Troll 2: The Goblin Problem Nobody Noticed

Abstract

Troll 2 (1990) holds a position in the bad movie canon that is unique: it was voted the #1 worst film on IMDb's Bottom 100, spawned a feature-length documentary about its own badness (Best Worst Movie, 2009), and continues to sell out midnight screenings thirty-five years after its release.

It is called Troll 2. There are no trolls. The monsters are goblins. It is not a sequel to Troll (1986). Nobody associated with the original Troll was involved. The title was applied by the distributor because sequels sold more VHS rentals than original titles. This decision is the most commercially rational thing about the entire production.

The Production

The Language Barrier

Director Claudio Fragasso (credited as "Drake Floyd") is Italian. He spoke limited English on set. His wife, Rossella Drudi, wrote the screenplay in Italian. It was translated into English by someone whose translation skills have been a subject of scholarly debate for three decades.

The cast — entirely American, recruited from local theater in rural Utah — were forbidden from changing any dialogue. When actors pointed out that their lines were grammatically impossible, Fragasso insisted they deliver them as written. He was, in his view, making a serious film about the dangers of vegetarianism. This is not a joke. The film's villain philosophy is that vegetarianism is evil.

The Screenplay

The plot: the Waits family goes on an exchange vacation to the town of Nilbog ("Goblin" spelled backward — a detail the film treats as a revelation despite the audience noticing immediately). The town is populated entirely by goblins disguised as humans who want to turn the family into plants so they can eat them.

Key creative decisions:

• Goblins cannot eat meat. They are vegetarian goblins. Their plan involves transforming humans into plants first, then eating the plants. This is presented as horrifying.
• The family's deceased grandfather, Seth, appears as a ghost to warn the protagonist, a boy named Joshua. Seth can freeze time. This ability is used once and never explained.
• The goblins' queen, Creedence Leonore Gielgud, seduces a teenager using a corn cob. The corn cob then produces popcorn. This scene exists.
• Joshua defeats the goblins by eating a double-decker bologna sandwich. Meat defeats the vegetarian goblins. This is the film's thesis.

The Cast

The actors have spoken extensively about the experience, most notably in the documentary Best Worst Movie, directed by Michael Stephenson, who played Joshua.

George Hardy, the dentist who played the father, has described the experience as "the most fun I never knew I was having." He has attended hundreds of screenings and embraces the film's legacy with a joy that is itself a kind of performance art.

Margo Prey, who played the mother, has largely declined to discuss the film. Her silence speaks at a volume that words cannot reach.

Key Scenes: A Field Analysis

"They're Eating Her"

The film's most famous moment occurs when a character witnesses his girlfriend being consumed by goblins and delivers the following:

"They're eating her! And then they're going to eat me! OH MY GOOOOOOOD!"

Actor Darren Ewing delivered this line in a single take. Fragasso was satisfied. The line has been viewed hundreds of millions of times across platforms. It is, per capita, the most quoted line in bad movie history.

The delivery occupies a space between panic and boredom that should not be physically possible. It is simultaneously the worst and most memorable acting in cinema history.

The Corn Scene

Creedence Leonore Gielgud seduces a teenage boy using a corn cob. During the seduction, the room fills with popcorn. The scene lasts approximately two minutes and contains no dialogue, only corn-related sound effects and what appears to be genuine confusion from the actor being covered in popcorn.

This scene was written by Rossella Drudi. It was directed by Claudio Fragasso. It was performed by human beings. It exists in our reality.

The Bologna Defeat

Joshua defeats the goblin queen by concentrating very hard while holding a double-decker bologna sandwich. The sandwich glows. The goblins dissolve. Meat conquers vegetarianism. The film's ideological framework is validated.

The logistics of this scene — why the sandwich glows, how concentration activates the bologna, why the goblins' weakness is specifically cured meat — are never explained. They do not need to be. The film operates on a logic system that exists independently of ours.

The Legacy

Best Worst Movie (2009)

Michael Stephenson returned to the Troll 2 phenomenon twenty years later to document what had happened. The film he made is genuinely excellent — a warm, funny, occasionally melancholy examination of what it means to create something terrible and discover, decades later, that it brought joy to millions.

George Hardy emerges as the film's heart: a small-town dentist who attends midnight screenings with the enthusiasm of a man who has been given a second career he never auditioned for. Claudio Fragasso emerges as a more complex figure: a director who still believes Troll 2 is a good film and views the audience's laughter as a failure of comprehension.

Both perspectives are valid. Both are also, in different ways, hilarious.

The Screenings

Troll 2 midnight screenings have been held continuously since the mid-2000s. Audiences throw popcorn during the corn scene, chant "Nilbog" during the reveal, and recite the "OH MY GOD" line in unison. The film has become a participatory experience — closer to Rocky Horror than to conventional cinema.

Conclusion

Troll 2 is not the worst film ever made. It is something more important: the most earnestly, completely, irreducibly itself film ever made. Every creative decision is wrong. Every wrong decision is committed to fully. The result is a work of art that could not have been produced by anyone trying to produce it.

Claudio Fragasso reached for the stars. He landed in Nilbog. We are all better for it.