WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema: Troll 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:10.080 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:16.440 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. I'm Rob Lamb. 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:19.000 And I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're going to be 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:23.919 talking about the ultimate classic of modern B movies, Troll two. 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:26.279 This has got to be the one, right, Like, even 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:29.479 if you rarely watch B movies, you might have seen 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:29.960 this one. 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:34.040 Yeah. This is one of the titans of bad film, 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:37.160 of B films, and it's one where on one hand, 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:38.960 some listeners might say, Hey, this is only the second 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:41.319 episode of Weird House Cinema. I can't believe you're doing 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:44.680 Troll two already, But really the reality is we had 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:47.640 to go ahead and do Troll too. Otherwise listeners would 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:49.800 be asking for it, they would be demanding it, and 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:53.200 we had You know, this is just the hospitable thing 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:57.640 to do, and we don't piss on hospitality on this show. 0:00:58.120 --> 0:00:59.920 I do want to add a quick note some of 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:01.280 if you were probably listening to this and you're like, 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:03.720 what is Weird House Cinema. What is going on? This 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:06.320 is a science and culture podcast. Why are you talking 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:10.039 about beef, be movies and weird films? Well, this is 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:12.080 something we're trying. This is something we just kicked off. 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:14.639 Joe and I have been talking about doing a weird 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:19.040 movie standalone podcast for a while. We were looking at 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:23.039 other options, and it was decided, partially by us, partially 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:26.759 by powers on High, that we would do this as 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:29.920 a little extra episode that airs on Fridays. I don't 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:32.000 think they're going to let us publish it at midnight, 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:34.120 because I don't think that would be good business. But 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:38.000 you can think of it as the midnight offering from 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:39.160 Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:42.640 Right, the principalities and powers to create it must come 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:45.600 out in the daytime, but you can still enjoy it 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:47.960 in the daytime. Watch the movie at night and then 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:48.800 listen in the day. 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:51.280 Yeah, or you can skip it. If weird films aren't 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:53.960 your thing, just skip it and you can watch our 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:56.280 core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, which are 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:58.480 still going to come out Tuesdays and Thursdays. 0:01:58.640 --> 0:01:58.800 Now. 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:00.960 I think it's good to get into try too early 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:04.160 in the lifetime of this series because Troll two is 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:08.160 a nuclear weapon of thematic theft. It brings all of 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:12.360 the themes mainly meat and vegetables are the themes of 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:16.000 Troll two. In fact, just before we started recording, we 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:21.560 were talking about that obnoxious mid twenty tens bacon craze 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:25.320 where suddenly there was just ironic bacon on everything. You know, 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:27.600 there would be like a there's a website called the 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:30.200 Art of the Mustache that has a logo with a 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:32.160 guy in a top hat in a monocle, and they 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:36.040 sell bacon flavored whiskey. And I don't know where all 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:39.120 that came from, but I strongly suspect the pork industry. 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:44.080 Yeah. And one place that it did not take root though, 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:48.440 is definitely the town of nil Bog. Nil Bog is 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:51.919 the setting for the movie Troll two, and this is 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:56.560 where the goblins live Nilbog. Of course his goblins spelled backwards. 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:00.720 This is a strange town of some we're in America. 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:04.040 We get kind of a Utah feel from this. Yeah, 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.000 And it's here that we find an American family on 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:11.360 vacation running a foul of goblins and an ancient witch 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:16.000 who uses stone hinge magic in order to turn people 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:21.679 into like vegetable goo so that vegetarian goblins can eat them. 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:25.000 Yes, I would say that is the plot in a nutshell, 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:27.920 it's that there are vegetarian goblins who eat people, but 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:31.919 they have to turn them from meat into vegetarian green 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:35.520 jello before they can eat them, and they worship Stonehenge. 