Troll [Reviewed by the Drudgeon]

82 min., 1986
Directed by John Carl Buechler
My rating:
IMDB • Netflix

Some good old fashioned fantasy horror.

* * *

A new family has just moved into an apartment complex.  They are the Potters.  We have father and mother, Harry Sr. (Michael Moriarty) and Anne (Shelley Hack) with their two children, son Harry Jr. (Noah Hathaway) and daughter Wendy (Jenny Beck).  While moving in, young Wendy is playing with her ball and it bounces into the laundry room and as she goes to retrieve it she is grabbed by (what we later learn) a troll named Torok.  He takes on Wendy’s form and starts to wreak havoc in the apartment.  Her parents think that it might be the stress of the movie, but young Harry Potter knows better (well kinda better, he first thinks that she is an alien).  While young Harry meets an older woman named Eunice (June Lockhart), Torok in Wendy form goes from apartment to apartment and turns the tenants and their rooms into creatures/parts of his world.  Harry Jr. learns the backstory from Eunice and she has entrusted him to save his sister and help to stop Torok from bringing back his world.

The most surprising thing about this movie is that, as fun as it is, the acting is pretty good.  Is everyone great?  No.  We have June Lockhart who does a great job and then there’s Phil Fondacaro who is the best of the bunch.  He plays Malcolm with a sort of love that you don’t see all that often.  Even though most of his dialogue is very lame, his speech about how he’s dying and when he was younger and was told that he wouldn’t grow anymore that he would daydream that maybe he was magical or could go somewhere magical where he could fit in is really quite powerful.  We also have appearances by Sonny Bono as the sex crazed Peter Dickinson and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as an aspiring model.  Two odd actors to appear in a movie like this.

The effects of the movie haven’t aged all that well.  They aren’t the worst that have ever graced the screen, but most of them are actually really lame.  Among the bad effects are painfully obvious fake foliage, barely active puppets and some really bad animation.  Some of the effects do work pretty well though.  Like with Torok who actually works really well.  The makeup on him is really good and his facial expressions are really nicely done.  The other effect that works really well was when Sonny’s character is pricked by Torok’s ring and then he transforms into a strange pod (or pickle).  It still stands up pretty well and it’s just plain cool.

Overall this is actually a really fun movie.  Then again I saw this when I was younger and loved it then (who the hell didn’t think that at some point that their sibling was from a different planet or possessed), so maybe that does have something to do with how I watch it now, but I really think that it’s still a lot of fun.  Yep it’s dated, but that really doesn’t take much away from the overall movie.  On a side note, if you look on the walls in Harry Potter Jr.’s room you will see a poster for the movie Parasite (you know the one that I just reviewed not that long ago).

Um, I’m curious about the whole Harry Potter thing.  No not about J.K. Rowling stealing the name or anything like that.  I’m just wondering if I use the name Harry Potter in this review, can I get sued even though this was made before the books.  Hell here goes, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter and Harry Potter.  Fuck you J.K. Rowling!

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