Claudio Fragasso has worked well beyond horror, but Troll 2 explains his cult reputation: an absurd premise pursued in earnest. We find its accidental comedy too intermittent to excuse the weak storytelling.
Fi1m perspective
In Troll 2 (1990), vegetarian goblins need to turn people into plants before they can eat them. Claudio Fragasso treats this dietary requirement seriously enough for it to become the film’s chief source of comedy. We laughed when Joshua Waits urinated on the family dinner to protect them, because the bluntness of his solution briefly made the supernatural threat worth following. That is a good joke in a poor horror film, and too much of the running time passes between such moments.
He did not spend his entire career making this sort of horror. From 1980 to 1990 he worked closely, and often without credit, with director Bruno Mattei; his own horror films included Monster Dog (1986) and After Death (1989). He returned to Italy in the 1990s for Teste Rasate (1993) and the crime drama Palermo – Milan One Way (1995). It is worth remembering that turn towards crime and social drama before treating his work as a collection of amusing mistakes.
Screenwriter Rossella Drudi, a frequent writing partner, shares the Troll 2 screenplay credit with Fragasso. Their idea of making food dangerous has something unpleasant in it, and the film was conceived as family-oriented horror-comedy. But the awkward conversations give the family too little credibility, so the peculiar diet must do almost all the work of holding our attention. Artificial monsters can frighten when the people facing them are convincing; here, Fragasso struggles to make us care about the family long enough for their predicament to become frightening.
We can understand the affection for a film so solemn about something so unlikely. What we cannot share is the patience required to sit through scenes that are neither frightening nor funny while waiting for another mistake to enjoy. His ability to finish films under tight constraints is a practical strength, though it does not make Troll 2 any easier to sit through. Approach it for that particular curiosity if it appeals; we would not recommend it as an evening’s horror.
Biography
Claudio Fragasso is an Italian film director and screenwriter born on 2 October 1951 in Rome. He began making Super 8 films in the early 1970s and entered the industry as a screenwriter in the mid-1970s, later working as an assistant director.
Fragasso formed a decade-long collaboration with director Bruno Mattei from 1980 to 1990, often contributing uncredited to horror and action films. He directed and wrote several low-budget genre pictures, including Monster Dog (1986) and After Death (1989). In 1990 he directed and wrote the screenplay for Troll 2, credited under the pseudonym Drake Floyd and also known as Clyde Anderson or Drake Floyd on other projects.
He has worked with his wife, screenwriter Rossella Drudi, on multiple films. Later credits include the dramas Teste rasate (1993) and Palermo – Milan One Way (1995).