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:38.200 Well, you know, let's just go ahead and listen to 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.520 a little bit of the audio from the original trailer. 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:51.400 Good lad, I'm sorry we had a small miss out. 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:54.720 Here are the Keyes here. 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:57.440 A nice stay in Millmond. 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:00.320 You in our city. 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:11.240 You're telling the same story, Josh. Goddles don't exist, Gossins 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:11.880 don't exist. 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:26.440 And remember thereating good boy, didn't we kids us to 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:27.960 like your first love? 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:31.440 Ice cream? Delicious? 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:48.160 And so this is you know, we're talking about what 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.320 makes a good weird film or a good bad film, 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:53.760 et cetera, the kind of film we want to talk 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:56.279 about on the show. And really this does have everything. 0:04:56.360 --> 0:05:02.520 It has a weird plot, it has weird performances, it 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:07.280 has it has like just weird choices in how they're 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:09.359 going to try and tell this story. It just it 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:11.920 just brings it all. And at the same time, it's 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:16.200 an exceedingly watchable film, Like there's never a dull moment 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:17.760 in Troll Too. 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:21.039 It's impossible to be bored while watching Troll two. Yeah, 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:23.520 this is the kind of movie that also it's not 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:26.599 just entertaining. It sucks people in. It's like a magnet 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:29.279 if you put it on in a house and people 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:31.680 are doing things in other rooms that people will come 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:34.680 from the other rooms to the troll too. They come 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:38.120 from all over to kneel at the foot of stone Hinge. 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:44.280 And it's It's also got a kind of cultural sensibility 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:48.400 that exists basically nowhere else because it's part very much 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:52.479 italianissimo bad horror. You know, it's very Italian, but it's 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:56.400 also very utah and so we were calling it last 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:57.400 night Utalian. 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:00.200 Yeah, that's that's that's a good way of looking yeh. 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:03.920 Because the filmmakers themselves, most of the crew were Italian. 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:07.320 Then the actors are all American and a lot of 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:12.240 them are just very local, non actor American. Now, this 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:14.560 film came out in nineteen ninety, so I want to 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:16.640 set the stage a little bit here. You don't really 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:19.680 need to understand what was going on politically or culturally 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:22.560 in the world for the most part to understand Troll two. 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:28.200 But Troll two is definitely what I refer to as 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:32.080 a Gromlin film. Okay, so it's one of the many, 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:36.520 many films about small, mischievous monsters to come out in 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:40.960 the wake of nineteen eighty four's Grimlins. So I think 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:42.919 if you've ever walked, if you ever walked around a 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:46.440 video rental store, you know what I'm talking about. Because 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:48.880 we didn't just have Grimlins and then eventually Grimlins too. 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:52.320 You had Goolies, you had critters, you had hobgoblins, you 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:55.600 had Munchies, and you had these troll films. 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:58.120 I didn't know about Munchies. I had to look it up. 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:00.920 It looks gross, it looks yeah, nasty. 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:07.279 So Troll two is marketed as a sequel to the 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:10.559 Gromlin film Troll, which came out in nineteen eighty six, 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:13.920 which has nothing to do with Troll too. Troll was 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:17.440 a Charles Band production, and of course Charles Band is 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:21.160 a notable maker of weird films. I think we'll definitely 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:23.960 come back to Charles Band on these episodes in the future. 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:27.080 I think he made the puppet Master movies, didn't he. 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:29.800 He did one thing with Charles Band to keep in mind, 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:33.640 without small creatures. He does like small creatures, but he 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:37.680 was more serious early on in his career, and I 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:40.920 think he kind of found a niche later on is 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:47.239 making sort of intentionally bad films to a certain extent, 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:49.480 you know, certainly once you get into like Evil Bong 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:53.320 and the Gingerbread film. What it was a Ginger Dead 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:54.760 I'm not I can't remember. 