Netflix Flick of the Week: “Best Worst Movie”

“Troll 2 is strangely watchable in a train wreck sort of way”. I can't think of any better way to describe the b-movie to end all b-movies. While other films have come and sucked, “Troll 2” displays some of the worst acting, directing, writing, and everything else ever put on the big screen. So why is it so compelling of a film to watch? This is the subject of the film “Best Worst Movie”, a look at the phenomena that is “Troll 2” that aims to discover how a movie that aimed so high crashed so low, and why it's still loved by so many.

Having started a b-horror film in my high school, not having seen “Troll 2” is like not seeing “The Wizard of Oz”. However, I realize it is possible that not everyone has seen “Troll 2”, so I will briefly recap the genius of it. “Troll 2” (No connection to “Troll”, but only named that to capitalize on its success) revolves around a family that vacations in a town called Nilbog, only to find that the town is infested with vegetarian goblins, and that Nilbog is Goblin spelled backgrounds. Along the way, there are ghost grandfathers, subtle homosexual relationships, and a boy peeing on a feast while time has frozen around him. Also, while there are plenty of goblins in the film, there is not a single Troll. You won't recognize any of the stars because they went on to do very little to nothing else, and this is where “Best Worst Movie” picks up.

“Best Worst Movie” is directed by the man who played the young boy protagonist in “Troll 2”, and primarily follows George Hardy, the man who played the father in the film. The film opens looking at present day Hardy, a successful dentist living in Alabama, who is the most liked member of his community. Everyone interviewed from his staff to his ex-wife claims how great of a guy he is. The tone shifts, however, with this exchange between the interviewer and George's mom.

Mother: “He's one of the kindest people. Fun to be around.”

Interviewer: “What'd you think of your son's performance in “Troll 2”?

Mother: (Excessive Laughter) “He's no Cary Grant. I left in the middle of the movie.”

This small exchange demonstrates to the viewer just how bad of a film “Troll 2” would have to be to not even get his mothers endorsement. The film continues to follow George, who in the beginning of the film wanted nothing to do with “Troll 2”, and had not told anyone in his town he was in the film. Over the course of the movie, however, he begins to realize the cult status that “Troll 2” has gained over the years, and ventures to different cities to attend showings of the film. He loves the attention and the fact that people love this film, despite his knowledge that everyone realizes how awful it is. They also recruit all of the other cast members to join them, as well as the films director, Claudio Fragasso. This is where the film shifts and even becomes a little bit depressing. While the cast can accept that people hate the film and get in on the joke, Fragasso still believes that he made a great movie. He was excited to learn of the films sudden popularity, but is confused when people laugh at both what they are supposed to laugh at and what they are not supposed to laugh at. It's a cultural barrier that prevents the Italian director Fragasso from realizing that people like to laugh at his movie because of how bad it is, while he remains certain of its high quality, even saying that the actors remember the experience wrong and that they are “full of bullshit”.

I believe that the film is asking two questions here:

1. Why are “Troll 2” and other terribly made B-films like it so beloved despite the fact that they are so low in quality?

2. Should it matter to the cast and crew that the movie sucks as long as people still like it?

Being such a fan of b-movies, I agree with the films answer to the first question. These films are so loved because of how genuine they are. People put a lot of work and heart into making the film and it just didn't work. It's because everyone involved really believed in what they are doing, despite the fact that it failed miserably.

As for the second question, the film suggests that the people involved should be proud of the film because people like it, even if it is horribly made. Even the director, who believes he made a great film, says that making the worst movie ever made is almost as good as making the best. Either way, he is happy that he made an impression on people, because as he put it, movies are successful when they affect people. Looking at how happy the people watching the film are as well as how happy George Hardy is talking about the film, I don't think it matters for a second what the movie intended to do. As “Best Worst Movie” states, films like “Troll 2”, so genuine and weird, only come around once in a lifetime. I, for one, believe they should be celebrated.

The film currently has 3.5/5 stars on Netflix.