Best Worst Movie

Every year, Wellington has a film festival and puts out a brochure with brief synopses of the films that will be shown. Something about the idea of a guy trying to track down the cast which he shared a movie with many years earlier appealed. It took a while to convince my other half that we should go and see a film about a horror film which neither of us had seen and had atrocious reviews on IMDb.

It was a risk.

However, it was a risk that with the benefit of hindsight I was very glad that we both took. Knowledge of the erstwhile Troll 2 was not necessary as the film is interspersed with relevant sections of the original movie as and when required.

I can only imagine that the previous reviewer has no sense of humour or has something against this film, because what I saw was one of the funniest films I'd seen in years. Some of the comic timing is absolutely perfect, as, for example, one of the cast members of Troll 2 is indulging in some ego massage only for the film maker to capture a telling glance or bemused expression from an onlooker.

At the screening, the director was present and took part in a Q&A after the fact. A question was somewhat rudely asked as to whether the director felt it was right to degrade his former colleagues in such a way, by displaying their insecurities, idiosyncrasies and foibles on celluloid. I, however, give this critic short shrift. With the potential exception of the director of the original Troll 2, these people have volunteered to be part of this film, and I found myself laughing along with these people rather than at them.

All in all, you won't find a much more amusing documentary to watch than this. Whether you are interested in the subject matter or not is largely unimportant. If you see this film advertised at a cinema, in a rental shop on DVD or maybe in your TV listings then make sure you too take the risk to see it. It'll be worth it.

The actors just hoped for the best with Troll 2, at the time of shooting called Goblin (named for the name of the town in the film, 'Nilbog', get it?). The script was awkward, the creature effects shoddy, and most of the Italian crew, including director Claudio Fragasso, and nobody really knew what would happen with the movie. No theatrical release, straight to video and HBO, and when people saw it (save for the director, who still thinks it's a good movie, and the actress who played the mother, Margo Prey, who thought it was a solid "actors" movie) they knew how bad it was... and that included what is now the director of the documentary on Troll 2, Michael Stephenson, who played the lead kid/protagonist in Troll 2. He goes back to visit all the actors in the film, what they're up to, and then confront them with an astounding fact: Troll 2, in small-certain circles, is a big, big deal.

One of the main keys here is that the documentary works kind of like a cross between American Movie and Overnight, only it's all taking place many years after the fact. You have the 'characters' who are kind of nutty (the guy who was actually in a mental asylum and let out one day to play the store clerk in the film, Don Packard), and the ones who just tried to put it aside and get on with a career without Troll 2 (Connie Young as the daughter Waits in the film). And then there's George Hardy, who is like the anti Troy Duffy: instead of an obnoxious jerk, Hardy is the guy everybody likes (which could be to a fault, but who cares) and has that nice, sweet, all-American disposition working as a dentist and always with a smile or a laugh. And when he finds out Troll 2 is such a cult, he not only embraces it, he goes with it on tour!

This is also a wonderful treat for those film fans who know what it's like to find a movie so-bad-it's-fun like Troll 2. We see them here at the screenings that take place midnight all across the country, from New York to Los Angeles and cities in-between (most touching is the first screening that happens almost underground at a comedy club of all places and where the first real rise of Troll-mania happens). Stephenson gets what it's like for these people to be such fans, and that the cast (save for Prey who doesn't show up cause of her sick mother, and the director who is bitter about the guilty-pleasure love) gets what kind of audience loves Troll 2. As a cult you get the guy who tattoos Troll 2 on his arm. You get the people wearing their hand-made t-shirts. You get people who drive six hundred God-knows-how-many miles for a screening. And of course they all know all the words.

Stephenson captures what a phenomena like this is like, and at the same time the bittersweet coin of sudden "fame". Hardy goes all the way to Britain to promote Troll 2, and it's a little staggering to find out a) he didn't see if, you know, there were actual FANS of the film willing to go to conventions for it like they did the screenings in the states, and b) people don't seem to automatically find it cool all the time to be the "worst movie ever made" (smile). This also happens in Dallas at a convention we see, albeit the one time Hardy loses the admiration (at least from me) is when he slams the people who come to horror conventions, without realizing how horror audiences can be at such places, or that, you know, Troll 2 is still and always will be a big film for some, and for others they'll have a blank look on their faces.

Which, at the end of it all is fine for someone like Hardy, a genuine real-deal of a man who is fine with his dentist practice (albeit he is now acting in a few intentionally crappy movies like Ghost Shark 2), and for the director Fragasso and his co-writer wife who continue to berate the cast's friendly bashing of the film and the production, since, well, they think they did a good job with the movie (at one point, kind of unintentionally funny, Fragasso ponders why the audience laughs at the parts that "aren't meant to be funny", while also pointing out that the audience "saved" the movie from obscurity). Stephenson gets the human angle of everyone in the movie and understands them, even someone who could have been painted as a crazy like Margo Prey (who for some she may be anyway). And for such a movie like Troll 2 to get mainstream attention, if just for a little while, it's a swell treat for a movie so hilariously s***ty.

Moral of the story: You can't p*** on hospitality, I WONT ALLOW IT!

I'm a huge fan of bad movies and I'm particularly interested in the story behind these movies and how they got so bad. I've seen Troll 2 countless times and the narrative that has been developed about its production is incredible. So, I have been eager to see this documentary since I first heard about and went to a screening at the Music Box Theater recently.