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:56.360 Off hand the ginger dead man that was him. 0:07:56.840 --> 0:08:00.680 He did some sort of gingerbread man evil creature thing. Yeah, 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.960 But before that was Puppet Masters, and then before even 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:05.440 that were some films that I hope we'll get back 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:08.960 to on this show. But Patrol from nineteen eighty six 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:13.320 was definitely an attempt to cash in on the Grimlin craze. 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:18.880 It starred the wonderful Michael Moriarty is Harry Potter senior, Yes, 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:22.120 firmly establishing Harry Potter as a fictional character prior to 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:27.640 the Harry Potter books. Atreyu himself, Noah Hathaway was Harry 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:31.080 Potter Junior in that film. And you also had Julia, 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:34.320 Luis Dreyfus and Sonny Bono showing up as various in 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:38.840 various roles. But it was not there's no connection here 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:42.600 between Troll one and Troll two. Troll two is an 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:47.040 Italian production from shock Master Joe Diamatto. That's the producer. 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:49.959 And this is actually something that was pretty common for 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:52.720 Italian films at the times, like a lot of Italian 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:57.640 horror movies would be marketed as a sequel to an 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:00.360 existing movie, even though they had nothing to do with 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:05.240 it whatsoever. So, for example, the Italian movie Zombie was 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:08.200 marketed as a sequel to Dona the Dead even though 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:10.320 it was not made by George Romero, had nothing to 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:13.400 do with Dona the Dead, it just wasn't related. And 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:16.720 there are other movies by Claudio Fergosso, the director of 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:21.880 Troll two, that were marketed as movies in an existing franchise. 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:24.880 So example, they were marketed as like a movie in 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:28.160 the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, even though they weren't. 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:31.079 Right, and in that case the film in question being 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:35.640 night Killer, it was so Texas Chainsaw Masaker had a 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:39.320 different title in Italy and then it's the sequel to that. 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:43.760 So it's not instantly recognizable to a lot of Western 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:46.480 film fans that this would be marketed as a sequel 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:48.720 to Texas Chainsaw Masaker. 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:52.160 Yeah, in Italy, Texas Chainsaw was non a pre or 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:54.280 I don't know how to pronounce it, non a prete 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:56.680 de la puerta, I think, which means like, do not 0:09:56.800 --> 0:09:57.760 open that door. 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:01.280 Ah, well, that's great. I love a good don't film. 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:03.560 All right, Well, let's talk about some of the people 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:07.160 of note here. So really one of one of the 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:10.600 main two people to focus on is the director himself, 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:15.400 Claudio Fergasso born in nineteen fifty one, still very much 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:18.800 alive as of this recording and still making films, I believe. 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:22.160 While Troll two is probably his most well known film 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:24.719 in the US, he's had quite a long career in 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:27.800 the Italian film world, with some of his pictures shooting 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:32.800 in the United States. He has thirty director credits forty 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:37.960 screenwriting credits, including such notable entries as Monster Dog starring 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:43.079 Alice Cooper and then Shocking Dark, which was a Bruno 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:47.800 Mattei directed knockoff of Aliens and Terminator, and it's kind 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:49.960 of infamous in its own right for being just a 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:51.239 blatant knockoff. 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:55.280 Well mainly from what I'm understand, I haven't seen that one. 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:58.760 The box art is just the cover of Terminator. I 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:02.280 mean it's just, yeah, straight out James Cameron's Terminator, A 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:04.200 slight like a traced version of it. 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:04.760 Pretty much. 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:08.760 But the movie is more a ripoff of Aliens, isn't it. 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:11.840 Yeah, Yeah, Like I was watching some clips from it, 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:14.320 and it's clearly like, let's go make Aliens, guys, let's 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:17.920 do it, but with a much cheaper budget. 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:26.199 Obviously, Aliens was a prolifically ripped off filmy. Like Aliens 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:29.040 has more copycats than maybe any other movie I can 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:32.760 think of. It really spawned the space marine genre, which 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:35.080 was everywhere in the eighties and nineties. 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:37.680 Yeah, I mean it's been ripped off at every level too. 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:40.280 It's been ripped off at the shocking dark level. But 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:43.760 also just so many films would not exist, Like they're clearly, 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:47.200 you know, feeding on that same energy, they're tapping into 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:47.880 that same vein. 