It's bedtime and little Joshua (Michael Stephenson) is being read a story by his grandfather Seth (Robert Ormsby), but it's not the traditional fairy tale, no, it's about one of their ancestors who met some goblins in the forest. Trying to get away, he saw an attractive woman ahead who fed him some mystery food, but this was exactly what the goblins wanted for when a human ingested their green comestibles, they would be reduced to a plant-like form all the better for the goblins to eat themselves. Suddenly, Grandpa Seth is interrupted by Joshua's mother (Margo Prey) entering the room and asking him who it is that he is talking to - for Grandpa Seth died six months ago...
If that sounds idiotic to you, then as Al Jolson memorably pointed out, you ain't seen nothing yet. Time was when Troll 2 was just another low budget Italian horror movie (the crew used pseudonyms, but the cast were American), of no connection to the original Troll that anyone could see, but then something peculiar happened. The film began to garner a cult following, not because of any inherent quality, quite the opposite in fact, this gained the reputation as one of the worst films ever made. Certainly there are many pretenders to that throne, but this had more qualifications than most, and a lot of that was to do with the consistently ridiculous tone.
Troll 2 was nothing if not consistent, it's just a pity that it was thoroughly awful. Scripted by its director, Claudio Fragasso, it looks to have been written when he was about twelve years old such is the level of entertainment the film operates on. Once the story gets underway properly, it has Joshua's family going on holiday to the isolated village of Nilbog (hmm, that name is reminiscent of something I can't quite put my finger on; I'm sure it's not important). They have an arrangement with another family there where they will swap homes so the country folk can get a taste of city life - and the city folk can get a taste of something else.
Accompanied and guided by his ghostly Grandpa, Joshua takes every opportunity to wail that the inhabitants of this village are actually goblins, but oddly never suggests that they leave as soon as possible, preferring to perform such stunts as pissing on the food the hosts have left them (really). If Nightmare on Elm Street was about how going to sleep can kill you, then Troll 2 is about, no, not trolls (none are seen), but how eating anything will kill you. Well, anything cooked up by the Nilbogians, which usefully more often than not has a bright green hue so you can tell, although their milk is equally dangerous.
In fact, the film seems to have a real grudge, not against goblins, but vegetarians. The thinking appears to be that although they won't eat meat, they're happy to turn humans into plants so they can be consumed that way: essentially those hypocritical vegetarians want to eat you. Joshua discovers too late that flaunting a baloney sandwich can hold off the hordes, but until then the other cast members are frequently reduced to bright green goo, or have twigs stuck to their bodies to make them look more arboreal. One even gets drowned in popcorn. It's difficult to put across simply how absurd this film is in its efforts to conjure up a scare, as the whole horror aspect is fatally sabotaged not only by the infantile script, but the amateur dramatics on show that some might mistake for acting. It's not even funny for the most part, it's more likely to make the viewer feel dejected. If it's not the worst, it's damn close - but it does, like its diabolical bad movie kin, exert a strange hold. Music by Carlo Maria Cordio (which isn't any better than the rest of the film).
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