family will die horribly if they eat the food and it's up to Joshua to stop them. Then, Grandpa stops time for a 30 second period that is about 3 minutes long. During this time, Joshua forms a plan to urinate on the food directly in front of his family.

Thankfully, we are only told about what happened in dialogue. Oh, but what dialogue. Joshua's angry father, played by the wonderful George Hardy, the absolute star of Best Worst Movie, tells his son "You can't piss on hospitality, I won't allow it!" He says this line with the ferocity of Howard Beale in Network, before explaining that he was going to tighten his belt so that he didn't feel hunger pains. The family doesn't eat for two solid days because of this and no one finds this to be an odd decision.

The world's most lasting impression of Troll 2 however is a legendary meme. Sometime in the mid-2000s the internet met Troll 2 via a Gif of a wooden, deeply confused young man with a fly on his sweaty forehead, yelling 'Oh my Godddddddddd.' His thick glasses, monotone delivery, and comically understated performance, can be almost singlehandedly credited with bringing Troll 2 back to the mainstream. The curiosity among young meme-makers as the to the origin of this iconic 10 second clip led to the rebirth of Troll 2 and it's now, rather remarkable place in modern popular culture.

So, what of Troll 2 as a horror movie? What is the legacy of Troll 2 in terms of being considered a horror film? That's a curious question. The film was made and marketed as a horror movie. It is unquestionably a monster movie, it just happens to be such an incredibly bad monster movie that it becomes pure comedy. Troll 2 is a laugh riot, one of the single funniest films ever made. It never intended to be funny, Claudio Fragosso set out to make a monster movie with the kind of meaning and subtext we ascribe to George Romero's horror classics. That the film ended up nowhere near what it intended makes it rather poignant.

Bad movies made with the sincere effort to make a good movie are a rare and beautiful thing. Movies like Troll 2, The Room, and the work of auteur Neil Breen, are made with the intention of everyone to make something lasting and transcendent. That they achieve that transcendence in a way no one would have intended is a delicious form of schadenfreude that, over time, can evolve into a genuinely wholesome and wholehearted appreciation. Troll 2 is an example of a terrible movie that created a community of people who came together to earnestly appreciate the movie for what it is and what it was quite hilariously intended to be.

This article on Troll 2 is another serialized piece from my first book project, Horror in the 90s. I am serializing pieces of the book at Horror.Media in hopes of finding people who will donate to help me make the book a reality. I am writing an exhaustive history of the horror genre in the 1990s featuring hundreds of reviews along with discussion of the tropes, the stars, the directors, and the franchises that defined this pivotal decade in the horror genre. I am working hard on the book and will keep doing so but I cannot finish the book without your support. You can support the book by making a monthly donation here on Vocal or by leaving a one-time tip. You can also make a donation via my Ko-Fi account and anyone who makes a donation will receive a shout out in the book when it is completed. Thanks!