Story of movie Troll 2 :
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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 McFarland, Deborah Reed and Jason Wright. The plot concerns a family pursued by vegetarian goblins who seek to transform them into plants so that they can eat them.
| Troll 2 | |
|---|---|
Re-release poster | |
| Directed by | Claudio Fragasso |
| Produced by | Brenda Norris Joe D'Amato Asher Zulkosky Larson |
| Screenplay by | Claudio Fragasso |
| Story by | Rossella Drudi Claudio Fraggaso |
| Starring | Michael Stephenson George Hardy Margo Prey Connie McFarland Deborah Reed Jason Wright Darren Ewing Jason Steadman |
| Music by | Carlo Maria Cordio |
| Cinematography | Giancarlo Ferrando |
| Edited by | Vania Friends |
Production company | Filmirage |
Release date |
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Running time | 94 minutes |
| Country | United States Italy |
| Language | English |
Although produced under the title Goblins, United States distributors were skeptical about the film's chances to succeed as an indie film and renamed it Troll 2 in an attempt to market it as a sequel to the 1986 Empire Pictures film Troll. The two films, however, have no connection, and no trolls are actually depicted in Troll 2. The film's production was rife with difficulties, largely revolving around the language barrier between the Italian-speaking crew and English-speaking cast, and producer Joe D'Amato's approach to low-budget film making. The resulting film has come to be evaluated as one of the worst ever made.
In subsequent years, the film gained a cult following and garnered a large fanbase. In 2009, Stephenson, the child star of the film, directed a critically acclaimed documentary about its production and subsequent popularity, humorously titled Best Worst Movie.
Screenplay
Michael has always dreamed of being a farmer, and arranges a home exchange vacation in which he and his family will move into a house in the rural farming community of Nilbog (which is "goblin" spelled backwards) for a month. The night before the family is scheduled to leave, Michael's son Joshua is contacted by the ghost of his dead grandfather, Seth, warning him that vegetarian goblins want to transform him and his family into plants so that they can eat them. Seth tells Joshua that goblins can turn people into plants by feeding them poisoned food or drink.
Meanwhile, Joshua's sister, Holly, receives a visit from her boyfriend Elliot. Holly accuses Elliot of being a homosexual since he seems to prefer spending time with his friends. Elliot promises to show his devotion by accompanying the family on vacation.
The next morning, Elliot fails to arrive and the family leaves without him; they encounter him en route to Nilbog, riding in an RV with his friends Arnold, Drew, and Brent. Outside of Nilbog, Seth appears as a hitchhiker, who warns Joshua that Nilbog is the kingdom of the goblins, and that if his family eats anything while they are there, they will be turned into plants. The family disbelieves Joshua's warnings and continue on to Nilbog. There, Joshua sets about destroying or contaminating all of the food the family finds or acquires.
Arnold goes for a walk outside of Nilbog and encounters a girl being chased by goblins. They flee to a chapel in the woods, where they encounter the goblins' queen, Druid Creedence Leonore Gielgud, who uses the "Stonehenge Magic Stone" to give the goblins power. Creedence tricks them into drinking a magic potion that dissolves the girl into vegetable matter and turns Arnold into a plant.
Joshua sneaks away from home and eavesdrops on a goblin church sermon, which bewails the evils of eating meat. The parishioners capture him and attempt to force feed him poison ice cream; Michael walks in on the scene and becomes suspicious, taking Joshua home.
Later, Drew goes to the town because there are no food or drinks in the RV. The sheriff takes him in his car and gives him a green hamburger. When he arrives in the town, Drew goes to the store and the owner offers him poisonous Nilbog milk. Feeling dizzy, he goes to a chapel and finds Arnold, who has turned into a plant. Drew drags him out, but Creedence appears. She knocks him out and chainsaws Arnold into pieces. Drew is then killed offscreen.
At the house, the family discover that the townspeople have prepared them a surprise party to apologize for the events at the church. Joshua attempts to make contact with Seth, only for Creedence to appear in goblin form. Seth's ghost appears and chops her hand off. Creedence returns to her chapel, where she transforms herself into a beautiful woman in revealing clothes; she then travels to Elliot's RV, where she seduces Brent and drowns him in popcorn.
