Best Worst Movie
Director: Michael Stephenson
Writer: Michael Stephenson
Cast: Michael Stephenson, George Hardy, Margo Prey, Connie Young, Robert Ormsby, Deborah Reed, Jason Wright, Darren Ewing, Jason Steadman, Claudio Fragasso, Rossella Drudi
Part of: /slash Filmfestival Creature Christmas

Plot:
Best Worst Movie follows the cast of Troll 2 almost 20 years after the film. It takes a look at how the film influenced all of them and how everyone deals with the sudden fame after the movie’s infamous reputation as the worst film of all times, but also shows the popularity phenomenon around the film through the eyes of the cast, most notably George Hardy, now a dentist in Alabama.

I really enjoyed Best Worst Movie. It’s a charming, interesting documentary, that may be not the most insightful film ever, but it is entertaining.

It was really interesting to see almost the entire cast of the film 20 years later and how they relate to the film and react to its sudden infamity. George Hardy seems like a nice guy (though I can also see how his constant energy and motivation would get exhausting after a while), as does Michael Stephenson and it was cool to see them in action at the conventions and screenings, but also to see how they reconnect with each other after all these years.

But the most fascinating figure in the entire movie is Claudio Fragasso, the director of Troll 2. He is either without a doubt personally one of the biggest performance art projects ever, who is actually convinced 100% and without the slightest bit of irony that Troll 2 really is a good film with hard-hitting social critique in it. [Wait, what?] All that craziness, it’s amazing.

The other thing I really liked about it was a look at the fans of the film and what they do with it and for it. Annual parties, re-enactments etc etc etc. If you can think of it, it’s probably already been done somewhere.

Despite not being all that eye-opening, the documentary gives you quite a few choice bits about the production process. For example that Claudio Fragasso nor Rossella Drudi hardly spoke any English when they wrote and directed the film, but decided to do both in English anyway. (Which might explain some of the dialogue, because yeesh…) Or that nobody of the cast got a complete screenplay, so they didn’t really get how bad this movie actually was – until they saw it. Which in most cases was quite by chance. [And what a shock that must have been…]

Summarising: A very nice and funny look behind the scenes.