Michael Stephenson was one of the child stars in the film and he leads the direction of the documentary. His quest is to dig deeper into the how and why Troll 2 got made and the growing cult status of the film. In order to do all this he seeks out his fellow cast members and director. Stephenson latches onto George Hardy who played the father in the 1990 film. Hardy is a likeable guy from the first moment we meet him. His charisma jumps off the screen. Hardy is a dentist. He had dreams of once becoming a movie star which is the reason he ended up starring in Troll 2. We learn that Hardy has long since given up the acting dream and has replaced it with life as a dentist. He seems to enjoy the work and the people. He even goes out of his way to perform dental work free of charge for children in low income families. While Troll 2 is the theme of the doc, Hardy is its heart and soul.
Best Worse Movie spends quite a bit of time early on reveling in Troll 2’s notoriety. There is no shortage of interviews with rabid fans. Time spent around screenings. It’s as if the first act of the doc is to convince us that Troll 2 is so bad it’s good. The only time these screenings are interesting is when we get to see Troll 2’s director Claudio Fragasso react to the audience. He’s happy people like his film after all these years, but sours when he discovers that they like it because they think it’s terribly funny. Fragasso begs to differ. He knows the film has flaws but doesn’t take kindly to the label of it being the worst ever. One of the more awkward moments comes when Fragasso interrupts a cast Q&A to set the record straight. Walking through the audience, he says the actors don’t remember the facts. He then becomes more aggressive and calls at least one former cast member a bad actor. It plays for laughs from the audience but Fragasso isn’t laughing.
When the doc is at its best it’s focusing on the characters who starred in the film. Their current day lives and relation to the film after 15+ years is engaging and sometimes even simply bizarre. The moments with Fragasso acting out in great denial. Margo Prey, who played the mother opposite of George Hardy, is living in another world. Whether the scenes with Prey are meant for laughs or sadness it’s hard to tell. And then there is Hardy’s pursuit of basking in the fame of being in the worst movie ever. Instead of being embarrassed about it as some other cast members are, Hardy embraces it. He decides there are enough fans of the film out there that he should aggressively pursue opportunities to make appearances. We spend time with him at a number of festivals and events, all of which turn out to be duds. In these moments we get the sense that Hardy has been bitten by the bug of minor celebrity status. A once likeable guy turns into an oddly self-promotional tool, and all under the banner of being in the worst movie of all time.
There are moments in Best Worse Movie that are fantastic. The documentary as a whole never achieves the same success. There is a lack of focus that distracts and often strays into less interesting topics. Too much time is spent patting Troll 2 on the back for how bad it is and the cult like status that achievement has earned the film.
Not even close to the worst documentary ever, Best Worse Movie gives some interesting insights into the people who made Troll 2. Had it stuck more closely to those people, it could have been very good, maybe even great.
[xrr rating=3/5 label=” “]
This post is part of my Way late reviews. Read more reviews here.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”360″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voXQY4E8wfY[/youtube]