Saturday was one of the best days of my life and it all started back at Halloween. I went to my friend Danny's house to watch ANTM and he insisted that we watch the movie Troll 2. I protested. I wanted to leave, but I stayed out of pure curiosity since it was filmed in Utah. My life changed. I fell in love. This movie has to be the best movie in the world because it is so bad. It has everything a bad movie needs and more - bad acting, terrible plot and script, a name that has nothing to do with the movie, peeing on food, stretching, pink shorts, choreograhpy in garfield jammies, cornography, etc.
Fast forward a few months and I heard about the most incredible opportunity ever. There was going to be a film festival over the weekend just for this movie - in the small town where it was filmed - Morgan, UT. I had driven through Morgan as a kid on our way to go camping and I even recognized the Devil's Slide in the movie. But I had never actually been to the town.
I told Danny that we had to go to the festival so we made the drive and went to a cast panel. It was a crazy thing held in an old dance studio. The director and writer (married couple from Italy who hardly speak any English) came in and that's when things got entertaining. I still don't know for sure if the director understood that people were making fun of the movie for being so bad. He kept making hand gestures that I'm pretty sure are obscene in Europe. But his wife was cute and she seemed to go along with things. The funny thing is that some of the cast members had never even seen the movie and the ones who did were horrified - not because it was a horror film, but because it was so bad. Except for the grumpy old shop keeper. He was serious about his role and was mad at everyone else. He was wearing sweat pants tucked into his socks with tennis shoes. He was great.
I don't want to ruin the movie for you but I have to tell you that there are no trolls in Troll 2, but there are Goblins and that might help you figure out the name of the town in the movie:
It turns out our friend Tasha is from Morgan and her grandparents own most of the buildings downtown on commercial street. These buildings were part of the movie. There are a couple of mink farms nearby so Tasha's family incorporated that theme into the window art of their cafe:
Yes. That is a Coyote ready to eat a decaying bird and a mink holding a fork - all on a log.
There was some time in between the panel and the screening of the movie so we met up with some other friends to have dinner and then Tasha showed us around Morgan. Look how amazing this place is:
And here is an old abandoned, haunted church that was part of the movie:
Then we went to the Morgan Rodeo for a bit:
And....... the moment we had all been waiting for - the screening of the movie in a field behind Commercial Street on a giant inflatable screen. People came from all over just for this event. There was a guy from Austria, a couple from Chicago, a group from North Dakota and a bunch of others.
It also turns out that there was a girl there that I know from college and she is married to the guy who played the part of the son - Joshua in the movie. There is actually a scene where he pees on the food his family is about to eat so that they don't turn into Goblin food. Don't worry they don't show anything graphic - it's all inferred. This guy is now making a documentary about this movie called "The Best Worst Movie"
I haven't had a day like this in a long time. It was nearly perfect.
