Tags:
Film: Best Worst Movie
Year: 2009
Director: Michael Paul Stephenson
Writer:
Starring: George Hardy, Lily Hardy and Pita Ray
Review:
I heard about this documentary from the 22 Shots of Moodz and Horror, so I added it to my list. I checked it out after seeing a heavy movie and needed to unwind before bed, so I figured this would fit that. This is a doc about the making of Troll 2 and the cult following that it has now. The synopsis is a look at the making of Troll 2 and its journey from being crowned the ‘worst film of all time’ to a cherished cult classic.
Since this a documentary, I’m not going to give as much a recap as I would for a normal movie. Most of this though follows George Hardy, who starred in Troll 2 as Michael Waits. He starred in that movie as he was starting out as a dentist in Utah and he always wanted to be an actor. He didn’t think anything of it until the movie came out and kind of distanced himself from it. It wasn’t until he realized the following that got him invigorated.
This documentary is being made by the child actor who starred as the lead in it as well. Michael Paul Stephenson was Joshua and he was hoping Troll 2 would be his break as the lead. The problem was that the movie wasn’t good. I remember seeing it back when it hit VHS as a big fan of Troll. I know I watched it the once and it stuck with me, but I knew it wasn’t good.
We then go about learning the cult following this movie got. This is what I mean with Hardy, who goes around to different screenings to interact with his fans. My problem with him is that because he gets a bit of the taste of success, he starts to think that he’s really talented and that this movie is better than what it really is. It is semi-disingenuous though as we see when he goes to a horror convention in Texas and in the United Kingdom. He’s over it when he’s not being treated as star.
Learning the history of the movie and the problems through the production is what I really enjoyed. We actually get to see the director Claudio Fragasso and his significant other Rossella Drudi who wrote this film along with him. Meeting Claudio, his thoughts on the movie and his standoff nature with the fans I really dug. It is ironic as he was known to work with Bruno Mattei. They were both in that era where they would rip off Americans films while working under pseudonyms that sound like they’re from the United States. Heck, Troll 2 is just capitalizing off Troll that had some success off of being an Empire film if memory serves. They made a lot of schlock as cash grabs, pretending that it was really good. This is what Italian cinema would do though. They would bill things as sequels, when they really had nothing to do with them.
I’m not one to step on the toes of people and try to rain on their parade. I will admit it has been some time since I’ve seen Troll 2. I do plan to rewatch it. I do know that it isn’t as bad I remember it, but I can’t go as far as people in this movie go with their love for it. I respect the story behind it for sure. It really has the workings of being a cult film in that it was made serious, but just feel apart and that’s the way movies like this really do get made. I feel bad for the actors that were in it and the effects it had on their career, but for the most part, they mostly seem fine. This is a fun documentary. If you like the story of how things get made, I would definitely give this a viewing for sure. It isn’t technically horror, but since the movie it is covering is a horror movie, I feel it counts. I’d say this is an above average documentary for sure.
My Rating: 6.5 out of 10