The 1990s horror-comedy flick that earned a cult following for being the "best worst movie" plays tonight in Ogden at the 9 Rails Film Festival where there will also be food trucks, door prizes, a costume contest, silent auction, and a Q&A with the actors.

Ogden Independent News

9 Rails Film Festival returns on Sunday, October 31, this year celebrating the 1990 famously terrible comedy-horror flick, “Troll 2,” starring Ogden-based musician and actor Darren Ewing who will be in attendance, among others, for a Q & A at the film screening.

There will also be a costume contest with prizes, a silent auction, cash bar, food trucks, and more at the free, all ages event at The Monarch in Ogden on Halloween night.

“Oh my gaaaaaaaawwwd!” exclaims Ewing in the film upon realizing he’s about to be eaten by, not a troll, a goblin. Trolls do not appear anywhere in the movie. This is one of many oddities that make this one of the most celebrated cult classics of all time.

“Troll 2,” a film about a family hunted by vegetarian goblins trying to mutate them into plants so they can eat them, has no connection to the 1986 movie “Troll” (or the Dreamworks animated “Trolls”).

Originally titled “Goblin” by its Italian producers, American distributors tacked the “Troll 2” name onto it hoping to bring in some extra cash flow from the totally unrelated semi-successful 80s film that preceded it. It did no such thing. Straight to VHS and forgotten was its fate, until cult movie fanatics unearthed it years later making it one of the most successful catastrophic flops in cinema history.

In 2009, a highly acclaimed documentary about the film was released called “Best Worst Film,” directed by Michael Stephenson, who starred in “Troll 2” as a child. The documentary centers around the film’s endearing lead actor, a dentist from Alabama named George Hardy, for whom it was his first and last acting stint.

Most of the actors were from Utah where “Troll 2” was filmed. Connie Young, who played teenager Holly Waits in the movie, later starred in the LDS flick “The Singles Ward.” Don Packard, who portrayed the drug store owner with the infamous line, “There’s no coffee in Nilbog. It’s the devil’s drink!” admits in the documentary to being an outpatient from the University of Utah psych ward during the filming of “Troll 2” and confessed to hating the child actor Michael Stephenson and that he was “not acting.”

Nilbog, Goblin backwards, is the name of the fictional town where the story takes place. It was shot in two weeks by Italian director Claudio Fragasso ( under the pseudonym Drake Floyd) in Morgan and Porterville, Utah during the summer of 1989 on a miniscule budget. The goblin queen Creedence Leonore Gielgud's house is the 1898 “Old Porterville Chapel” that is on the Utah State Register of Historic Sites.

Cult movie writers in Ogden, Doug Gibson and Steve Stones, journeyed there to do a podcast for their blog, planninecrunch.blogspot.com, which also featured an article about “Best Worst Film” and the Nilbog Invasion event of 2008. Both say it’s the hilariously weird dialogue that makes “Troll 2” so extraordinary.

The language barrier between the Italian filmmakers and American actors didn’t help, nor were the actors' attempts to warn the director that their lines were “not how American teenagers talk.” Fragasso ignored their cries and made them speak the lines verbatim, such as the revered Holly quote: “If my father discovers you here, he’d cut off your little nuts and eat them.”

And those lines, among other atrocities, “And you can’t piss on hospitality. I won’t allow it!” have fed “Troll 2” fans with years of gleeful viewing experiences.

Stones calls cult films “lost puppies.” “They’re a time capsule that says something about the time in which they were made,” he said. To Gibson, “the secret to a cult film is that it can’t be replicated.”

There can never be another film like this lost puppy, “Troll 2”—spectacularly awful or misunderstood brilliance too far ahead of its time (as the director claims)? See it, and decide for yourself on Halloween night!

The 9 Rails Film Festival will be at The Monarch on Sunday, October 31, at 7 p.m. The all-ages event is free, but donations are graciously encouraged.

All proceeds from donations and the auction will go to Ogden Contemporary Arts and assist in funding for next year's event. Donations may be made in person or in advance through Venmo @MonarchVenues. The original “Troll 2” artwork by Ogden artist Steve Stones will be included in the silent auction, along with other fantastic items donated by our generous sponsors: Art Box, The Bonneville, The Big O Doughnuts, Cuppa, Ellis Printing, Hope & Evolution, Indie Ogden, Iron Pine Co., Kev Shoots, Madison Place, Morgan Sculpture Studio, The Monarch, Taboo Pizza, Thomas Printers, Star Firm Realty, and Wasatch Roasting Company.

9 Rails Film Festival 2021

7:00 p.m. Doors open

• Costume contest registration

• Cash bar

• Food trucks

• Silent Auction bidding

8:00 p.m. Troll 2 screening

9:30 p.m. Q&A and meet and greet with actors from Troll 2

• Darren Ewing, Jason Steadman, and more

10:00 p.m. Silent Auction winners announced

10:30 p.m. Costume Contest winners announced

The Monarch is located at 455 25th Street, Ogden, 84401. Free parking is available on the street and in adjacent lots.

The 9 Rails Film Festival features local artists and their associated films with events focused on raising money for artists and local non-profit organizations that support the arts in Ogden and especially in the 9 Rails Creative District.