Movie Review: Troll 2 (1990)
Widely regarded as one of the worst “movie” ever made (IMDb 2.0/10, RT 0%), Troll 2 was a direct-to-video movie which became a sort of cult classic because of how horrendous it is. Helmed by Italian director Claudio Fragasso, this movie manages to do the impossible: Feature every single aspect of awful film-making unintentionally. From incredibly wooden acting to a completely inappropriate soundtrack and ridiculous looking costumes, you will get a full serving of incompetence.
First thing first, clarification is required as Troll 2 is not a sequel from the 1986 horror movie Troll. The two movies actually have no connection with each other. Additionally, you should know that the movie has nothing to do with trolls despite its name. To quickly summarize the story: Annoying brat Joshua Waits (Michael Stephenson) is contacted by his dead grandfather, Seth (Robert Ormsby), who informs him that goblins roaming the world force or trick humans into consuming poisoned food–plastered with fluorescent green goo no less– which will turn them into vegetables. The goblins would then eat them. Joshua’s mentally handicapped family takes a trip to a small town named Nilbog (“Goblin” spelled backward, so clever), which grandpa warned against. Now it’s up to Joshua, dead grandpa Seth, and a bologna sandwich to save the family from the evil Goblin Queen, who will stop at nothing to turn the boy and his family into food for her goblins.
The only reason Troll 2 is somewhat watchable– although in an exhausting way– is because of the flood of unintentional comedy in the movie. It is so horrid that it feels like a spoof but sadly, it is not! It all starts with the cast who is uniformly cringe-worthy. The sincere but unbearably inept attempts by all the actors involved is really a sight to behold. There is no adjective in the dictionary that can characterize how horrendous the acting is. Michael Stephenson looks constipated and makes grotesque faces the entire movie while Connie Young, who plays the sister, is completely clueless on how to deliver lines. The crown, however, goes to Margo Prey, who easily takes the first prize for worst performance ever captured on film. For most of the movie, she is completely expressionless and delivers her lines as if reading from a teleprompter. When she does express some emotions, they are completely inappropriate and out-of-sync with her dialogue or the tone of the movie.
Nope, nothing wrong with that corn cob, nothing…
The screenplay is absolutely pure garbage with a silly plot that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and is riddled with logical fallacies such as completely random scene order, lack of continuity, characters that appear for no reason whatsoever, and other facts that are never explained. Combine that with the amateurish acting and you get an assortment of oddly incongruous sequences put together in a movie that is completely devoid of a tone or atmosphere from start to finish. The dialogue itself is absolutely putrid with no redeeming quality whatsoever. There is also plenty of awkward scenes such as the 3 boys sleeping without a shirt in the same bed or the wannabee porn scene near the end. Really, this flick reaches the bottom of the abyss in all aspect and the saddest part is that the director is still convinced to this day that he made a good movie!
Special mention must be made of the horrid soundtrack which does not complement what is happening on screen at all and must have been put together by a 12-yr old who found an old keyboard in his basement. I’m not making this up: the first sequence features a horde of goblins chasing a man through the woods to the tune of some cheap 80′s techno beat. The costumes are literally the worst you will ever see with the goblins looking neither scary nor creepy. They simply look utterly ridiculous with midgets running around with over-sized paper masks on their head. The “special ” effects are hilariously bad with profuse amount of green menthol syrup being used and even a ridiculous-looking sequence of a goblin throwing a spear at one of the character. Apparently, the movie runs at 95 minutes but it felt excruciatingly slow and more like 4 hours. I literally had to take a nap midway through to recover some energy this movie sapped away!
One of the “special” effect
Incomprehensibly horrendous in every single aspects, Troll 2 should extract a few laughs at how stupefyingly atrocious it really is but even that gets old and exhausting very quickly. If you really want to see this, you better get drunk first!
F
(0/10)
Lesson of the Day:
They’re eating her… and then they’re going to eat me… OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!
Notes: 95 minutes
29 Comments
I’ve planned to someday watch the Troll and Leprechaun series simply because they look so awful. I think you have to have a certain appreciation of B-Movies to enjoy these types of films. While it looks awful, it doesn’t look boring, and I’d rather sit through awful over boring any day.
The first Troll kicks ass… is not an awful film. Leppy is another story!
