Troll 2: A hallmark in Italian-American horror/soft core porn cinema

Every few hundered years, the planets line up, and the cosmos is in harmony with itself drawing all the right forces in to one exact place at one point in time. This is precicsly what happened in 1990 as the film "Troll 2" was being made. Only divine fate could have brought together the perfect ingrediants to make the single greatest moment in cinemotography happen. But first I should explain that Troll 2 is greatest moment in cinemotography, but not in the way you would think. It is without a doubt the most rediculously horrible movie in terms of story line, actors, costumes, special effects, music, lighting, and just about everything else. It's so repulsive in fact that it has been hanging around the #2 worst movie on IMDB.com.

I first saw Troll 2 at my friend Gretchens house. We were trying to play Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy in her Xbox, but it wouldn't work due to all of the copyright anti-piracy software. In looking around for something else to watchwe found Troll 2 sitting In a plastic bag. Somehow fate played a role in us finding and watching Troll 2 which came in a dvd case that held both Troll 1 and Troll 2. We started watching Troll 1, got board and fliped over the disc to Troll 2. What I saw before my eyes was unbelivable! We got thirty minutes into it and everybody but me wanted to do something else. I barowed the movie, took it home and watched it. I watched it again. And watched it again. I have now seen it upwards of twelve times now.

The plot in a nut shell goes like this: Joshua a twelve year old boy and his family are taking a trip to the "wonderfuly half-empty town" of Nilbog. But Joshua keeps seeing Visions of his dead Grandpa Seth who tells him that he shouldn't go to Nilbog because there are man-eating, but at the same time vegetarian Goblins who are disquised as people. These Goblins lure people to there town and feed them neon colored food that will turn humans into plants which they then devour "with a foracity that has no equal on earth". Upon telling his family this, they think he is pshycotic (apperantly he has been doing this before and eveen recived pshychiatry), or just plain hungry. This leads into the one of the most memorible scenes of the movie when Grandpa Seth freezes time (for what is supposed to be thirty seconds, but turns into two and a half minutes) and pees on the family's dinner so they won't eat the Goblin Food. At the same time there's a sub-plot in which Holly (joshua's older sister) invites her boyfriend to come along but ends up bringing his friends (four stereotypical horny 19 year old's with a 1984 winnebago) with him.

if the story couldn't get any worse, it does. We meet the single worst acttress of all time, Deborah Reid, in her role as "Credence Leonard Guiguld of Ancient Druid Origins", who is a thirty year old woman who has been completely covered with make-up. At one point in the movie, she calls on the powers of stonehenge (I don't get it either) to make her beautiful again so she can go seduce one of the 19 year old horny guys with a corn cob.

By the time the credits were rolling at the end of the movie, I was incapasitated and hysterical. I began my quest to learn everything I could about Troll 2. I started showing to all kinds of people often bringing it up by changing the subject in conversations I didn't want to be part of. After months of internet searching and monitoring the Troll 2 message boards I have learned so much.

First of all, this film was made by Italians who usually made soft-core porn flicks but came all the way from Italy to Utah to film Troll 2. They didn't speak English, and the translator who was working for them spoke very broken English. This sure awers a lot of questions as to why the dialouqe is so crappy. Next, the actors were local. Some of them were't even actors at alll. The dad was a local dentist! One of the major flaws of the movie is that besides the fact that the movie is called Troll 2, there are no Trolls whatsoever. Instead of Trolls, there are Goblins. Which leads me to find out that the movie was origanily supposed to be called Goblin. The famously bad Goblin outfits were made by an Italian Porn Star. And there is so much more.

In recent times, the movie has taken on a cult status. This past April there was a cast reunion which included a Q&A session (which I unffortunetly found out about the next morning). The cast members are kind of like celebrity's. Here is a letter from one of the cast members I found on the internet talking about filming the movie who played Drew, the kid with glasses who takled the lady running through the forest:

thanks man! That movie has really taken on a life of it's own. Even as we were filming the script (titled "Goblin"), I knew it was destined for campy greatness! There are actually so many weird stories to go with the flick that I wouldn't know where to begin. Suffice it to say that Troll 2 is what happens when an Italian soft-core porn movie outfit comes to America to make a sci-fi horror film.

The "Oh my Gooooood" scene was the worst day of filming I had. The director - who didn't speak English - kept yelling at me and telling me how to say the line, while insisting that I remain totally still. It was the only scene that I had to do at least 10 times, and they ended up keeping the take where a fly had landed on my face. Nice.

As for signing at horror conventions, I'd do it in a minute! but, so
far, nobody has asked. Guess I'll have to keep playing the drums to pay my bills
eh?

Thanks again and take care!

Sincerely,
Darren Ewing
www.crenshawtheband.com

The cover for the VHS and DVD have nothing to do with the movie, and neither do the movie posters and copys of the movie all over the world. For Example:










I love this movie so much. Words just can't describe the absurdedy of what it represents. If you want to see this movie and you know me personally, I'll let you borrow it. Or you could watch this little "highlight" film I found on the Internet.

Pilgramage to the Spiral Jetty

I've decided to kick off this blog by writting about my "conceptual pilgrimage" to the Spiral Jetty last week. It seems like I have been having dreams about it for years since I first learned about it in 7th grade Art. I don't know what the facination with it has been in my sub-consious mind.

For those of you who don't know, the Spiral Jetty is arguably the greatest earth-art work of art since the establishment of the movement. The late Robert Smithson took gravel rocks and salt crystals and sculptted them into a 1500 ft. long spiral which comes out of the shore of the Great Salt Lake. A picture and description of it is in just about every art history textbook published after the 1970's. It seems that just about everybody in the art world knows about it but hardly anyone in Utah does. This is due to two factors: driving out to the jetty is a long and tedious journey through cattle pasturs and gravel roads that haven't been maintained in years. And the fact that the jetty has been subemeged under twenty feet of water for the last thirty years. It was just in 2000 that the jetty was able to be seen under water because off the drought, and 2004 that the Jetty was completely unsubmereged. It is unfortunetly subermging again because of the past abnormaly wet winter.

The Journey started out early in the morning. It was a three hour drive just to the Golden Spike where we had to take a dirt road from to get there. Once there, the road was okay. We passed some people on bikes and it seemed like the road was regularly traveled. After a few miles we took a right and followed a different road following the signs pointing which way to go. The roads kept getting worse and worse. We were going through fields where cows were lying in the road. Once we finnal got to the jetty and started walking around. We noticed that there was a silence that I have never heard. We were so far away from any form of civilization that there was nothing to hear. The Jetty was soewhat under water and I decided not to walk out on it because it seemed queit dangerous.

For those of you reading this, I apoligize that this might seem rather dull or esoteric. But it has been a form of psych-tgherapy for me because I've been having dreams about visiting the Jetty for a long time and now tha I have been I can put my mind to rest over this.