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:52.400 But now so a lot of the directors, writer directors, 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:56.640 AU tours who create horror movies, you might be, I 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:58.240 don't know, you might be tempted to kind of just 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:00.720 call them hacks, like they're just phoning in some work. 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:03.240 They're pointing the camera at things, they're telling the actors 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:05.200 what to say, and then they get on with it. 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:07.760 I get the feeling from at least Troll two that 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:11.640 Fragaso very much sees himself as an artist, and he 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:13.559 is in there in the movie. 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:17.720 Yes, yeah, absolutely. So for instance, two of the names 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:22.920 already mentioned Joe Diamatto and Bruno Mattei. So Joe Diamatto, 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:26.120 I really have enjoyed some of his films, but he 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:30.240 was very much a in the business of titillation, like 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:33.120 what can I do violently or erotically on the screen 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:38.240 that will we'll bring viewers in. And then Bruno and 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:41.160 Fragoso points this out as well in interviews, like Bruno 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:43.120 was very much like, let's make some money, let's get 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:45.280 let's make some money. Let's go do a predator movie. 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:47.599 I'm doing. Let's I'm gonna make aliens, write me a 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:50.440 script for aliens. We'll call it shocking Dark, you know, 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:53.320 Like that was very much the vibe. But for Gaso, 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:56.199 I think one of the things that's fascinating about him 0:12:56.720 --> 0:12:59.160 is that he, yeah, he did seem to think of 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:03.560 himself as as this like legitimate autour. You know, that 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:06.839 he had had something to say in these films, and 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:11.000 that can be vital to having like a really successful 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:14.360 weird film or just a really amusing B film because 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:17.640 somebody cares. I think we've said We've pointed out this 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:21.000 out before. To really enjoy a well, any film, but 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:24.319 especially a B movie, somebody has to be serious about it. 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:26.600 There's got to be an actor in there, or an 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:31.280 FX person, a cinematographer. Somebody's got to be serious about 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:32.760 saying something with this film. 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:35.400 With Troll two, you really get the feeling that for Gosso, 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:39.240 this is not just a plot device. He really means 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:42.240 it when he says that evil can only be defeated 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:45.200 by the power of goodness and by processed meat, like 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:46.240 he really thinks that. 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.880 Yeah, because we do have to drive home that just 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:54.240 because you have ideas and just because you have something 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:57.439 you want to say, it doesn't mean you're capable of 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:00.800 creating interesting cinema. It doesn't mean you're capable of actually 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:04.320 pushing those ideas through to the finished product. It doesn't 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.000 mean that those ideas are going to survive the budgetary 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:10.440 constraints or the you know or you know, your your 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:13.600 limited ability to you know, to cast professional actors in 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:17.960 the role, et cetera. But still you can often see 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:20.040 that the effort is there in the finished product, like 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.280 at some point somebody cared and I should point out 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:26.040 that Fragasso seems he seems pretty open about this in 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:28.360 recent interviews I've seen with him, where he's like, yeah, 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.480 I really you know, I I I really thought I was, 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:34.920 you know, as a serious filmmaker when I was making 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:38.440 a Control Too or or or night Killer or whatever 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.600 the case may be. And I think he's kind of 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:43.920 like sees like, oh, yeah, maybe I maybe I should 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:45.720 have listened a little more to Bruno when he was 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:47.880 telling me, No, you're making a horror movie, you're making 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:50.360 a slasher movie, you're making a monster movie. Just go 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:52.640 out and make it. But you know, he wanted to 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:55.240 inject this this art or in this and or this 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:57.040 commentary on what he was doing. 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:01.880 You get a sense of art artistic ego also in 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:04.680 his work, in the very best classical sense, like a 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:08.040 John Milton kind of ego, the person who believes that 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:11.680 his message is very important and he's the only one 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:12.960 who can say it. 