I'm hoping this movie gets more pub as it's being screened more and more across the nation.
Back in 1990, a movie was released on HB0 called "Troll 2"--a film that originally was titled "Goblin" but due to the Italian producers behind the film, they thought that tacking on the title "Troll" and making it a sequel for the 1986 film "Troll" would somehow make it more profitable. They were wrong.
The movie was a colossal failure and even though it was played to death in that summer of 1990 (I watched it probably 2 or 3 times), it was a forgotten movie.
Until around 2004 when the Internet Movie Database seemed to have given it new life. For one thing, it was at one time ranked as the #1 Worst Movie of All Time. Another thing, some of the former cast members got into the fun of bashing this movie through the threads on the message board and I guess the thought crossed their minds that something was on here.
This movie suddenly became popular among the internet population.
For the last few years, "Troll 2" has had a rebirth (or...birth). It was screened in Utah with the most of the original cast members, and it was a smashing success. It then went on a tour, even coming here to Chicago. I got to meet a few of the cast members, including the guy that put this documentary together, "Best Worst Movie"--Michael Paul Stevenson.
What this film illustrates is the sort of sick love that us geeks have given to this awful, but sweet, little film. It features interviews with the cast members, and even its director, Claudio Fragasso (credited as "Drake Floyd" in the credits of the film). Fragasso is probably the most entertaining part of the film because he really believes he created a very credible film and constantly rags on the actors for being "dogs" and there's a very funny, if awkward, scene in which at a Q&A after a showing of "Troll 2", Claudio berates his actors while the audience is lapping up their stories about how they couldn't understand anything the filmmakers were trying to say.
Some of the cast admits they had no idea what Claudio was trying to say to them when they made this film in Utah in 1989, because he could barely speak English and always had to speak through translators.
The documentary also shows where some of these actors are right now. George Hardy, who plays the father in "Troll 2", has a dental practice in Alexander City, Alabama. He and Michael Paul Stevenson lead the charge of going around the country showing this movie to small but loyal audiences. Just about every one of these "actors" never did much after "Troll 2" (or before it); and some of them are lonely, or just plain...odd. But the film never dwells on anything negative, and shows the joys of everything "Troll 2" has brought.
"Troll 2" has been dubbed the "MySpace Generation 'Rocky Horror'"; I wouldn't say that's accurate quite yet. But there are video games, re-enactments, and midnight screenings that maybe it will catch on as big as "Rocky Horror" one day. But two things are very different: One, "Rocky Horror" has some merit. It has some great songs, and it has some genuinely funny things about it. Two, "Rocky Horror" has a cast that went on to become icons. "Troll 2" is a *bad* film. It's an amusing, and honest attempt at making something good. But it's still bad. The story's bad, the acting's bad, the music's bad.
Still, it is fun and there's something innocent about it that you start to understand the love that people show for it; even if it is ironic.
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