CONNECTING THE UNCONNECTED 'TROLL' WITH 'TROLL 2'

Connecting Troll 2 to the unconnected Troll

WHERE TROLL AND TROLL 2 COLLIDE: The first venture is simple and entertaining enough...

T2 Poster

Charles Band’s TROLL centers on a family moving into an apartment building that winds up being taken over by a bevy of creatures led by one particular Troll, wanting his old magical kingdom to reign once again. And the more famously infamous sequel is awful and beloved for that reason, making the original fairy tale homage an all but forgotten franchise footnote while inspiring a documentary titled BEST WORST MOVIE (that features yours truly as a script writing fan) centering on the immense ever-growing cinematic phenom known as TROLL 2, originally titled GOBLIN… indeed centering on Goblins, not Trolls… And the sequel supposedly had nothing to do with TROLL, a name thrown in at the 11th hour for distribution reasons, as if TROLL had an actual following… And yet, while revisiting the first movie, which actually isn’t that awful, there were many similarities for two projects that supposedly only had a title in common... So as you'll see the comparisons, the original TROLL is pictured on the left, while cult-phenom TROLL 2's on the right...

Troll Manor Font

OPENING CREDIT FONT AND SPOOKY MANOR: The opening credits in either film is almost exactly the same, a Goth aesthetic appearing with a brooding score and a large spooky dark house serving as a sinister backdrop…

Spooky Font

Both movies have formidable looking manors yet only TROLL 2 uses their location throughout. The original manor is hidden by the apartment house that it would become, and ultimately attempt to change back into. And the T2 title sequence cuts literally to the chase, showing a horde of goblins running wild: One main difference in the credits are, of course, the names: the original has real actors the likes of Michael Moriarty, Shelley Hack, Sonny Bono, and others mentioned further in, while the super low-budget sequel is full of no-names, including a real life dentist; all were completely unknown and never heard of again until the documentary brought their unprofessional brilliance to light.

New Apartment

FAMILY OF FOUR MOVE INTO A NEW LOCATION: The primary plot has a family moving into a new residence…

Nilbog Trade Home

In TROLL, the happy clan of four move into an apartment building that winds up becoming Troll Central…

But TROLL 2 would have nothing that basic… Instead, the Italian writer of the film might have thought families swapping houses from the suburbs to the sticks was a normal thing in America: Thus the Waits Family lets a local clan of NILBOG (Goblin Spelled Backwards) live at their home while they move into the rural homestead, and the adventure begins.

NH as Harry Potter

MAIN CHARACTER IS A CURIOUS YOUNG BOY: That billionaire British Fantasy author didn’t invent Harry Potter, the name…

Joshua in TROLL 2

He is in fact the moniker of both Noah Hathaway’s character and his father… Harry Potter Sr. and Harry Potter Jr. might not be altogether mystical, but the son knows how to fight against magic like the latter spectacled icon knew how to wield it…

Cast as the original intrepid youngster, child and teen actor Noah Hathaway was no slouch. He played Boxey on the original BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and is best known as Atreyu in THE NEVERENDING STORY… And in TROLL 2, the little boy, Joshua, is played by Michael Stephenson, not an altogether horrible child actor yet not established before or after: That is until his brilliant BEST WORST MOVIE provided a worthy day job as a damn fine filmmaker.

Dungeonmaster Fan

THE BOY’S ROOM IS A CARNIVAL OF PRODUCT PLACEMENT: Each boy’s room is full of product placement ranging from superheroes to sport icons…

Basketball Lamp

The TROLL 2 kid has a basketball lamp and a cartoon Joker poster while the original has a movie poster of DUNGEONMASTER and a Dallas Cowboys flag… Very eclectic, these two…

Although the teen sister from TROLL 2 has them both beat… Her room wields images of movie heartthrob Tom Cruise and future cinema darling Johnny Depp in his 21 JUMP STREET television days… How either low-budget vehicle was able to afford all this junk is beyond perplexing, but it’s nice eye candy for viewers, providing glimpses into a pop culture past.