I love bad movies like this and this one is at the very top of my list. So bad that it gets it’s own documentary based on it? Man, that’s got to be bad. I’m surprised though that anything can be much worse than Leprechaun or Sleepaway Camp or Triloquist (from the director of Leprechaun). Those are drunk favourites. I must applaud you for trying to approach this movie as a serious critic, but really, at the end of the day, what’s the point because no matter whats is said, everyone who is going to see this movie knows they want to see it will probably get exactly what they want and deserve and really, there’s nothing wrong with that.
I really had no intention of seeing this movie but a friend made me do it
You are right that anyone who sees this movie today knows exactly what he or she is getting into. I did and I did find it funny at first. But at the end of the day, it’s still shockingly terrible with no redeeming factor whatsoever.
I find that two hours of something terrible – even if it’s laugh out loud terrible – can wear you down. It starts off fun, but then it just becomes painful very quick.
I sat down one night, real late, and HBO or Showtime or one of them had this on and I figured I had to check it out. After 30 minutes I was on the floor I couldn’t breath I was laughing so hard. An F is entirely justified, but I just couldn’t believe it was made, or even released. It’s just shockingly horrible.
Good god, what a movie…
And yet, if we can not laugh at this piece of shit, how will we ever be able to laugh at ourselves.
Lesson of the day, folks.
Those screen grabs are great! The first one kind of tells it all really: It’s like attack of the cheap, knock-off Ewoks!
Well, at least they all appear to be wearing garden gloves handling those wooden sticks.
You’re the man for sitting down and watching this. I need to follow suit, only I’m pretty sure I’ll be downing beer the whole time while doing so.
F? harsh. not even some D- minus love for the unintentional laughs?
I know, it certainly could be unintentionally enjoyable for some but I’d rather not go down that path and stick to the letter grade that reflect the overall quality of the movie.
I wasn’t going to see this film, that is until I got to this part in your review:
“There is also plenty of awkward scenes such as the 3 boys sleeping without a shirt in the same bed or the wannabee porn scene near the end.”
Ahah, you should check it out Kai!
man, im gonna have to go some to catch Darren in this comments malarky
are you paying him Castor to comment that much?
It’s a secret
I couldn’t comment.
(drumroll, please!)
Alright! I was just thinking about watching Troll, and this rip-off sequel of sorts looks horrible and fantastic at the same time. Nice to see some trash getting reviewed on other sites.
I secretly enjoy watching movies like this. A great Sunday wasteaway viewing. As awful as your review was, a rightfully repulsed by it’s awfulness, I just want to see it more now. Ha! Plus I think Will from The Film Reel actually dug it.
Ahah I’m pretty certain you will dig it
You might need to down a few beers and get together with some friends to laugh at how ridiculous it all is!
Beer and funny. You guys have completely sold me.
Not only did I dig this film but I went out of my way to recreate some of my favorite scenes! I can’t believe it took me so long to watch this one. Every aspect of the movie is terrible and I couldn’t have enjoyed it any more than I did! I think it’s a must watch. Of course it’s a must watch while drunk and in a room full of drunk friends!
In fairness, it looks like you could recreate your favourite scenes with only twenty dollars spent at your local radio shack.
And lots of drugs. Probably more than twenty dollars worth of drugs.
The movie blogger community should get together to recreate this masterpiece of suckness
I think that is a fantastic idea. I’d be willing to pony up some money to make this happen.
The documentary about this movie is really great. It’s called The Best Worst Movie. In addition to the “where are they now?” aspect, they talk with the director and you get to see what kind of person makes this kind of cinematic garbage. Amazingly, the director actually thinks this is a good movie. Seriously. He doesn’t understand why people think it is a bad movie. Hilarious.
Is it worse than “The Room”? I do want to check out the new documentary about the making of this movie. I bet it would be fun to go to a midnight showing of this somewhere, but as far as renting it to watch at home, it is probably just dreadful. I know there are a few theatres that showcase this once in a while at midnight and get decent audiences….
I haven’t seen The Room Peter but imo, it would be hard pressed to be half as bad as Troll 2 which really is horrendous from scene to scene and with each minute of run-time that goes by.
“The Room” is beyond awful…it lives up to its billing tenfold. I was lucky enough to catch a midnight viewing when I was in Dallas for a few days. Made the experience all the more worthwhile. They come with props and it is very interactive in the same way that Rocky Horror is….but the film is just a train wreck….embarrassingly so.
Well, the good thing is you can safely say that nothing you’ll ever see will be as bad as this…that’s a plus:)
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