Troll Year: 1985 Director: John Carl Buechler Written by: Ed Naha Threat: Troll Weapon of Choice: Magic Ring Based upon: none Color/B&W/3D: Colour Language: English Country of Origin: USA IMDb page:

Other movies in this series:
Troll 2

Rish's Reviews
First things first: this is an awful movie. Sonny Bono's performance alone caused us to groan, and Michael Moriarty's dance number(s) forced me to grab a pair of scissors and jab them through one of my eyes.*
Troll is unlike any movie I've seen in recent memory. It tells the story of young Harry Potter, who encounters a magical realm in the midst of our monotonous modern world, and does battle with the forces of evil, while encountering witches, elves, giants, magic spells, and the titular troll.
And no, I'm not lying.
I vaguely remember when this one could be found in video stores. It was always put in the Horror section and I often mocked the front cover and laughed until tears came to my eyes--eye singular now, of course--by looking at the picture on the back. But I never saw it, or wanted to see it.
Now, having seen the film, I'm pretty sure this is not a horror film. It's a fantasy film . . . and even stranger, it's a fantasy film for children.
I told tyranist as we were watching it that most of the movie sucked, but about ten percent was really good. But here's the rub: now that the movie is over, I'd say that it could be anywhere from twenty to twenty-five percent that is good stuff. Virtually every scene with the aforementioned Sonny Bono, Moriarty, the child actress, and the ex-Marine neighbour are horrible. Scenes with the mother and young protagonist, Harry Junior, are neither great nor terrible. The troll scenes are a bad acid trip in a stranger's house. But pretty much all the scenes with June Lockhart and Phil Fondacaro as the English professor (he also plays the troll, but who's counting?) are quite effective and really rather compelling. And I liked the mushroom-creature.
Oh, and then there's the musical number. What the hell, boys and girls?
Alright, now that I've thought about it, I can't recommend Troll. There are movies out there that are 100% crap rather than 75%, but while a bucket of crap is better than a barrel of crap . . . it's still crap.
*It was the left one, if you must know.
Posted: August 29, 2007

The tyranist's thoughts
Troll is a movie that I've occasionally wanted to see over the years, but never enough to actually rent it. At the moment, some of the cast and crew of the sequel, Troll 2, are touring the country raising a little cash by attending showings built around the marketing campaign that is pitching the best worst movie ever made. I thought it would be fun for Rish and me to attend. Whether we do or not, we prepped by seeing the first movie.
Young Harry Potter and his family have moved into a new apartment. Within moments, his sister has been replaced by a troll who apparently lives in the basement. As the troll tries to take over the building he must survive encounters with a witch, an elf, and many grotesque little things that I don't have a word for in order to restore the world to its proper order.
Yes. I said Harry Potter. We had to pause the movie and laugh for a few minutes at that one. Unfortunately, neither the young Harry Potter nor his father, Harry Potter Senior, are portrayed very convincingly. The younger Potter was so Wesley Crusher-esque that I thought the actor might be Wil Wheaton's older brother. In fact, the quality of acting in this flick is pretty abysmal. Sonny Bono's performance alone would drag down Oscar calibre performances by everyone else involved. God rest him.
But to be fair, they didn't have much to work with. While the core idea is pretty fantastic, the script and subsequent execution lack quite a bit. It may have been budget the brought them down. It may have been Buechler's unholy love for his puppets. It may have simply been that they didn't know how to carry it off. The movie feels like it was meant to be seen by young children and whenever a movie feels like that it will fail to appeal to either young children or anyone else who stumbles upon it. Treat your audience like they aren't idiots and they'll thank you for it.
On the positive side, I really liked the little mushroom creature that we didn't get half enough information on. In fact, the witch's apartment was very nice on the whole and June Lockhart was probably the bright spot in the whole thing. Until she turned into Anne Lockhart. I'm not sure what happened there, but it didn't work.
I can't recommend this movie. Not for anyone. But I would be open to a remake. It's a shame that they only remake good movies. Somebody out there ought to find these high potential but shite-laden movies and start redoing them instead of classics like Halloween.
Posted: August 29, 2007

Total Skulls: 23

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears		Julia Louis Dreyfuss
Former celebrity appears		Sonny Bono
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?