Editorials
‘Best Worst Movie’ Documentary Celebrates Campy B-Movie Sequel ‘Troll 2’
Everyone has their favorite bad horror movie. From WolfCop (2014) and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978) to a host of obscure titles and indie gems, we all have that “hear me out” favorite we know isn’t exactly good, but has nonetheless managed to win our hearts. For many genre fans, that movie is Troll 2 (1990). Known for its camptacular “oh my god” moment, writer/director Claudio Fragasso’s ultra-low budget film follows young Joshua Waits (Michael Paul Stephenson) on a family vacation to Nilbog, a rural town that hides a kingdom of maneating goblins.
Yes, these monsters are vegetarian, but they kill by poisoning the food of their victims and transforming humans into vegetables.
Widely regarded as one of the worst films of all time, Troll 2 is filled with comically stilted dialogue, schlocky special effects, and a plot that laughs in the face of logic. But the B-movie is surprisingly enjoyable, mostly because of this outsized camp. Culture critic Randall Colburn explains in documentary Best Worst Movie, “Troll 2 is special because it was written by Italians with a shaky grasp on English and an ax to grind with vegetarians. They didn’t allow the actors to change the script, so everyone sounds insane all the time. It’s direct-to-VHS slop made by genuine eccentrics, so the stupid plot is streaked with absurd touches you’d never see in its contemporaries. Like the best “bad” movies, it’s uniquely terrible.” Now a staple of midnight revivals, viewers come dressed as their favorite characters and joyously recite the film’s most memorable lines.
Stephenson revisits the kingdom of Nilbog in the 2009 documentary, this time helming the camera himself. Now a filmmaker in his own right, the one-time child actor reunites with his cinematic father, an Alabama dentist named George Hardy. As the pair make convention appearances and track down members of Troll 2’s cast and crew, Stephenson paints a surprisingly touching picture of the place this film holds in so many lives. We watch as George convinces family and friends to attend an upcoming hometown screening while Colburn discusses his love for the Troll 2 outside a showing at Chicago’s Music Box Theater.
Interviewed for the film, Fragasso gives us a peek into his own creative process, explaining, “Troll 2 is a film that examines many serious and important issues.” Delighted by his movie’s exuberant legacy, the Italian director confesses to confusion over why audiences find it so funny. He also brushes aside questions about the film’s bewildering title, considering that the story’s monsters are repeatedly referred to as goblins. But it’s this kind of strange inconsistency that proves to be a feature and not a bug. Colburn explains, “Fragasso’s conflicted relationship with the film’s reception and his insistence that he made a ‘good’ movie is what helps the documentary transcend mere rubbernecking at the silliness of Troll 2.” Rather than poking fun at a notorious flop, Best Worst Movie is a love letter to this cinematic curio and its ongoing power to delight new audiences.
Now, seventeen years after its own premiere, Best Worst Movie is getting a physical release courtesy of the indie label Terror Vision. Head of acquisitions Brad Henderson remembers, “I grew up on weird and schlocky films, so Troll and Troll 2 were on heavy rotation. I enjoyed Best Worst Movie because it’s about normal people, and this movie was just a fragment of their lives.” Colburn echoes this sentiment. “The film’s cast is made up of such interesting, salt-of-the-earth characters; working-class folks outside the L.A. bubble suddenly thrust into the limelight in a way they’d never imagined. These are stories we don’t see very often.”
Packed with special features, the Blu-ray release is paired with Stephenson’s sophomore documentary, The American Scream, which first premiered at the Fantastic Fest in 2012. This equally heartwarming film explores the “home haunter” phenomenon by profiling three Massachusetts families who prepare for Halloween by transforming their houses into elaborate haunted attractions. Henderson notes, “When Ryan (Graveface) and I created the video side of Terror Vision, we wanted to focus on documentaries. I’ve always loved docs, and they are extremely underrepresented on home video.” This is likely because most audiences simply absorb the non-fiction film’s informative message and then move along to other titles. But Henderson argues that Stephenson’s films are inherently rewatchable. “The American Scream is something you could put on every Halloween season and get joy from watching people create haunted houses.” Regarding his repeated viewings of Best Worst Movie, he remembers, “It was nice knowing there were weirdo kids like me who enjoyed this kind of movie. I watched and knew I wasn’t alone.”
To amplify the seasonal spirit, Henderson has packed the 2-disc set with a variety of extra goodies. Deleted scenes, special features, and trailer reels make for the perfect creepy ambiance or moving scenery at a DIY haunt. And there are also a few surprises. Henderson explains, “When we were putting this double feature together, Ryan and I had the idea of creating a Halloween mixtape for the release. So, along with both documentaries, for a limited time, you get a scan of The Phantom of the Opera (1925), Nosferatu (1922), and Night of the Living Dead (1968).” The latter includes two separate commentary tracks and a new episode of the fan favorite Shocktail Hour’s Halloween Monster Mix. It’s a smorgasbord of genre joy designed to highlight all that horror has to offer, from groundbreaking classics to the best of the worst, and everything that lies in between.
Thirty-six years after his onscreen debut, Stephenson holds a unique place in the genre world. In addition to starring in Fragasso’s unparalleled film, he’s probably the only child actor to save a cinematic family by peeing on the dinner table. But rather than rest on these bizarre laurels, Stephenson has turned lemons into lemonade. By leaning into the beauty of a bad horror movie, he exposes the joy we get out of scaring ourselves and indulging in what truly makes us happy, regardless of its pedigree. Colburn says, “Successful ‘bad’ movies are exceedingly rare. The very, very few that have taken root are the result of eccentric filmmakers outside of the Hollywood system who believed they were making something brilliant. And they did, just not in the way they thought.”
Best Worst Movie is available to stream on Screambox and for preorder at Terror Vision.
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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