Troll 2 is considered by many to be the worst movie ever made. It was a 1989 passion project of Italian fimmaker Claudio Fragasso and was never released in theaters, but became a cult classic on VHS and cable. This documentary shows the current state of cult fandom and how the cast and crew react to the film and the national success it is having now.
Most of the film follows George Hardy, a dentist in Alabama who was the lead in the film. He did the acting gig knowing only that he was working with an Italian director and figured it was going to be a serious movie. It was only after he got the VHS tape of the film and watched it that he realized how bad it was.
Hardy's story is similar to most of the cast. They did the film in earnest, knowing it was a horror piece, but thinking it might be OK. When they saw the final project they realized what they had done. Some laughed it off and forgot about it, some had to deal with it haunting their careers for years to come.
Fans today flock to midnight screenings of the film because it is so incredibly bad. It seems to be something like The Room or Birdemic... although the daddy of those (with Plan 9 From Outer Space the grandaddy of them). One thing this doc doesn't do well is tell us really what the movie is about... so as a neophyte, I have no idea what they're talking about. This is a shame, because I really don't want to rent and watch this film... ugh.
It is funny to see how most of the actors have grown to embrace the terribleness of the film, but some, like Claudio Fragasso, still think it's a serious, brilliant film. What's sorta uncomfortable is that audiences love the film and laugh at it, but they also embrace the shitiness of it. When we see Fragasso watching it at a screening with fans, it is not clear that people are laughing at him. This is sorta upsetting.
This is a fun documentary, though it probably should have been a short, as it really loses steam in the last 30 minutes. I think it would have been much better at around 45 minutes. It's something in the vein of Winnebago Man or The King of Kong. Lots of fun.
Stars: 2.5 of 4
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