Best Worst Movie (2009) review

Best Worst Movie posterOn paper, this project sounds about as well advised as a hiring Dr. Lecter to perform your open-heart surgery: Do we really need a documentary devoted to a negligible, mostly forgotten relic of 1990, an ersatz sequel that goes by the title of TROLL 2? Fortunately, BEST WORST MOVIE (which is currently making the rounds of art house theatres across the country) is not a revisionist attempt to rehabilitate that shoddy horror film’s dubious reputation, nor is BEST WORST MOVIE a detailed account of the making of TROLL 2. Instead, director Michael Stephenson (who played the frightened boy Joshua Waits in TROLL 2), examines the 1990 film’s unexpected rebirth as a midnight movie camp sensation.
This in itself is wacky enough to provide a hook for our attention, but it might not be enough to sustain a movie; fortunately, Stephenson focuses little on his own personal story (failed dreams of stardom), instead keeping his camera trained on George Hardy, who played Joshua’s father. The story of the former actor is a delightful and amusing one. Well-liked in his community, where he has a successful practice as a dentist, Hardy, it becomes obvious, would relish a return to the screen; his brush with Hollywood is a sort of weird anamoly to his friends and patients, who dutifully rent TROLL 2, only to find themselvs in capable of finishing it.
Most of BEST WORST MOVIE follows Hardy as he embraces TROLL 2’s cult status, attending screenings, answering audience questions, and recreating scenes and dialogue (his signature line is his admonition to his son: “You can’t pisson hospitality. I won’t allow it!“).

Trolls? Goblins? Troblins? Fans of TROLL 2 get their gear on in BEST WORST MOVIE.
Trolls? Goblins? Troblins? Fans of TROLL 2 get their gear on in BEST WORST MOVIE.

Hardy rides this roller-coaster for two or three years. Gradually, other cast and crew join the cult phenomenon. Even TROLL 2’s director, Claudio Fragasso, flies in from Italy to join his former comrades on a visit to TROLL 2’s locations (rather like a felon returning to the scene of a crime). Hilarity ensues as Fragasso visibly bristles at the suggestion that his film contains no trolls (the dialogue actually refers to the monsters as goblins). He bristles even more at the cast’s’ honest admission that TROLL 2 is terrible. (The American actors recall that the Italian director refused to take their advice for adjusting TROLL 2’s English dialogue, responding along the lines of, “That’s not how Americans talk.”)
Eventually, the wave of small-time credibility crests and recedes. Visits to horror conventions baldly expoe TROLL 2’s limited appeal even as a cult item (attendees are interested in Jason and Freddy, not Trolls or Goblins), and Hardy finds himself under the same roof with other has-beens-who-never-were, milking their brief associations with long-gone installments of popular franchises.
In a moment of admirable self-awareness, Hardy shifts from criticizing other former actors (Don’t they have anything better to do than talk about af ilm they were in over 20 years ago?) to asking himself the same question. This, along with his waning enthusiasm for reciting his infamous line about hospitality, leads him to wonder whether Celine Dion grows sick and tired of singing the TITANIC’s theme song over and over.
Best Worst Movie (2009)The best compliment one can bestow on BEST WORST MOVIE is that it transcends its subject matter. You do not need to be a fan of TROLL 2, nor even have seen it, to enjoy BEST WORST MOVIE, which emerges a a fascinating glimpse at the little-seen world of cult celebrity and as a wonderful character study of a very likable man, whose fifteen minutes of fame no one – be they bad movie fan or otherwise – would begrudge.
BEST WORST MOVIE (2009). Written and directed by Michael Stephenson. Cast: George Hardy, Michael Stephenson, Darren Ewing, Jason Steadman, John Gemberling, Claudio Fragasso, Scott Pearlman, Chris Pudlo, James M. Tate, Scott Weinberg.
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Troll 2 review

