On Saturday night I witnessed an event so horrific, so ridiculously awful, that I didn’t want to ever talk about it again. But when something like this happens to you it sticks in your mind, and the only way to get it out is by slowly going through each scene again, so that you can work it out and hopefully come to understand it. I’m talking about the film, uh, that’s not right, the paradox that is Troll 2. It is by far the worst movie I’ve ever seen and was considered to be the worst movie of imdb.com’s bottom 100 list in 2006. Due to the notoriety that the film has picked up since its fateful release in 1990, it’s being shown to packed movie houses across the nation with patrons who actually dress up like trolls and wear Troll 2 t-shirts. There’s also a full-blown documentary filming the mayhem along the way. I was able to participate in this small cultural phenomenon, and this is my story…
Troll 2 was filmed in Utah in the summer of 1989, so there are actually quite a few Utah “actors” who are in the movie. It was filmed by an Italian director who barely spoke English, who, along with his wife, happened to have written the incomprehensible script! They said they were going to dub it into Italian, so the dialogue didn’t really matter. (Well, they definitely achieved that mark.) But it wasn’t just the corny dialogue that turned the movie into youtube fodder, it was every aspect of the movie. Many times bad movies have some sort of redeeming quality that allows you to give the benefit of the doubt for all those involved that they actually put some rational thought into making the movie, but not so for Troll 2. This movie actually fails on all fronts: directing, acting, writing, cinematography, and special effects (or lack thereof). I used to make movies when I was in high school and I honestly think I could have made a better movie ten years ago with my limited skills and equipment.
I was sitting there with my friend in awe after the screening going over plot points and trying to understand the inane mythology that the “writers” had created, but all we came up with was overwhelming evidence that very little brain power was used to manufacture this piece of cinematic incompetent perfection. Here’s one example: the movie is called Troll 2 (and from what I’ve heard it has nothing to do with the original Troll), but nowhere during the movie do they ever actually say the word ‘troll’—the main antagonists are referred to as goblins throughout the entire romp! The young hero of the film, er home movie, discovers this fact when his family goes on a weekend getaway to “Nilbog” where he uncovers the truth of the town secret when he looks into a side view mirror and sees “qodlin.” I guess, this is supposed to mean goblin.
So, here’s the premise, see if you can follow it: The young boy, Michael, is the only one in his family who can talk to his dead grandfather, who comes to him and scares the little twerp about the impending goblin danger that’s about to befall their family. (Why grandpa knows about goblins from beyond the grave is anybody’s guess.) The family decides to go to the town of Nilbog for the weekend, and here’s the big mystery: the local townsfolk are actually goblins! How or why they change into humans is never made clear, but let’s table that for the time being. So, the townsfolk/goblins want to trick the vacationing family into eating bad milk and green pastries, so that the family will turn into a mass of vegetable-like goo. You see, the goblins are vegetarians, which means they can’t eat the humans unless they turn them into vegetable pudding. Get it? Why the goblins just don’t eat vegetables is irrelevant and would probably take away from the watertight script. When Michael discovers that the food is actually tainted, (information he learns from granddad) it setups one of the best scenes in the movie when he decides to pee on all the food setout on the dining room table so that his family won’t eat it. This, of course, just proves to the family that little Michael is going crazy because he talks to dead people, breaks out into heavy sweats when he imagines his parents as goblins, and relieves himself on perfectly edible green food and drink.
Anyway, the real big question toward the end of the Troll 2 has to be: How do you kill the trolls, er goblins? Ah ha! All you have to do is touch a big rock that originally came from Stonehedge, which just happens to be in Nilbog—that’s perfectly logical. So, when Michael and his family finally touch the rock all the bad goblins die, or so your led to believe: Spoiler Alert! The family returns to normal life and when Michael goes upstairs he starts hearing whispering voices (this is the only part of the movie that bordered on somewhat freaky). He then goes downstairs to discover that his mom has been turned into green gelatin from eating a contaminated apple and to his horror the goblins are there eating her! End scene. This is how the movie ends. It never explains how the goblins came back to life, or why they chose to kill off the mom when she was by far the only one in the movie who had taken any form of an acting class. So, when I tried to piece together the plot it didn’t make any sense to me, but I guess that’s the idea of the best worst movie ever made. I can’t say whether or not that moniker is true—not having seen all the movies ever made—but as far as my own humble opinion then, yes, it was the worst movie these eyes have ever beheld.
With that being said, being there for the actual screening was a lot of fun, as we got to meet a lot of the cast afterward (one of the cast members is actually in my singles ward). It truly has become a cultural phenomenon that spans generations for good or ill and has made its little niche in the cinematic landscape. I was glad I could be there to witness it, even if I don’t understand it completely. Hopefully, this written testament will add to the infamy that this “horror film” has built up over the last two decades.
Here's some footage.
What's the worst movie you've ever seen?
