Troll Recap

Jamie

When the Potter family moves into their new apartment their young daughter is taken possession by an evil wizard/troll. It’s up to the young Harry Potter to team up with the sorceress upstairs to stop the evil plan. Can they stop the troll and get his sister back before it’s too late? Find out in… Troll.

How?! The Potters are ready to live it up in their new apartment in San Fran, but on the very day they move in an evil wizard turned troll, Torok, possesses their daughter, Wendy, and begins to wreak havoc on the apartment building. While the parents are largely oblivious, their son, Harry Potter (seriously), is pretty much like “this girl has super strength and is a psychopath, something is going on.” He learns from Eunice, the witch that lives upstairs, about the whole troll business and she explains that he is trying to transform the apartment building into a fairy world. Once he is able to turn all the other tenants of the building into totally gross plants/fairies/trolls/giant bear monsters he will be able to take over the human realm in its entirety (which seems a bit arbitrary… why the apartment building?… whatever). She informs Harry that he needs to stab the heart of the fairy world in order to stop Torok. By doing this he’ll save his sister since Torok needs her to be his bride in his new kingdom. In a final climactic battle Harry confronts a giant bear-bat monster thing but is totally pwned like a noob. However, Torok is horrified when his creation gets out of control and attempts to kill Wendy (which would spoil his whole plan) and kills the monster himself. The fairy realm is thus destroyed and the Potter family skedaddles real quick before anyone realizes that a whole bunch of people died in that apartment building. In the end we see a police officer enter the basement of the building and the troll possesses him. BUM BUM BUM. THE END.

Why?! We are really given a lot of exposition by Eunice on exactly why the troll is doing what he’s doing. Back in the day the fairy and human realms were in perfect balance. Torok attempted to rise up and break this balance and there was a big war and the humans won. This resulted in Torok being turned into a troll. Only occasionally can Torok try to reclaim his power. As for our hero, Harry Potter, he’s just a kid who wants his lame little sister back rather than a psychopathic monster.

Who?! There are a bunch of interesting and not traditional things to highlight here. We have Phil Fondacaro playing two characters, Torok and Malcolm. We have the same role portrayed by two people as Eunice St. Claire is an old woman for most of the film, but also transformed into her younger self. These roles were portrayed by mother/daughter June and Anne Lockhart. Finally the recently deceased director of the film John Carl Buechler was featured uncredited as Torok in human/wizard form.

What?! There are certainly some Coca-Cola cups laying around, but nothing really pops as super interesting. I’m much more interested in what props were for sale for this film and lo and behold my little mushroom guy was! Look at the price he was asking for it. Can’t say I have $2000 laying around ready to be spent on a little mushroom puppet no matter how much I like it singing its little heart out.

Where?! We get a nice view of the Golden Gate Bridge near the Potter’s apartment so this is a San Francisco treat. Doesn’t really come into play beyond that though seeing as we spend the whole movie in the apartment building. B-.

When?! You are probably like “No way. Troll couldn’t possibly be a Secret Holiday Film.” Wrong! We are told by Eunice that the day that Wendy was transformed was Walpurgis Night, which lands on May 1st. The rest of the film follows from there. This is made somewhat confusing by an October calendar on Eunice’s wall, but I chalk that up to her being a witch land loving Halloween so much she keeps it up all year round. Weirdly specific and part of the plot. A-.

What a weird interesting movie. I can 100% see why this became a cult film. Like there is a moment when the troll is starting to build his fairy world and there is this creepy music going on and a little mushroom person is singing and shit and I was straight digging it. It also has a super nerd alert fantasy storyline without a lick of irony, which I always appreciate. All that said, the acting, writing, and general filmmaking is not good at all… so a mixed bag. On the one hand there is a little singing mushroom person, on the other everything else is bad. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Troll is super weird. Like Leprechaun it is hard to tell whether I’m supposed to think the movie is terrible on purpose or what. I imagine not. I mean … It at least seems like they want to make all of the practical effects work. They don’t. Let’s get into it!

P’s View on the Preview – The only reason we watched this film is because of Troll 2 honestly. Oh … and I think the Worst Of wiki page is severely lacking in horror films. As a matter of fact I think we literally had to choose between Vampire in Brooklyn (a comedy in actuality) and this, and we chose this. I figured it was going to be nonsense. I was right.

The Good – As a fantasy story it actually is decently interesting. A remake (which is apparently in the works) is perfect for a film like this. Just for the love of God don’t make it an actual horror film. Just make it an adventure fantasy with the Troll being a kind of goofy antagonist. I think that would work much better. That’s it, I enjoyed the vibe of the film, but not much else. At times the VFX were impressive for 1986.

The Bad – The film is certainly nonsensical. I had a hell of a time making a quiz for it because I couldn’t even remember who all of the characters were. It isn’t a horror film and I don’t know why places suggest it is. Like maybe earlier in the 80s you could have gotten away with it, but at this point it should have been a Leprechaun-esque horror comedy. I’m not even sure the Troll actually kills anyone. Do they come back in the end? Otherwise wouldn’t the Potters be going to prison for killing them all? See the movie is ultra confusing. Top to bottom the acting is terrible. Like an early 80s syndicated television series instead of a film.

The BMT – As mentioned in the preview the film itself is mainly notable as being the not-really prior installment to the actual maybe-worst-film-ever in Troll 2. The film itself doesn’t have that BMT magic though. It feels a bit like you are punching down when a film is this small and looks so amateurly made. Especially when it isn’t made by a lunatic, but instead by a well-meaning FX artist who literally just died a few days ago. I’m a bit stumped as to why anyone would think this is one of the worst films ever made.

Roast-radamus – Huh. Nothing really comes to mind. No big cameos, no product placement from what I could recall, no twists, no Planchet getting ripped on in every scene. The movie isn’t good, but it isn’t horrible, and it isn’t really our cup of BMTea if you get my drift. A tiny Where (Setting) for San Francisco, but not even that. A recipe for completely forgetting I watched this film in a month.

StreetCreditReport.com – Lists from the 80s are few and far between naturally, but amazingly it did make this random list. The list itself is solid, we’ve seen quite a few of those for BMT. And I agree wholeheartedly with the Troll assessment there. It has some cred as a bad horror film of the mid-80s, and as the precursor to the notorious Troll 2, but not much else.

You Just Got Schooled – I was hoping there would be a doc or something about the film, and it turns out there is!:

It looks like the production company may have made it as some sort of promotion for their films since it is somehow related to Ghoulies. I would say watch the first ten minutes and you’ll get most of the interesting stories. The back half is fine, but all with the VFX guys and it is just very technical. I wish more movies had this kind of stuff. Instead of reading a never ending stream of IMDb nonsense you can get it straight from the source. Also makes me want to look into Fangoria. I can’t believe it still exists.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs