Finally, we hit one of the most notorious bad movies of all time. At one point, Troll 2 was the #1 lowest rated movie on IMDB.com until people realized it's freaking awesome. Praised by many and loved by tons, it's a treasure of a film and we can't wait to dive into it.
A favorite cinematic guilty pleasure https://t.co/4JwTXRhIS5
— Don Carpenter (@BrakDBarbarian) June 27, 2016
The young one was playing Zombie Catchers, and he just earned this guy:@StinkerMadness pic.twitter.com/bk7cpUFbLs
— Brad Slager (@MartiniShark) June 22, 2016
Darkman II: The Return of Durant - Starz
Keoma - YouTube
The Day the Clown Cried Edit - Youtube
I guess we'll start with Claudio. Claudio Fagrasso started working as a writer and assistant director before getting some second unit work and uncredited directed sequences in various Bruno Mattei films. He has worked more under assumed names than his own. For Monster Dog and many others he takes on his favored moniker of Clyde Anderson. For Troll 2 he goes by Drake Floyd. He can also be credited as variations of something close to his own name and on at least one occasion Werner Knox.
This film was apparently either made or sequestered half way through production to capitalize on the minimal success of Troll. I should think that calling Troll a minimal success is maximum generosity. Either way this film that was possibly supposed to be about goblins would become the sequel to a film that is completely unrelated. It cannot be understated, there are no trolls in this film, nor is this a sequel to a very bad movie about a troll.
The film was written by Fragasso and his wife Rosella Drudi. Drudi got the idea for this tepid horror when two of her friends became vegetarians. Drudi and Fragasso may not have known, but Jello is most assuredly made of animal byproducts and not whatsoever vegetarian in nature.
Rather than write the film in Italian and then have it haphazardly translated back into English, Fragasso and Drudi would just do there best to write it in English, despite knowing only fragments of the language. Fragasso and Drudi would hold very few brief casting calls with up to 7 other non-English speaking Italians, all of whom would later be described as heavy smokers. All of the cast thought that they were auditioning for extras and stand in's, nope you're the stars. Dentist, George Hardy was cast because the large surly group of heavy smokers liked his enthusiasm, not because they could understand the language he was speaking. I can't stress enough that none of these people spoke English. When shooting would finally commence the costume designer was the only person who spoke both English and Italian and would have to translate. At one point the cast, most likely through the costume designer, would request to ad-lib lines with the same intent rather than deliver the nonsense that was written down. Fragasso angrily forbade any alterations of his script. At one point Claudio became so agitated that he refused to interact with anyone who spoke English, including the costume director who was an Italian national.
Now for the cast Deborah Reed was cast as, and I will use this term loosely,"witch" was tasked with providing her own wardrobe. Don Packard was brought in as the drugstore owner, he was apparently actually quite insane and had been in and out of the loony bin prior to production. Packard never delivered any of the proper lines, for him this wasn't a problem. Michael Stephenson would play the protagonist, if there is one. He would go on to make Best Worst Movie, about the experience of making this film. I won't roll through the whole cast but the remaining notables are Connie Young, who plays the older sister. She remains to be the only actress in a major role that I have ever seen murder every single one of her lines. Doesn't even get close to delivering one.
Darren Ewing's famous scene, or "the line", has been viewed over 4 million times on YouTube. Later in the same scene he would get turned into a tree. For this sequence, to get him to hold still, they screwed his shoes down, laced them up tight and left his ass there for 14 hours.
Robert Ormsby plays Grandpa Seth, who make no sense whatsoever.
KAEOF: The lost yellow shirt, the quite actually insane Don Packard, Jello and Popcorn.
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