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:16.920 Yeah. Now, of course these are not these films are 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:21.440 not just Fragaso's voice. Also there's the voice of his 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:26.280 co screenwriter and I believe partner, Rosella Drudi. Now. Drudi 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:29.160 was born in nineteen sixty three. Frequent collaborator with her 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:32.640 husband and seemed to share his ambition for exploring social 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:38.200 commentary and psychology in their films. As John O'Brien pointed 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:40.760 out in a recent piece for sci Fi Wire, she 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:47.840 described Troll two as a quote ferocious analysis of today's society. 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:48.920 Yeah. 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:54.480 I mean it's definitely about today's society where where you 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:57.040 can't get any eggs at the store because the guy 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:00.360 there says black and he only gives you unrefrigerated milk. 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:03.520 Yeah, just sitting there on the shelf, that nil bog milk. 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:07.200 It's definitely about today's society where when you move into 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:10.760 a new neighborhood, they bring you a cheesecake, but it's 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:15.240 made with wild nettles that turn your body into green jello. Definitely, 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:19.280 it points out how in society today you can take 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:21.880 a month off of work by just calling your boss 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:24.120 the night before and saying, Hey, I'm going to be 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:25.720 gone for a month. Can you take care of that 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:26.520 business for me? 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:28.040 Yeah. 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:33.960 So basically Troll two is just wall to wall wonderful 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:39.720 little dialogue exchanges between characters who are supposed to be human, or, 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:43.520 at least in the case of the nil Boggians, they're 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:48.239 supposed to be goblins pretending to be humans. But everybody 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.360 says things that no human has ever said, that no 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:54.080 human would ever say, things that just don't sound like 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:56.960 authentic human dialogue. Like it seems as if the entire 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:01.120 movie is actually populated by goblins trying to pass themselves 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:02.360 off as human beings. 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:04.000 I want to come back to this point about the 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:06.679 lack of verisimilitude later on, because I think that is 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:09.720 the defining esthetic feature of the movie, and we should 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:10.880 explore that in a bit. 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:14.280 Yes, let's go ahead and go through the rest of 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.280 the cast. For what it's worth here, we have to 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:21.920 mention Michael Paul Stevenson, who plays the boy Joshua Waits, notably, 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:24.479 but mostly in terms of troll Too, for making the 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:28.320 two thousand and nine documentary Best Worst Movie, which is 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:31.320 an exploration of what this film is and where it 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:34.040 came from. But he's also directed other things. He directed 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:37.200 the twenty seventeen Bob Odenkirk movie Girlfriend's Day. 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:39.879 I saw a Best Worst Movie at a screening here 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:44.280 in Atlanta at a local theater, and George Hardy, the 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:47.280 actor who plays the father and the family in trol Too, 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:49.840 was there to answer questions at the screening. It was 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:50.520 really special. 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:54.160 The dentist with the linebacker's job that plays the dad. 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:56.600 Yeah, yes, well I think so. Here's another thing about 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:58.560 Troll two, and we should describe the plot in more 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:01.680 detail in a minute here, But so it is about 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:05.200 a family who goes to this goblin infested town. The family, 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:07.760 I think is clearly supposed to be modeled on the 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:12.360 family from Poltergeist, because we just recently watched Poltergeist, and 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:16.680 I would be shocked if in casting George Hardy they 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:18.480 weren't trying to go for Craig T. 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:19.080 Nelson. 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:23.119 Yeah. He is kind of like a you know, bottom 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:26.840 basement Craig T. Nelson. Yeah, yeah, and definitely he's great 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:29.760 in it as well. But a couple of the real 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:34.440 standout performances for me are from, you know, from other characters. 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:37.399 For instance, there's an actor by the name of Deborah 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:42.560 Reid who plays the witch Credence leonor Gilgod in this 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:45.359 particular movie, and this is this is pretty much her 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:48.960 only acting role, but she just acts her heart and 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:52.960 face off in every scene. Like you get the impression 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:55.680 that Fragaso was just saying, like, I like what you're doing. 