news-record.com

Few could blame Michael Stephenson for spending his adolescence and young adult years trying to forget the summer job he had as a kid.

The job involved playing the lead role in "Troll 2," one of the worst movies of all time.

Still, the film has attracted a dedicated cult of fans for its plot about a city of goblins (midgets in potato sack bodysuits) who turn humans into plants by tricking them into eating green food, the atrocious acting and dialogue, and the Keyser Söze-esque reveal in which we learn that the city of "Nilbog" is "Goblin spelled backward!"

"Every time the movie came on Cinemax or HBO, people would see me and say, 'Hey "Troll 2"!' and I remember feeling so humiliated," Stephenson said in an April 2006 interview.

It was during this time that Stephenson began receiving online messages from "Troll 2" fans who had discovered his MySpace page. Details and photos of "Troll 2" parties hosted in theaters and basements worldwide showed that the infamy surrounding the film was more playful than malicious.

When Stephenson accepted an invitation to a "Troll 2" screening in New York, where the line wrapped around the block, the budding filmmaker decided to grab a camera and make a documentary.

"Best Worst Movie" is more than just a film about the dedicated cult following of "Troll 2." Stephenson decided to focus on George Hardy, the affable full-time dentist and aspiring actor who played Stephenson's father in "Troll 2."

Through Hardy's bright smile and sunny demeanor, Stephenson proves that even one of the worst movies of all time was made by people worthy of dignity and respect.

The RiverRun International Film Festival will host a screening of "Best Worst Movie" on Friday and Saturday, and a double feature of the documentary and "Troll 2" on April 23.

"(Hardy) is one of the most genuine, nicest guys you'll ever meet," says Stephenson during a recent telephone interview. "And oddly, once you know him, for him to have this kind of level of fame or cult celebrity status, it's very fitting that George would get that."

The documentary follows Hardy's ascension as a small-town hero from Alabama who performs free dental work for children of low-income families to a quasi-Internet celebrity.

During two appearances at horror film conventions, he is seduced by the dark side of cult fame only to make the bold choice to walk away and remain the small-town hero he always was.

Stephenson says attending the horror conventions with Hardy were some of the most depressing experiences of his life.

"I'm not saying it in a mean way, but it's these has-been actors that aren't working on movies and are making a living sitting at tables and selling their autographs for five or 10 bucks, and that's sad to me," Stephenson says. "It was the first time I had gone to these things, and I remember just looking around and thinking there is not one person here that is just having fun."

Through Hardy, we see the lives of other people who worked on the film, such as actor Don Packard who co-starred in "Troll 2" while on leave from a mental institution and who admits on-camera to hating Stephenson when he was a kid. Actress Margo Prey, who played Stephenson's mother in the film, now lives with her ailing mother as a reclusive shut-in.

Stephenson travels to Italy and meets Claudio Fragasso, the non-English-speaking director of "Troll 2," who seems stubborn, or even defensive, about the fact that he made a bad movie.

"He was very sincere about what he'd made and that means a lot," Stephenson says. "Even with the difficulties of making (my) small film, I thought, 'Claudio came from Italy, he worked with first-time actors who couldn't act out in the middle of Utah, and he was making his film and really putting his heart on the line.' " 

Contact Joe Scott at movieshowjoe@gmail.com