Best Worst Movie | 2010 Florida Film Festival

by Mark Baratelli
Published March 29, 2010


Don't bother reading this review for Best Worst Movie. Just buy a ticket and see it April 12 or 14, 2010 at the Winter Park Village Cinemas.

BWM is a quality documentation of underground cult classic status being thrust onto a cast of mishappen, charming characters. A terrible 90s film, Troll 2, is resurrected by American hipsters (not said in a derogatory way) as the second coming, sparking a sold out, standing ovation showing at Upright Citizens Brigade NYC, a "Midnite For Maniacs" showing in San Francisco and an successful outdoor showing on a blow up screen in some town I forget the name of. Several fans across the US are shown speaking to their passion for this film. Conversely, the film is ignored at a horror convention, unknown at a London sci fi convention and disliked at a showing in one of the star's hometowns.

In between the high fives and empty panel discussions is the magic: Troll 2's cast of characters. Yes, some of the cast is normal: the film's child lead (who is now the documentary's director), the film's male lead (a small town dentist with enough positivity to choke a rainbow and a kitchen stocked with protein powder to make that rainbow muscly) and a few of the younger co-stars. But some of the cast is insane, and their non-mocking portrayals are the gem of the film.

One admits to his lack of sanity (he was admitted to a mental hospital for a time) and proves it by saying my favorite line of the film: "I walk in random concentric circles until I have my head up my ass." He tours us around his home showing us human-size stuffed bears and calls them "his people." He smoked "enormous amounts of weed" during the filming of Troll 2, and says his crazy performance was not due to his acting skills: "I wasn't acting. I was a troubled person."

There's more where that came from in this film. Go see it.