Jenny Back in T1

SISTER IS SULLEN AND GROUCHY: The sisters are both bitches, in their own way, and can’t be more different despite their bitter expressions and contempt for their siblings…

Connie Young in T2

The TROLL 2 sister/daughter, played by Connie Young, is much older than her little bro, and is really just a moody teen who wants her boyfriend along for the trip, and is altogether embarrassed about her family in general… But the more important TROLL girl, played by V: THE FINAL CHAPTER Star Child Jenny Beck, holds the real cards, plot-wise, being possessed by the Troll early on, and then showing her false colors throughout, making her a cross between Linda Blair and Frankenstein's Monster.

Kitchen Ouchy

KID BLAMED FOR DOING SOMETHING RUDE AT THE KITCHEN TABLE: In TROLL , Jenny Beck’s Troll-possessed Wendy Anne Potter winds up taking a bite out of her brother's arm...

A pissed idea

Despite the bloody proof, she only almost gets in trouble; somehow Harry seems more paranoid than an actual victim of sibling rivarly… And once again, TROLL 2 trumps anything that normal as young Joshua winds up taking a “piss on hospitality” to keep his family from turning into goblins, providing a golden shower onto their green morning bagels; strategically placed for an otherworldly changeling that doesn't occur thanks to the brilliance of the little squirt… pun intended.

Moriarty & Hack

OBLIVIOUS PARENTALS: The parents in each film are both friendly, loving, completely dumbfounded and unaware of anything nefarious happening. And yet their children are completely aware of the ongoing nightmare, and fully experience it…

"Goblins?"

That is, until the end when everyone realizes the situation and must battle the evil forces together…

In the original, the otherwise talented, highly regarded method actor Michael Moriarty plays Harry Potter Sr., and his wife Anne was a final season CHARLIE'S ANGELS starlet and a worthy KING OF COMEDY alumni, Shelley Hack… Meanwhile, TROLL 2 parents George Hardy and Margo Prey aren't exactly members of the Actor's Studio while Moriarty, during one scene while dancing to the sonic BLUE CHEER version of SUMMERTIME BLUES, seems to be playing camp on purpose like he did in Larry Cohen's Q: THE WINGED SERPENT and THE STUFF a few years earlier.

Scared but not really

YOUNGEST CHILDREN ALONE IN A DARKENED BEDROOM: This only counts in a technical sense and isn’t geographically correct since when TROLL 2 kiddo Joshua is staring out from his bed sheets...

Don't Look Outside, Joshua

He’s in his real home and not the central spooky location that his family moved into during the mysterious swap: while the other family surreptitiously remains in NILBOG, which Joshua would learn later on... While in the original, Jenny Beck’s bedroom stare isn't really that of fright, but more fitfully curious, as this is the important money-shot when she gets possessed by the Troll in the first place.

Troll Main Troll

THE MAIN TROLL IS A LITTLE PERSON IN A COSTUME: The chief troll in TROLL is not only more legitimate since he is, in fact, a TROLL, but he’s an important vessel that drives the story…

Troll 2 main Goblin

Phil Fondacaro plays both Torok the Troll and the most endearing character, a kindhearted Little Person who, stricken with a fatal disease, befriends the cursed young daughter, who sees potential in his “shortcomings” as a doomed human to be a perfect fit for the progressing Troll-Land canvas… Meanwhile in TROLL 2, the main GOBLIN somewhat resembles Torok only more menacing, bloodthirsty, ultra low-budget and, speaking with the voice of a retarded ten-year old, doesn’t have an agenda other than making people turn green so he and his sinister crew can have an endless feast.

June Lockhart

THE OLD TROLL QUEEN: There are two queens in both TROLL films… And they are still one person… The first is old and the other is a younger version...

