Troll 2 – 1990

What do you get when you combine a script written in English by someone who doesn’t speak it, actors who all showed up to the audition with “high hopes” that they might be used as extras and ended up getting lead roles, and a complete lack of Trolls?

Simple, “Troll 2“.

I’m serious, this script was written by Director Claudio Fragasso, an Italian native.  His script is filled with improper English and awkward dialogue because HE SPEAKS VERY POOR ENGLISH.  The entire crew was Italian except for the Costume Designer, who had to translate directions for Mr. Fragasso.  His actors even offered to speak in plain English for him so it didn’t sound as bad.  No, we’ll be having none of that.  The actors were explicitly forbidden to deviate from the script and were actually required to read it verbatim, errors and all.

Try to imagine how compelling a story it will be when one of the first scenes has a mother telling her child, “Grandpa Seth is gone.  We miss him.  Now you must banish him from your mind.”

Because, you know, because that’s how people talk.  Right?

The movie starts with a old man telling a story about Goblins to a young child in bed.  In the story, a man is being chased through the woods by a pack of evil goblins with spears.  The man trips on a rock and falls unconscious.  He wakes up to the sight of a beautiful woman with a bowl of green goo.  “This is normal,” he thinks, as he leans forward to drink the florescent broth.  Almost immediately, the man begins sweating green liquid, sprouting branches, and is turned into a pile of plant matter.

Why, you ask?  Because the Goblins are vegetarians, obviously.

That’s right, the Goblins chase you down, catch you, beat you, make you drink green slime, and then turn you into a plant.  They consider meat to be “bad”.  It should be noted that the only reason for this is because the director’s wife and co-writer of the film became vegetarians while writing the script.

The camera cuts back to Joshua in bed being read a story by his Grandpa Seth, who warns him of the evil Goblins.  Mom suddenly comes in the room and Grandpa Seth pulls a 6th Sense.  “Joshua, Grandpa Seth is gone.  We miss him.  Now you must banish him from your mind.”

Joshua goes to bed while her family prepares for a trip they plan on taking in the morning.  We cut to an awesome scene with Joshua’s older sister, let’s say she’s 18 so this sounds less creepy, working out to an awesome 80’s montage.  She is really working it, I mean, absolutely pumping iron.  A barbell with a whole 10 lbs on it.  Yeah buddy.

Joshua’s sister, Holly is visited by her boyfriend who sneaks in the window and surprises (scares the living shit out of) her.  She turns around, grabs a firm hold of him, and knees him square in the testicles.  “Jesus!  You trying to turn me into a homo?” he screams.  The natural response is to make out, which of course, they do.

The next morning the Waits family sets out on their trip, with a heated argument between the sister and Joshua’s dad regarding her boyfriend.

Dad – “He is a good for nothing!  He is no good for you!”
Sister – “We could have waited a little longer!”
Dad – “No, we already waited an hour and a half, we’re going to be late!”
Mom – “Joshua sing that song you like so much.”
Joshua – “What? No.”
Mom – “JOSHUA START SINGING!!”

That’s right, the mom has the valiant goal of ending the argument, but goes about accomplishing it by screaming at her son until he sings.  And best of all, it’s “Row, row, row, your boat“.  Everyone in the car joins in and is terrible at singing.  It’s not good, and does nothing to alleviate my anger.

The family arrives in the small town of Nilbog (Goblin spelled backwards, just in case that piece of brilliance slipped by you) and immediately the townspeople are weird.  People hide behind fences and doors, watching our family drive around.

They get to the house and are greeted by a table filled with food.  Everyone is hungry and sits down to dig in, then, magically, Grandpa Seth appears to Joshua.  Grandpa Seth warns Joshua that the food is poison and his family can’t eat it or they surely will die.

Joshua – “But how am I supposed to stop them, Grandpa Seth?”
Grandpa – “I don’t know, but you’ve got 30 seconds to figure it out.”

Grandpa Seth then freezes time, except for Joshua, of course.  Joshua paces back and forth for roughly a minute and a half before he jumps up on the table, unzips his pants, and starts urinating on the food.

“Excuse me while I whip this out…”

The next day we find the Boyfriend has tagged along in an RV filled with his friends.  They are bored and restless, on search for “hot, single, Nilbog babes.”  One of the guys, Arnold, steps outside for some fresh air and sees a woman running through the woods, scared.  He yells, “Hey! Hey you!” and she doesn’t respond.  So our hero does the only sensible thing, he runs up to her full speed and spears her in the chest.  “Ma’am, are you OK?  Is something wrong?”  I wonder if he means OTHER than the fact that he just tackled a woman to the ground.  He does it so nonchalantly too.  I’m still building up a pepper spray tolerance.

We find out that our damsel in distress was being chased by Goblins with spears.  But luckily, Arnold decides he’s going to take care of that for her.

“Listen to me you little shits. I will destroy you.”

Arnold – “Look guys, here’s the deal.  You’re small, and I’m big, so why don’t you leave before someone gets hurt?”
Trolls – “KILL HIM”
SPEAR THROUGH THE CHEST
Arnold – “OH GOD!! AARRGGHHHH!!!”

After running for a short distance, Arnold and the mystery woman stumble across what is obviously a church and exclaim, “Let’s hide in the strange house!”

