Film Fans of the Future: The Troll 2 Phenomenon
The author with Claudio Fragosso, the director of Troll 2.
(photo credit Ramsay Edwards-McNear).
For the first time there is an up-and-coming generation of children who have no memory of a world without cell phones, Internet, and DVDs. Thanks to this new wave of technology, more and more people are able to discover, for the first time, what generations before them had seen and enjoyed. In this digital, virtual age, for instance, parents who were children of the 1970s can show their kids Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977, United States) for the first time in the form of its third DVD release, or a family may now enjoy I Love Lucy (1951-1957) just as much as people did during the 1950s, again thanks to DVD release. In many cases older programs and movies, due to their timeless appeal, are appreciated by new audiences. There is another kind of entertainment resurrected by technological discovery, however, which has the opposite kind of appeal: the god awful, bad movie.
One particularly bad movie, Troll 2 (Claudio Fragosso, 1990, United States), is a unique example of a film that was never popular upon its release or subsequent late, late night cable airings. Due to a nonchalant DVD release, however, and combined with avid, online devotees, Troll 2 has become a cult sensation while being dubbed by cult movie bloggers and horror-schlock fans as “The Best Worst Movie” as well as “this generation’s Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
One of the many aspects that make Troll 2 so strangely appealing is the back-story of its fruition. First, other than the title, Troll 2 has nothing to do with the original Troll (John Carl Buecher, 1986, United States). The first one was a fun, yet childish horror flick about a medieval troll who torments the residents (who include Sonny Bono and Julia Louis Dreyfuss) of a San Francisco apartment complex. The Italian director Claudio Fragosso made Troll 2 (but was credited under the pseudonym “Drake Floyd”), writing the script in English even though his understanding of the language was minimal. He used an Italian crew, along with inexperienced and non-professional actors from the Utah area, where the film was shot to round out his cast.
Fragosso’s astonishingly awkward script was originally titled Goblin (as there are not even any trolls in it, but goblins, rather). When the film was released in the U.S., the title was changed to simply try and capitalize on any success the first film might have had. This also explains why the plots of the two films have nothing to do with one another. Troll 2 follows the Waits family as they go on a vacation to the small town of Nilbog. The youngest member of the Waits clan, Joshua, has been receiving warnings from the spirit of his dead grandpa to stay out of Nilbog because there are goblins of the vegetarian variety who turn people into plants so they can eat them.
The only thing more ridiculous than its premise are its irresistibly quirky scenes that have to be seen in order to be believed. For example, one of the more famous, unforgettably odd moments from the film involves a sex-starved teenager in a Winnebago who is visited by a seductive female witch. As the odd couple begins kissing, out of nowhere she pulls out an ear of corn and places it between their lips; the heat generated from their passion fills the Winnebago with fresh popcorn.
Though such hilarious moments like this in Troll 2 are commonplace, they are not solely responsible for the film’s popularity. Some of the credit surely must go to this postmodern age in which we revel in spoofing, remaking, quoting, and rediscovering / recontextualizing past works. Yet other credit must go to the Internet and DVD technology. The web inadvertently advertised the film when enough people who had seen and hated the film voted it the number one-rated worst movie of all time on the online tome for all film-related facts, the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com). Upon the film’s DVD release in 2004 as part of a Troll 1/Troll 2 package, people could finally see for themselves exactly how bad this “worst movie of all time” really was.
It ended up being so bad, so unlike anything anyone had ever seen before, that it was not just good, but great. Great enough for people to start throwing their very own Troll 2-themed costume parties, and eventually, great enough for the cast to begin touring with a thought-to-be non-existent 35mm film print to sold out venues around the world. The screenings and parties were inspired by a growing and changing fandom made possible by the Internet. BestWorstMovie.com is the film’s biggest fan site, which has a feature that lets you register as a “Goblin in disguise” and become one of the “infected.” A world map keeps track of how far and how large this Troll 2 infection has spread, with about 75,000 to date and the highest concentrations being in the U.S. and Europe (though they are scattered in smaller numbers in other countries). Another key part of the site is its announcements section for upcoming Troll 2 screenings.
I was fortunate enough to be living in Los Angeles over the Summer of 2007 when I was looking at BestWorstMovie.com and read that there was going to be a Troll 2 screening soon, at the same theater (the Nuart) famous for showing Rocky Horror Picture Show every weekend. This was not just any screening, though: this was the grand Mecca of Troll 2 fans screenings. For the first time in 18 years, director Claudio Fragosso was being reunited with the majority of the cast for the screening and Q&A. I was standing in line (up towards the front, of course), and I witnessed Claudio as he hugged and greeted a few of the actors, not having seen them for two decades.
What was more remarkable for me was how these people never expected to be meeting like this in a million years, especially two decades after the film was made. The film turned out to be a disaster whose participants tried to forget about and bury out of shame and embarrassment. How was it that such an ill-conceived film was now having sold out cast/crew screenings around the world? It really was just the right combination of unintentional elements that led to the film’s irresistible awfulness, but it was a Myspace-generation kind of fandom that allowed for the film’s appeal to be shared and cultivated on such a wide scale via Internet and DVD. Troll 2 would never have been rediscovered were it not for these technologies whose positive effects on the film snowballed.
The screening itself was an event. Before the movie started, there were Troll 2 themed contests such as a double-decker baloney sandwich-eating contest (because double-decker baloney sandwiches are what they use to defeat the goblins). During the popcorn sex scene, people were cheering and throwing popcorn into the air. That is when I realized that this is what this kind of screening is all about. It is about having a shared love for a certain film, and getting to experience that appreciation within a communal environment. The phenomenon that is Troll 2 provides a glimpse into the future of film-going. As home-theaters become more common and people have less of a reason to go to movie theaters, there will always be fans of films best viewed and enjoyed with a group of like-minded people who will do what it takes to have that communal, interactive, film-going experience, regardless of how “bad” the film may be.
