Troll – 1 out of 5
Troll came out in 1986 when I was a little boy. It seems like this should have been a film I saw in those years but I’m not entirely sure I did. Recently, I decided to watch one of the greatest bad films ever made; Troll 2 (the sequel but not actually a sequel to this film), and it came in a dual disc that featured this one. So, I decided to check it out and hope that it was fun bad like the infamous Troll 2. It wasn’t. Sure, it is bad and easy to giggle at during various scenes but mostly it was just meh.
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| The troll has a smile that says, "Yes, it was me who farted in that crowded elevator." |
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| "In brightest day and in blackest night..." |
While unpacking in their new apartment, the Potter family’s youngest; Wendy Anne (Jenny Beck) is attacked by a ghoulish troll who uses its magic to hide her and take her form. Wendy Anne’s parents; Harry (Michael Moriarty) and Anne (Shelley Hack), are pretty oblivious to the fact a troll has replaced their daughter and that this troll is working its way through the apartment building changing all the residents and transforming the place into its magical world. The only one who sees what is wrong is her brother Harry Jr. (Noah Hathaway) and he reaches out to an older woman in the apartment who just so happens to be a witch. Seems pointless to do so considering the apartment literally has two people named Harry Potter in it but this is still a decade before the first book arrived. Anyway, it’s up to Harry and this witch to stop the troll and save Wendy Anne.
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| This apartment building is doomed. He couldn't even save Artax in the Swamps of Sadness. |
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| A spear?!? This witch ain't messing around. |
Perhaps if I saw Troll as a child (or at the least recalled seeing it) I might have had nostalgia tinting my eyes rose colored as I watched this but, seeing it as is as a 38 year old man, I found this film kinda boring. The fantasy elements don’t really have the whimsy needed to make them interesting and the characters all feel very…odd. For example, there’s a sequence when Harry Potter Sr. is rocking out to a rock song in the living room. It feels really out of place and when you combine the fact that the parents of the Potter family can’t recognize when their child is acting strangely and have a lot of strange reactions and interactions you start to wonder if the father and mother were also replaced but by aliens trying to understand who and what humans are.
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| In fairness, the troll Wendy Anne is kinda unsettling. |
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| Hmmm, that troll kinda looks like Sonny Bono. |
The one saving grace the film has is the fact it hits those right amounts of stupid that it occasionally is so bad it’s good. Whether it’s seeing Julia Louis-Dreyfus (in her film debut) dancing around as a nymph with nothing but vines covering her up or a weird grunting song the creatures the troll makes start “singing” or bad puppet work or the simple fact that Sonny Bono was in this film. Troll has no shortage of really dumb moments that are pure accidental comedy and makes the film fun to watch at times. Sadly, this bit of magic is usually short-lived and bookended by moments where it either is taking itself too seriously or looks like it is just going through the motions to fart out a film about a troll taking over an apartment building.
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| Julia Louis-Dreyfus is said to be ashamed of doing this movie but she shouldn't feel bad. Actors gotta eat and, to be honest, if I was given a chance to star in a POS like this I would jump on it in a heartbeat. |
Troll really didn’t elicit much of a reaction from me one way or the other. Sure, I laughed at the ridiculous parts and got snarky over the practical effects that didn’t hold up but, overall, I just wasn’t invested in it due to a story that just wasn’t that interesting to me. I was hoping I’d see something akin to those cult classics that as so bad they’re fun to watch but, aside from a few amusing moments, the majority of the film just was blah to me.
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