In the strange house we meet our antagonist, Creedence Leonore Gielgud, insane Librarian from hell.  Also she has herpes.

Oh god.

Creedence gives Arnold and the girl a green bubbling potion, which she claims will fix them right up.  She literally hands Arnold a cup and says “Be quiet and drink your broth.”  Strangely, this is the exact same way I was introduced to Four Loko.  After drinking the broth, the girl starts choking and gagging, running up the stairs in a panic,  again, very similar to Four Loko.  She falls to the floor, and starts dissolving in a cloud of smoke.  There is now a pile of green goo on the floor with a pair of women’s panties and a bra floating in it.  Suddenly, the gang of goblins comes out from behind a door and just starts digging in, eating the goo that had previously been a pretty white girl.

We are then presented with the single best line of dialogue in any movie ever.

“Oh no, They’re eating her.  And then they are going to eat me.  OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!”

(This is a link, click it.)

Not that the movie was all that great to begin with, but it’s pretty much downhill from here.

The goblins keep chasing the Waits family while Joshua is, of course, the only one that realizes this.  And, of course, no one believes Joshua.  They go to the store, hidden goblins.  They walk around town, hidden goblins.  They have some visitors at the house, guess what?  Hidden goblins.  It goes on like this until the finale, when the entire town shows up at the Wait’s house for a surprise party.

Joshua goes upstairs and summons his Grandpa through a mirror.  Grandpa Seth says he’s got a plan, but there’s one small catch.

Grandpa – “We must move quickly to put out the fire.”

Joshua – “What fire?”

GRANDPA HANDS JOSHUA A MOLOTOV COCKTAIL AND SMILES

“Worst. Guardian Angel. Ever.”

Outside, while getting ready to burn the goblin filled house down, they are attacked.  A goblin disguised as a human grabs the Molotov and manages to set himself on fire.  The corpse is, of course, a goblin corpse.  Everyone is outside now, having heard the screaming of a man burn to death.  “He was one of us, and you killed him.  Now it is your turn.” says one of the goblins.

The Waits family responds to a direct death threat by looking around and backing away very slowly.  They retreat into the house while they try to come up with a plan to destroy the goblins and hopefully survive the night.

Meanwhile, our resident creeper, Creedence has shifted her shape into that of a young, beautiful woman carrying an ear of corn.  She knocks on the door of the RV, and seduces the young man inside.  They start to get hot and heavy, when she suddenly asks him, “Do you like Popcorn?”  “Well, yeah, sure” he says. “THEN LET’S HEAT THINGS UP!!”  and they start making out with an ear of corn between their mouths.  Oh yeah, that gets me going.  Nothing turns me on like hot salty popcorn.  If there was Butter, maybe.  But just plain popcorn?  Come on, I’ve got standards.

“Ugh, freaks.  There’s not even any butter.”

Back at the house, the Waits family has successfully summoned Grandpa, which for some reason also teleported Joshua to the evil Goblin lair.  Grandpa shows up and gives him a book-bag and tells him, “Only use the contents of this bag when you really really need it.  Do you understand?”

Joshua is surrounded by Creedence and her Goblins, they’ve got him backed into a corner.   Oh no, what shall he do?  If you guessed, “pull a bologna sandwich out of the book-bag and eat it“, there is something wrong with you.  Also, you’re right!  Joshua pulls a bologna sandwich, which appears to be an entire package of bologna on two pieces of bread (which will henceforth be referred to as “Nigel Style“) and takes a huge bite.  “NO!” Creedence screams, “THINK ABOUT THE CHOLESTEROL!! THINK ABOUT THE TOXINS!!”

Grandpa’s plan worked, the Goblins no longer want to eat Joshua, and Creedence is distracted just long enough for Joshua to destroy the magic stone that is the source of all their power.  After some awesome (lame) flashing lights and fog, the goblins all fall over dead and Creedence explodes.  Huzzah!

Cut to the family van pulling into the driveway, the Waits family is exhausted and glad to be home.  Dad and Holly go their separate ways, while Mom and Joshua go into the house.  Mom offers Joshua some food, but he’s not hungry, so he goes upstairs.  After a few minutes, Joshua hears a ‘thud’ from downstairs and goes to investigate.  He enters the kitchen and the Goblins are eating a pile of green goo on the floor where Joshua’s mom was just standing.  Joshua freaks out, a goblin turns to him and says “You want some, Joshua?”

Black screen, The End.

Final Thoughts:

I am not the first person to think this movie is terrible, and I sure as hell wont be the last.  This movie is currently available on Netflix Instant Play, so if you’re a masochist like me, you can enjoy it whenever you want.  The Director TO THIS DAY is upset at how poorly Troll 2 was received.  He recently crashed a Q&A session with the actors and screamed at the audience until he was escorted from the building.

The movie itself looks like it was filmed in the early 90’s, which is was, so that’s forgivable.  Everything else though?  The horrible acting?  The dialogue written by someone who doesn’t speak the language it’s supposed to be spoken in?  The fact that there aren’t any actual Trolls in Troll 2, only Goblins? All of it, terrible.  I’m not sure what we did to deserve this, but it must have been absolutely horrible.