NEWS – Best Worst Movie Lands Distribution

Published on: 1st March, 2010

NEWS - Best Worst Movie Lands Distribution  | read this item

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I’ve never agreed with the reputation that Troll 2 has earned over the years as one of the worst movies ever made. It’s terrible, no doubt about that, but it was also a product of both its time and environment. Although the credits listed the director as one Drake Floyd, the man responsible was in fact Claudio Fragasso, a B-movie filmmaker who had also worked on several other dire movies in his native Italy during the 1980s. He assisted with the making of Zombie Creeping Flesh in 1980, completed Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 3 in 1988 and would direct the truly atrocious After Death (Oltre la morte) the same year.

Originally shot under the title Goblin, the movie was co-scripted by Fragasso’s wife, Rossella Drudi, whom he had worked with on numerous occasions, and as with many Italian productions of the period, the cast would feature a host of first-time American actors. But as the movie was set to be released, the producers decided to re-title it Troll 2, in an effort to cash in on the modest success of John Carl Buechler’s monster flick that had been released several years earlier. This type of unorthodox marketing was also fairly standard for the era, with Fulci’s own Zombi 2 initially marketed as a sequel to George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead.

After almost twenty years of running from the movie, several of the stars finally embraced the cult appeal that their schlock classic has gained and decided to shoot a feature documentary about the making of Troll 2, entitled Best Worst Movie. Taking its moniker from the official fan site, the new film is directed by Michael Stephenson, who was just eleven at the time of shooting.

Drafting in several of his co-stars, including George Hardy, Darren Ewing and Jason Wright, buzz has been generating around the project for the last couple of years and now it seems that Stephenson has finally landed a distributor. An announcement on the website reveals that:
“Area23A, the event-based film distribution company formed in January by industry veteran Richard Abramowitz and Kirt Eftekhar, founder of Ocule Films, announced today that it will theatrically release the award-winning “Best Worst Movie” which has been an official selection in over thirty film festivals. The documentary had its world premiere at South by Southwest and has received several awards including the Top Ten Audience Favorite at Hot Docs 2009. Area23a will open the film in Austin, Los Angeles, New York and other markets to follow this Spring.”

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