Joshua, Elliot, Holly, Michael and Diane hold a séance to communicate with Seth, who returns from the dead and tells them that he can retain a physical form for exactly 10 minutes before he has to return to the afterlife. Seth gives Joshua a paper bag containing a "secret weapon" to use against the goblins. The goblins break into the house and transport Joshua to Creedence's chapel, where Joshua opens the bag, revealing a "double-decker Bologna sandwich". He eats the sandwich, making his body poisonous to the goblins; he then touches the Stonehenge Stone, which destroys Creedence.
The family returns home, where Joshua's mother is seen eating food from the refrigerator. The food, unknown to the family, has been poisoned by the family of goblins who took over their home during their exchange in the country. The film ends with Joshua walking in on a group of goblins eating his mother's green, bloated torso off of the kitchen counter and offering him a bite. Joshua screams in horror.
- Michael Stephenson as Joshua Waits
- George Hardy as Michael Waits
- Margo Prey as Diana Waits
- Connie McFarland as Holly Waits
- Robert Ormsby as Grandpa Seth
- Deborah Reed as Creedence Leonore Gielgud
- Jason Wright as Elliot Cooper
- Darren Ewing as Arnold
- Jason Steadman as Drew
- David McConnell as Brent
- Elliot Fink as Sheriff Gene Freak
- Ben Meyer as Bells
- Don Packard as Sandy Mahar
- Christina Reynolds as Cindy
- Glenn Gerner as Peter
- Michelle Abrams as Wood Tales Girl
- Lance C. Williams as Mr. Presents
- Elli Case as Mrs. Presents
- Gavin Reed as Presents Son
- Melissa Bridge as Presents Daughter
- Andi Foster as Troll #2 (uncredited)
- Patrick Gibbs as Goblin (uncredited)
- Paul Gibbs as Goblin (uncredited)
- Hermann Weiskopf as Man (uncredited)
The script—originally titled Goblins—began as a way for director Claudio Fragasso's wife, Rosella Drudi, to express her frustration with several of her friends becoming vegetarians, which she claimed "pissed off." The film was produced by Eduard Sarlui and Joe D'Amato, an Italian exploitation film director notorious for his stated view that the profitability of films was more important than their entertainment value. D'Amato worked under the pseudonym "David Hills". In keeping with D'Amato's production philosophy, many components of the film were created for little to no money: The score, composed by Carlo Maria Cordio, was played entirely on a Korg M1 synthesizer and consisted of a few brief themes repeated over and over, including a sped-up M1 demo track. The costumes were designed by D'Amato's longtime friend and frequent collaborator Laura Gemser, who had built a reputation in the '70s and '80s for her roles in various notorious Italian grindhouse movies and erotic films. Gemser's design for the costumes consisted of burlap sacks and rubber Halloween masks—some which were reused in D'Amato's Ator barbarian franchise—with only one goblin mask modified to have a moveable mouth. Sarlui also bought the rights to a goblin mask used in Troll.
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 Gemser. 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.
The cast had few experienced actors, and was primarily assembled from residents of nearby towns who responded to an open casting call, hoping to win roles as extras. George Hardy was a dentist with no acting experience who showed up for fun, only to be given one of the film's largest speaking roles. Don Packard, who played the store owner, was actually a patient at a nearby mental hospital, and was cast for—and filmed—his role while on a day trip. He later recalled that he had smoked an enormous amount of marijuana prior to filming, had no idea what was happening around him, and that his disturbed "performance" in the film was not acting.
Drudi and Fragasso have stated that their intentions have been misunderstood, as the strongly criticized aspects of the movie are intentionally comic and exaggerated, such as Creedence's theatricality acting or the preacher's monologue on eating meat.
As neither Fragasso nor Drudi spoke fluent English, the shooting script was written in the same broken 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. Despite the majority of the cast ascribing to the same story, Fragasso has vehemently denied their version of events, and once interrupted a panel discussion being conducted by the cast to call them "dogs" (Italian for "bad actors") and accuse them of lying about their experiences.
Soundtrack
The film's soundtrack was composed by Carlo Maria Cordio, performed predominately on synthesizer. In 2017, the complete score was released on CD, LP and cassette by Lunaris Records.
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