- I usually dread seeing a movie people describe as "so bad, it's good." The first half of the phrase nearly always proves accurate, but I find that the second half varies dramatically according to taste. For my part, I tend to guiltily enjoy low-budget science fiction and horror films, particularly those from the 50's and 60's, while shoddy action films rarely make me smile. After seeing the documentary Best Worst Movie, I admit that I am curious to see the notoriously bad subject of the film, an cheesy early 90's horror flop with the misleading title Troll 2. Can a film consistently ranked near the bottom of any list on which it appears possibly also be good?
- Certainly many of the people who appear in Best Worst Movie seem to think so. Screenings of the obscure film in cities around the U.S. routinely sell out large venues. Distressingly devoted fans arrive in homemade costumes and travel great distances just to meet the film's stars, none of whom seem all that busy these days. The film's most endearing actor by far is its lead, George Hardy, whose infectious smile makes his career as a dentist seem only natural. George is one of these people who absolutely lights up the room when there's an audience, any audience, and even his ex-wife can't find anything bad to say about him. Another obviously sympathetic fellow is Robert Ormsby, whose acting career was probably stunted by his understandable disinclination to move from Salt Lake City to make movies on either coast. Now he lives alone near where Troll 2 was filmed, reflecting wistfully on a career that could have been.
- But then there are the people whose confinement to the marginalia of Hollywood obviously hasn't done them any good. The prime example is Margo Prey, a c-movie version of Norma Desmond who refuses either to leave her home or to embrace any of Troll 2's unexpected popularity. An actor named Don Packard also clearly dwells at the edge of insanity, whether or not Troll 2 was responsible. The film's most ill-humored character, however, is certainly the director of Troll 2, Claudio Fragasso. An Italian who describes himself in broken English as the "most American director," Fragasso absolutely refuses to acknowledge any flaw in the approach he and his writer (and wife), Rossella Drudi, took to making Troll 2. When the audience laughs at the wrong moments, Fragasso is there to disparage them (and the actors) for not appreciating his vision.
- While watching Best Worst Movie, I couldn't help but be reminded of 2009's other, more compelling documentary about a VHS-transmitted meme, Winnebago Man. George Hardy is a far more easygoing and likable fellow than the infinitely prickly Jack Rebney, but both men successfully anchor films about subjects that didn't obviously merit a documentary in the first place. Ultimately, I preferred Winnebago Man because it contained a more thorough and personal exploration of why strange, embarrassing videos gather a cult following, whereas the point of this film simply seems to be reuniting the cast of Troll 2, right down to the young child star (Best Worst Movie's director Michael Stephenson). In the end, it's difficult to pretend that Troll 2 is anything more than an unintentionally campy midnight movie whose most famous line is that "you can't piss on hospitality." When hipster-types line up around the block to meet the actors or Margo invokes the spirits of Bogart and Hepburn, you may rightly wonder if all of the people involved have lost some perspective on life.
- John Schneider gets in a cameo at a sci-fi convention.
