Best Worst Movie

With storytelling in mainstream feature films so devolved that it’s pretty much on life support, documentary movies continue to bring audiences fresh characters, absorbing stories and buckets of emotion. All those qualities, and more, are on view in the hilarious, touching and completely enjoyable Best Worst Movie, a valentine to the phenomenon that has grown around the irresistible cult favorite Troll 2.

Completely unrelated to the minor horror hit Troll, the unintentionally sidesplitting horror epic was perpetrated roughly 20 years ago and went straight to video, crushing the big career hopes of a handful of actors both inexperienced and pro. Best Worst Movie has been directed with sweetness, high energy and an admirable absence of snark by Michael Paul Stephenson who, as a kid, made his movie debut in Troll 2; all these years later, he tracks down and reunites with his co-stars, some of whom have clearly not led easy lives. The film follows the original film’s leading man, the amiable Alabama dentist and natural born showboat George Hardy, as he basks in fan worship at showings of Troll 2 around the country. As sunny, quirky and watchable as Hardy is, even he’s upstaged by Italian director Claudio Fragasso, a self-deluded bargain-bin Fellini who apparently hasn’t yet come to grips with the fact that while he thinks of Troll 2 as profound and ahead of the curve, audiences think of it as the ultimate hoot. Best Worst Movie, the very best kind of surprise, is well worth hunting down.