Editing Trog (section)

==Reception==
''[[The Monthly Film Bulletin]]'' wrote: "Aben Kandel's script has played down the horror to concentrate on the dramatic possibilities of the monster's humanisation. The result is a kind of horror-comic ''[[The Wild Child|L'Enfant Sauvage]]'', with Joan Crawford's lady anthropologist patiently initiating her uncouth pupil in the ways of classical music (it doesn't like jazz), clockwork toys, and finally human speech. Although credulity is tested by the fact that Trog never looks like anything but a beefy stunt man with make-up&nbsp;... the makers have taken pains to win us round by presenting all the newsmen as nasty sceptics whose agnostic mutterings ("Surely, doctor, this is all too simple") wilt before Joan Crawford's radiant cry of "Anthropology supports me".&nbsp;... It's a disappointingly lightweight addition to the horror films of Freddie Francis."<ref>{{Cite journal |date=1 January 1971 |title=Trog |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1305832662/8181A96021204FEDPQ/1 |journal=[[The Monthly Film Bulletin]] |volume=38 |issue=444 |pages=171 |via=ProQuest}}</ref>[[File:Tri-City Drive-In Ad - 23 September 1970, Loma Linda, CA.jpg|thumb|180px|A [[Drive-in theater|drive-in]] advertisement from [[Loma Linda]], California, 1970]]

Recalling his work on the film in 1992, Cohen noted that the film was completed on time, came in under budget, and was in his opinion "very successful".<ref>{{cite magazine|magazine=Fangoria|url=https://archive.org/details/Fangoria_111_1992_Sleepwalkers_QualityControl-BONES_c2c|year=1992|title=Crime and Crimson Part Three|first=Tom|last=Weaver|page=[https://archive.org/details/Fangoria_111_1992_Sleepwalkers_QualityControl-BONES_c2c/page/n55 57]}}</ref> Many 1970 reviews of the film, however, were not favorable. In September that year, after previewing ''Trog'', critic [[Roger Ebert]] begins his assessment of the film with a question:{{blockquote|Now what can you really say about a movie where Joan Crawford, dressed in an immaculate beige pantsuit, hunts through a cave shouting: "Trog! Here, Trog!" to her pet troglodyte? A scene like that surpasses absurdity, and so does this movie.<ref>Ebert, Roger (1970). [https://rogerebert.com/reviews/trog-1970 ''Trog!''], review originally published in the ''[[Chicago Sun-Times]]'', September 19, 1970. RogerEbert.com, Ebert Digital, Chicago, Illinois. Retrieved September 3, 2019.</ref>}}

In October 1970, only a few days after the film's nationwide release in the United States, ''[[The New York Times]]'''s review at least offers two faintly positive observations about Crawford's involvement in the low-budget production:{{blockquote|There is, however, a rudimentary virtue in "Trog"&nbsp;... in that it proves that Joan Crawford is grimly working at her craft. Unfortunately, the determined lady, who is fetching in a variety of chic pants suits and dresses, has little else going for her. As the anthropologist chief of a research center that has unearthed a living, hairy, half-caveman half-ape, Ice Age "missing link," a troglodyte she cutely nicknames 'Trog' and attempts to rear as you would a backward child, she poses no threat either to [[Margaret Mead|Dr. Margaret Mead]] or [[Benjamin Spock|Dr. Spock]].<ref>{{cite news |url=http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E04E4DC173BEE34BC4151DFB667838B669EDE |title=Movie Review: 'Trog' and 'Taste Blood of Dracula' |date=29 October 1970 |newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref>}}

In the decades since its premiere, ''Trog'' has achieved a near [[Cult following|cult status]] among some movie fans, especially those who enjoy watching low-budget horror and [[Science fiction|sci-fi]] productions for their outlandish plots or for their sheer [[Camp (style)|campiness]], that a particular film is "'so bad it's good'".<ref>Erickson, Glenn. [https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/16124/trog#articles-reviews "Trog (1970)"], home video reviews, TCM. Retrieved September 6, 2019.</ref><ref>Lowder, J. Bryan (2013). [http://slate.com/culture/2013/04/camp-and-campy-theres-a-big-difference.html "Camp vs. Campy: There's a big difference"], ''[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]]'' (New York, N.Y. and Washington, D.C.), April 1, 2013. Retrieved September 6, 2019.</ref> The British Film Institute in the promotion of its 2015 retrospective program on ''Trog'' provided attendees with an updated or more current take on the film's appeal:{{blockquote|One of the most ludicrous, touching, mind-boggling star vehicles ever. Joan Crawford, desperate for a job, teams up with director Freddie Francis(!) and an actor in a pitiful monkey mask for a sci-fi howler like no other.<ref name="BFI2015"/>}}
Warner Bros., the film's distributor in 1970, also chose "mind-boggling" to describe ''Trog'' during the company's "31 Days of Horror" promotion to sell copies of it in October 2015.<ref name="WarnerLibrary">[https://www.warnerbros.com/news/articles/2015/10/01/31-days-horror-vol-1/ "31 DAYS OF HORROR, VOL. 1: 20 Horror-fying Oscar Winning Actors"], news article in archives of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Los Angeles, California, October 1, 2015. Retrieved September 7, 2019.</ref> In part of that promotion leading up to [[Halloween]], Warner Bros. assures "campy cult fans" they will "delight" in the film and that both the troglodyte's makeup and "Crawford's boldly colored pantsuits" are "hilariously bad".<ref name="WarnerLibrary"/>

The film is listed in [[Golden Raspberry Awards|Golden Raspberry Award]] founder John Wilson's 2005 book ''[[The Official Razzie Movie Guide]]'' as one of "The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made".<ref>{{cite book|last=Wilson|first=John|title=The Official Razzie Movie Guide: Enjoying the Best of Hollywood's Worst |year=2005|publisher=Grand Central Publishing|isbn=0-446-69334-0}}</ref> In 2012, several years before his previously described [[British Film Institute|BFI]] interview with Joe Cornelius, [[John Waters]] recognized ''Trog'' as one of his favorite films on the streaming service [[Mubi (streaming service)|MUBI]].<ref name="JWalters"/>

The film was released as a double-bill with [[Christopher Lee|Christopher Lee's]] ''[[Taste the Blood of Dracula]]'' and after its first week in release, [[Variety (magazine)|''Variety'']] on November 4, 1970, ranked the double-feature as the #1 top-grossing film(s) of the week, raking in $300,000.