Overall the movie was very interesting. However, it did exactly what I was afraid it would do and focus the documentary on the "midnight movie" cult phenomena aspect of Troll 2 rather than its back story. It primarily follows George Hardy, the father from Troll 2, as he explores this strange, sudden form of fame. He seems very humble and gregarious, so his experiences in going to conventions and trying to persuade country folk to see Troll 2 are a little amusing, but they take up a huge portion of the film. Similarly, we see lots and lots of footage of the cast at Troll 2 midnight showings which, while colorful, takes up way too much screen time. It seemed as though the film was developed to appeal more a wider audience who is totally unfamiliar with Troll 2 or the bad movie culture. Everyone who is in the know (which makes up a vast majority of the film's audience because it is a small release) won't be too captivated by scenes that just show a couple of random friends hanging out in an AV room and getting others to watch Troll 2 for the first time.

When the movie does explore the movie's origins and production history and interviews cast members, it is extremely entertaining. All of the story's rumors of unintelligible scripts and intended social commentary are all true. Many of the people involved with the movie are fascinating, if not heartbreaking, to see now. Grandpa Seth seems to realize he "frittered his life away," the general store owner relates that he was in a dementia/drug haze during production and was not quite aware he was in a movie, and Margo Prey (the mother) is a delusional, agoraphobic cat lady.

Most interesting of all is the segments with director Claudio Fragasso. He actually believes the movie is great and it takes him time to understand that the sudden revival of the movie is ridiculing it. Eventually, he comes to terms with the criticism all the while still berating its cast members and insisting on his skill as a filmmaker. The documentary would have been considerably more interesting had he been its main subject.

Overall, the film is definitely worth seeing, Troll 2 fan or not. However, it's frustrating to think would the movie could have been. Some scenes are amazing, but much of it is bogged down by footage of people in line for a Troll 2 showing screaming at the camera or George Hardy telling uninterested neighbors about his "piss on hospitality" scene.

I had never seen Troll 2 before this film, but decided to watch it before viewing Best Worst Movie. After I saw it, I immediately watched the documentary as I was now hooked and had to know the story behind Troll 2.

Now, I liked Troll 2. As a connoisseur of "bad" movies, Troll 2 has it all. I keep putting "bad" in quotes because they are only labeled that, and in my mind are not REALLY bad. They are wonderful. And that's exactly why Best Worst Movie is wonderful. It celebrates with love the awesome earnestness of strange film making that is Troll 2.

It catches up with many of the film's stars and the highlight is George Hardy, the leading man in Troll 2. He's a living Ken Doll - you can't believe how sincere and likable he is. (I recently met George, and let me tell you, he is really the nice person he portrays.) At one point in the doc, George and the documentary's director (Michael Stevenson, who played the little boy in Troll 2) are on a mission to show the film to George's hometown. George, who is a dentist in his non-acting life, has known these people for years. But most them are not aware of this illustrious Hollywood moment he had in 1989. George goes door to door, handing out fliers, and acting out moments from the film. Even though many of his neighbors stare blankly as he repeats a classic line from Troll 2, he gives the moment his all - smiling and laughing the whole time. You know then that this is a man who loves to exist in a world where he can tell people to see a movie he starred in that most actors would remove from the IMDb page.

I can't do justice in this review the documentary's many great moments because the reality of those scenes have to be seen. But what you take away from this film is that the love true cinephiles have can breath life into films and give them meaning never meant by a filmmaker.

And this is the amazing magic of movies - like a good novel, they continually have new meaning. THAT is what makes "bad" movies - or any movie for that matter - a classic.

The film Troll 2 has become something of a cult item in the last five or six years. It's one of the movies that truly defines the term 'so bad it's good'. It's a consistently ridiculous film that is so very amusing because it so clearly never intentionally tries to be funny at any point. Its mixture of earnest endeavour, cinematic hopelessness and general strangeness aligns it alongside the much-loved yet utterly inept work of Ed Wood. It's really a very rare occasion for any film to achieve the very specific anti-brilliance of Troll 2. So with this in mind, it only seems right that a documentary has been made to celebrate its existence.

It focuses mainly on two things. The people involved in the making of the film and the audiences it has subsequently attracted. What it doesn't do – and this is a mistake in my opinion – is tell us how the movie came to be made in the first place. It doesn't even answer the question that many people find the most obvious – why is it called Troll 2 when there aren't any trolls in it? I think the story of Troll 2 warranted a little more historical context and background info, as much of the facts are fascinating in themselves.

That said I did enjoy Best Worst Movie and think it's great it was made at all. I remember back in 2005 Michael Stephenson the director and child star in the film frequented the IMDb boards with other cast members and he did say back then that he was planning on making this very documentary. I must say I thought it would never happen but fortunately I was incorrect. George Hardy, the father in the film, emerges as a real star; a very likable man who seems to have lapped up his bizarre fame. Although the real main man of the piece turns out to be director Claudio Fragasso. Every time he was on screen was gold. He was a living embodiment to what made Troll 2 so entertaining in the first place, i.e. committed artistic seriousness and a refreshing lack of irony. Fragasso truly believed that Troll 2 was loved so much because it was a complex family drama. Although he at least didn't go as far as to compare it with Casablanca as Margo Prey did without any sense of jest. Prey was clearly a disturbed woman. But then so was Don Packard, the man who played the drugstore owner, he in fact was an out-patient at a sanatorium when the film was made. So this is surely an example of fact being as strange as fiction. Well, almost.

Best Worst Movie is ultimately a perfect accompaniment to Troll 2 itself. The documentary somewhat strangely does not really focus on the content of the film itself. There are numerous clips of course but they're never commented on and many of the best parts are bizarrely not featured in the first place. This would perhaps be more of a problem if you didn't have the movie itself to enjoy afterwards. Ultimately Best Worst Movie is a look at a group of people who were inadvertently involved in making a movie that not one of them could have imagined in their wildest dreams would go on to become something of a cult classic. It's a strange story but one worth knowing about.