Review of Best Worst Movie (2009) by Nate Z — 16 Dec 2010

I've never seen Troll 2, but its infamy of it being 'the worst movie of all time' is well known. The Best Worst Movie is a tribute to that movie and the cult following it has amassed in recent years as large groups of friends get together to laugh and be amazed at just how bad a movie can actually be.

Tracking down all the original cast and filmmakers, Michael Stephenson (who made the documentary and was a main cast member in the original movie) goes all over America and even to Italy to investigate this underground sensation Troll 2 seems to have become.

Probably the most prominently featured cast member is George Hardy, a well loved, very charismatic and genuinely nice guy who's made his living as a dentist in a small town. George goes all over the place with Stephenson, attending midnight screenings of Troll 2 where they're treated like superstars by the adoring audience, as well as to horror conventions, where they are virtually ignored and realize that Troll 2, outside those specialty midnight screenings, isn't really all that infamous after all.

This is one of those docs that presents people that are truly too strange to be fictional. Margo Prey, the mother in Troll 2, and Troll 2's director, Claudio Fragasso (who has always felt Troll 2 to be a masterpiece of cinematic history and feels it could stand comfortably among the likes of Citizen Kane...seriously) are two of the weirdest, and in Claudio's case, most annoyingly passionate, people I've ever encountered in a documentary.

The love for the film, its cast and especially its fans, is apparent from first frame to last and this is an exuberant, entertaining, fun little picture that yes, makes me want to get a group of friends together and have a Troll 2 screening of my own.