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Thanks to the documentary BEST WORST MOVIE, those of us who never cared about TROLL, let alone TROLL 2, now know that the latter has earned some small renown as a cult film, the subject of midnight movie screnings attended by fans who embrace the cinematic atrocity as high-camp hilarity. This must be an example of group psychology taking over and creating an atmosphere of communal delight, because viewed on its own, at home on VOD, TROLL 2 offers few delights, even for dedicated bad movie enthusiasts.
The most distinguishing characterist of TROLL 2 is how across-the-board awful it is. Even bad movies, through sheer luck if nothing else, usually stumble into a good moment or two or at least reveal a brief glimpse of the good intentions that led the filmmakers down the road to cinematic perfidy. TROLL 2, however, is a disaster from start to finish. The performances are stiff and amateurish, except for one or two that are overblown and amateurish. The screenplay (written by Italians) is absurd i its English dialogue (“You can’t piss on hospitality. I won’t allow it!“) and even more so in its premise: in an apparent but rather fuzzy attempt to take a satirical jab at vegetarianism, the script has goblins (which are never called “trolls” in the movie) turn people into plants in order to consume them.
Troll 2If there is any redeeming quality, it is the misguided sincerity of the filmmakers, who apparently believed they were making a serious movie. Except for one ridiculously campy performance, TROLL 2 plays it straight. By not adopting a self-aware attitude about its own ineptitude, TROLLS 2 becomes the inadvertent straight man for the slings and arrows of outraged viewers.
Unfortunately, MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 never screened this aboard the Satellite of Love. There is some consolation in the fact that MST3K alumni Michael J. Nelson created a downloadable RIFFTRAX audio commentary for TROLL 2.
Troll 2 closeupTROLL 2 (1990). Directed by Claudio Fragasso. Written by Rossella Drudi, from a story by Claudio Fragasso. Cast: Michael Stephenson, George Hardy, Marco Prey, Connie Young, Robert Ormsby, Deborah Reed, Jason Wright, Darren Ewing, Jason Steadman, David McConnell, Gary Carlson, Mike Hamill, Don Packard.
Troll 2 green goo Troll 2: the inhabitants of Nilbog (that is, "Goblin," spelled backwards) Troll 2: a clueless nerd is seduced by a vampy inhabitant of Nilbog
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Best Worst Movie on screen

A hit on the festival circuit last year, this documentary about the TROLL 2 phenomenon gets a limited theatrical release in a handful of calendar houses around the country. The idea of fashioning a tribute to an obscure shlock film from the 1980s hardly sounds appealing, but the trailer makes BEST WORST MOVIE look extremely amusing, focusing on the experiences of a small-town dentist, whose patients discover, to their dismay, that decades ago he appeared in a movie, one that is now embraced by some camp enthusiasts as the “worst movie ever made.” Whether or not the description is warranted, it leads to a strange sort of celebrity for the former actor as he travels to the big city for revival screening, where he is welcomed like a star. Funny stuff.
BEST WORST MOVIE begins its theatrical run on April 23 in Austin, with subsequent dates in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and more. Check out dates and locations below:

  • April 23: Austin – Alamo Drafthouse
  • May 14: New York City – Village East Cinema
  • May 21: Los Angeles – Landmark Nuart
  • June 4: San Francisco – Landmark Lumiere
  • June 4: Berkeley – Landmark Shattuck
  • June 11: Portland ME – Space Gallery
  • June 11: New York, NY – CInema Village
  • June 11: Dallas, TX – Landmark INwood
  • June 12: Santa Cruz, CA – The Rio
  • June 18: Seattle, WA – Central Cinema
  • June 25, Tucson, AZ – The Loft Cinema (cast and crew in attendance, minimum one-week run)
  • July 2: Washington D.C. – Landmark E Street Cinema
  • July 9:, Nashville TN – Belcourt Theater
  • July 16: St. Louis – Landmark Tivoli
  • July 23: Atlanta – Landmark Midtown Art Cinema
  • July 23: Duluth, MN – Zinema 2
  • July 23: Minneapolis, NM – Landmark Lagoon Theater
  • July 30, Chicago, IL – Music Box
  • August 6: Cambridge, MA – Landmark Kendall Square
  • August 19-21: Tempe, AZ – Madcap Theaters
  • August 24, 8pm: Tuscaloosa, AL – Bama Theatre
  • August 27-28: San Francisco, CA – Red Vic Theatre
  • August 28, 6pm: Houston TX, Alamo West Oaks (followed by TROLL 2)
  • August 27-September 2: Cleveland, OH – Cedar Lee Theatre
  • August 27-September 2: Denver, CO – Starz Film Society
  • September 10-12: Lexington KY – Kentucky Theater
  • September 10-16: Portland OR – Hollywood Theater
  • September 17, 6pm: Sitka AK – Sitka Film Society
  • September 22: Huntington NY – Cinema Arts Centre
  • September 25, 7pm: Montgomer AL – Capri Theatre
  • September 29-30 at New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles (director Michael Stephenson in person; double bill with TROLL 2)
  • October 7: Canadian theatrical release in Cineplex and Empire Theatres in Ontario, Manitoba, Quebec, Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and Maritimes
  • October 8-9: Oakmont PA – The Oaks Theatre
  • October 13-17 at the Anaheim FIlm Festival in Anaheim, CA
  • October 15 at the FSU Student Life Cinema in Tallahasse, FL
  • October 15 at the Drexel Cinema in Columbus, OH
  • October 29-30 at the Pickford Film Center in Bellingham, WA

For screening updates, check out the official website.
UPDATE: If you’re curious but want to spare yourself the price of a rental, you can watch TROLL 2 for free here.
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