Evil Troll Queen

Especially in the original where LOST IN SPACE veteran June Lockhart’s Eunice St. Clair has a special bond with the other dimension even before it takes over, being part of a Medieval style backstory, and she owns the R2D2 of the movie – a cutesy mushroom plant that tugs at the heartstrings… That’s the contrived attempt, anyhow… Meanwhile, the TROLL 2 villain is played over-the-top and jovially insane by the lovely Deborah Reed who, in true Queen form, is not beautiful but a gruesome hybrid of the aforementioned EXORCIST Linda Blair and some sort of campy witch in a local small town theater… 

Anne Lockhart

OLD QUEEN TURNED YOUNG: In strategic casting, June Lockhart turns into her daughter, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA actress Anne Lockhart, playing mom’s younger self, who winds up a sword-battling vixen verses the nefarious Troll creatures after they turn the Complex into a sinister green forest…

Young hot Queen

And in TROLL 2 the old and/or gruesomely ugly Queen turns exceptionally hot when we experience Deborah Reed sans ghoulish makeup, looking downright sexy and seductive, especially when she dances up to one victim before a makeout session involving an RV full of popcorn, putting the kernelful climax of REAL GENIUS to shame.

Old contrived show

A BIZARRE FAKE TELEVISION MOVIE PLAYING: In each, there is a fake movie playing on the TV set that the characters are watching, for no apparent reason…

In TROLL it’s a sort of gimmicky old fashion retro kinda thing, unexplained and unimportant, and once again TROLL 2 goes one giant step beyond its more conventional predecessor…

Newer Contrived Movie

Showing a bizarre film where a gorilla, existing in a prehistoric setting, yanks off his own head… sits on the head which becomes a rocket… blasting him into the sky while cartoon music plays… Although it must be noted that this particular movie within a movie, along with other scenes viewed later on by the doomed teens, is somewhat of a cheat – for it was used in a few other films by the same TROLL 2 producer, including HITCHER IN THE DARK, borrowing not only the 2001 inspired gorilla but the same RV.

T1 Green Death

VICTIMS GO GREEN: In both films the victims turn green, basically morphing from human form into vegetation…

The Ewing Mask

In the original this changeling occurs in order for the real world to become the land of mystical creatures… It has to do with the progression of the story, and the transformation occurs by the power of the lead Troll... While in the second film, instigated only when the victims are successfully coaxed into eating green food, the shift occurs so the people can turn into pudding for the goblins to feed on… Basically, one alters the plot while the other alters the appetite of the antagonists.

Julia Louis Dreyfus

LOVELY SIRENS: Right as the cheesy yet ominous synthesizer rolls out its eerie carpet of doom, TROLL 2 begins with a beautiful young girl leading (or rather, misleading) a young man into a world that’s not as storybook perfect as it may seem…

Nice Fake Freckles

The actress, played by a cute Michele Abrams, is painted with fake freckles, giving her smitten lad a drink of green slime that will narrow his life into moments of sheer pain: all unseen… And in the original, a very familiar beauty, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, bookended between SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE and SEINFELD, goes from a lovely yuppie into a lovelier forest nymph, looking like Eve in the Garden while coaxing her very own Adam into a kingdom of shadows…

SNL alumni Brad Hall

HANDSOME DOLTS FOLLOWING THEIR LOVELY VIXENS: And that guy following Dreyfus is Brad Hall, Julia’s real life husband and former SNL co-star…

Starts T2

He ventures into this strange new world and it doesn’t mean as much as poor Peter from TROLL 2... And unlike Hall's misled tempted guy, Peter doesn't really exist but is a character in a story told by Joshua's deceased yet rather helpful wraith, Grandpa Seth, who winds up his young apprentice's personal Obi Wan Kenobi, using his own force to kick Goblin ass.

Right Wing nut Gary Sandy

OVERALL BODY COUNT TEMPLATE: And last but not least the body count horror flick aspect of both TROLL directed by Charles Band and TROLL 2 directed by Drake Floyd aka Claudio Fragasso and written by his wife, Rossella Drudi…

Darren Dwing

In the original, swinger Sonny Bono, gun nut Gary Sandy (shown to the left) and a few others are turned into green vegetation adding to Torok’s promised land...

While in TROLL 2 the group of horny teenagers are served up as intentional victims, like your typical slasher FRIDAY THE 13th or HALLOWEEN vehicle: The daughter’s boyfriend’s especially close-knit friends all meeting their own bizarre fate, and the best character of the doomed teens is the first one to venture out, all alone, into his very slow-moving fate... but at least he lasts a while... because Darren Ewing's Arnold steals the show...