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:58.359 But go ahead and do it like fifty times what 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:01.960 you're doing now, just more, Just give me more of that. 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:03.160 He's like, it's just like. 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:05.880 George Lucas, a faster, louder, more intense. 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:08.880 Yes. But she, but she takes it to heart. 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:14.600 Credence slays in this movie. She is so good she is. 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:19.359 It's it's a very melodramatic community theater type performance. But 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.280 she's the kind of actor who you would see in 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:25.439 an amateur community theater production. But she would be the 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:29.919 standout actor, head and shoulders above everybody else in that Like, 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:32.040 you wouldn't be able to stop talking about her after 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:32.520 it was over. 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:34.720 I would say that it is perhaps one of the 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:37.919 most memorable overacting jobs of all time. Yeah, it's and 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:41.520 it's almost not overacting because it fits in this film perfectly, 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:44.560 Like it's it's not like everybody else is doing like 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:48.000 a real refined and professional time and she's just hamming 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:49.960 it up. No, I mean, this is the perfect place 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:51.679 for this level of hamminess. 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:53.600 Uh huh, Now what about I know you wanted to 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:56.879 talk about the guy who runs the general store in Nilbog, 0:19:56.960 --> 0:19:59.159 who the guy who's like, we don't have any bacon 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:03.320 her eggs here, that's oh in the coffee. No coffee, 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:06.119 it's the devil's drink. But we do have shelves and 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:11.119 shelves of unrefrigerated milk and what looks like jars of 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:13.880 pink teeth is all I could say. 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:15.520 I'm not sure what that's supposed to be. 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:18.280 Yeah, yeah, they didn't get to that one. Maybe there's 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:20.800 a cutscene, but but no. This guy playing the drug 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:24.439 store owner is Don Packard. This is his only screen 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:27.240 role outside of you know, showing up in the documentary. 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:30.560 But man, he comes off as a legitimately creepy and 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:33.440 intense character in a way that really makes me think 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:35.720 this guy missed his calling as a B movie heavy 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:40.600 because he has this kind of like carved from granite face. 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:42.399 He looks like he should be like just an old 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:45.040 cowboy sitting in the back of a gunsmoke episode. 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:48.639 Yeah, he could have been a Michael Ironside of his generation, 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:50.560 but not quite. 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:53.560 Oh it's said he's his generation's Don Packard. But you know, 0:20:53.720 --> 0:21:04.679 it's a memorable performance. A lot of the other actors 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:07.360 in the film were, of course, just straight up locals, 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:11.480 and many of them didn't work beyond this picture. But 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:16.280 there is an interesting bit of one interesting person from 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:20.320 the crew, Laura Gimser, an actor who starred in numerous 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:25.320 Immanuel movies, which were erotic pictures of the day. Sometimes 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:27.440 she was credited as Emmanuel, or she'd be playing the 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:31.120 Emmanuel character. She was the costume designer on troll Too, 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:34.480 and reportedly she was the only crew member who spoke 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:38.960 both Italian and English well enough to communicate with the actors, 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:43.200 So she was the communicative bridge between the filmmakers and 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:44.919 the crew and the cast. 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:50.560 She was the human babblefish that made this artistic production possible. Yes, well, 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:52.639 that makes sense because a lot of the dialogue in 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:55.080 this movie feels like when you take a sentence and 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:58.879 you run it through Google Translate several times to different languages. 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:05.520 Yeah. Yeah, apparently. Fragaso was very It was very firm 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:08.160 on the idea that the script should be used verbatim. 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:11.159 So there was gonna be no ad libbing, no taking 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:13.800 the dialogue and putting it in a form that would 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:17.159 come out naturally through your mouth. No, it needed to 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:20.280 stay in the original form. And therefore you have these 0:22:20.320 --> 0:22:25.440 just strangely structured sentences and sometimes just strangely expressed thoughts. 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:27.640