Happy Wednesday! Hope your week is going well. I was going to post this review last night, but I got caught up binging Peacemaker the last couple of days. Not going to do a full review on that, since it's too recent, but it's incredible. James Gunn and John Cena delivered on this show. I highly recommend it, it's got comedy and violence and a ton of heartfelt character growth, with multiple characters. And only eight episodes long. And you don't need to watch a dozen other things to understand it. You should watch The Suicide Squad movie that Gunn directed last year, as this is a spinoff, but that's it. Anyway, enough about an amazing TV show. Let's start in with a less than amazing 80s movie. It's time to talk about Troll.
Troll doesn't get nearly as much love/hate as its sequel, for good reason. It's kind of charming, but not great. But not a trainwreck that Troll 2 is. But before I say anymore, let's take a look at who's in this movie, and then delve into the story.
The biggest difference between Troll and Troll 2 has to be the cast and director. Troll stars two child actors. One of them is Noah Hathaway, who also played Atreyu in The NeverEnding Story and Boxey on Battlestar Galactica. He plays a character named Harry Potter Jr. Not kidding. This is jokingly referred to as the unofficial 1st Harry Potter movie. Made a decade before any of the books came out. Jenny Beck plays his sister, Wendy, who is probably best known for being in V and V: The Final Battle. The Dad, Harry Potter Sr, is played by Daniel Radcliff. Just kidding. It's Michael Moriarty, who was in the early seasons of Law & Order and won an Emmy for a role in a miniseries called Holocaust. Rounding out the main family is mom, Anne, portrayed by Shelley Hack of Charlie's Angels fame. Rounding out the other apartment tenants, who have a few famous people. Sonny Bono, formerly of Sonny & Cher and a future US Congressman, is a bachelor playboy. Gary Sandy of WKRP in Cincinnati fame is an ex-marine who still thinks he's in the military. We have a waitress and aspiring actress played by a young Julia Louis-Dreyfus, a couple of years before she started on Seinfeld, and her boyfriend Brad Hall, who has been her real-life husband since 1987. They didn't meet on Troll, it was one of several projects they worked together on, but I really wish they had. What a story for the grandkids! That would be the best version of "How I Met Your Mother" of all time. Although, this was actually the only live-action film they did together. Rounding out the other apartment tenants are Phil Fondacaro, a dwarf actor who doubles as the troll in this movie (he was also in The Black Cauldron, Willow, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and that one Ewok who died in Return of the Jedi) and June Lockhart, the mom from Lost in Space, plays an old lady who lives upstairs. The movie was written and directed by John Carl Buechler, who also did the same for The Dungeonmaster, as well as later directing Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood and Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College. He was responsible for the make-up effects of lots of horror movies, like Trancers and A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 and Halloween 4 and Bride of Re-Animator, and many others. So as you can see, this movie has a solid cast and director. It's not Scorsese and DiCaprio by any means, but absolutely better than the people behind Troll 2. And it shows.
At the beginning of the film, we see the Potter family moving into an apartment building in San Francisco. Mom complains about how many record albums Dad owns, to which is retorts that 3000 isn't enough. We never actually see more than about 20 albums in the movie, so I don't know where he's hiding his massive collection. In typical Harry Potter fashion, he leaves his family to unpack while he goes and gets the family some burgers. Mom asks Atreyu to "play with his sister" to which he responds with "I'd rather watch Star Trek." NEEEEEERD. She then tells him to at least keep an eye on her, something he completely fails at doing. His sister, Wendy, wanders into the laundry room basement of the building and throws her rubber ball down the stairs. We see a silhouette of the troll on the wall. She goes down to get her ball and we see the POV from the troll as he reaches out to grab her. The troll hand has a glowing green, magic-looking ring on its finger. Atreyu then comes looking for her and we are treated to a full-body shot of the troll! He's standing there, holding the ball, and he looks... gross. But in that 1980s, fantasy, low-budget, but not cheap kind of way. This is leap years ahead of the awful masks and burlap sacks of Troll 2.
This is honestly pretty normal in San Francisco basements
Image by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios via IMDB
The Troll then shapeshifts into Wendy! Atreyu never sees the troll, just Wendy. And the Wendy Troll has the green, magic ring on her finger. Big Brother tells her "Mom and Dad are gonna be pissed at you for hiding in the basement" and runs off because he's petty. Wendy (because she's a troll in disguise) is super aggressive and wild. She inhales her burger, eating it like a pig at a trough. She then grabs the sack with the rest of the burgers are starts running, screaming through the apartment building, pulling the fire alarm.
At this point, we meet all of the apartment residents, as they start to head outside because they think the building is on fire. This is when they all meet Harry and his little family. Sonny Bono tells Harry that he lives a swingers lifestyle and doesn't want kids getting in the way. The military dude asks Harry what he does for a living, to which Harry responds with "I review books." I guess Hermione's lectures about reading finally got to him. Military Man goes off on a tirade about how he hates all books because all books lead to communism. Elaine from Seinfeld and her husband/boyfriend seem nice. June Lockhart shows up, annoyed, and we learn nothing more about her character at this time.
Wendy Troll behaves like a total monster at home, which the family just assumes is her acting out because of the stress of the move. She steals Atreyu's glass of juice at breakfast and, instead of giving it back like she's told, stares her "brother" in the eyes and pours it out on the floor. It's pretty hilarious to watch. If this isn't possession by an evil troll, then it's the most awesome sibling rivalry of all time. The parents think nothing of it, but only her big brother, Boxey, thinks something is wrong. I also got to point out that the bedroom design for the brother is a LITTLE better than Joshua's from Troll 2. They live in San Francisco and he has SF 49ers and SF Giants pendents on his wall. However, he also has a Dallas Cowboys banner. No one out there will think anything of that unless you're a football fan. In which case you'd know that the 49ers and Cowboys were arch-rivals in the 80s and 90s, and NO kid living in San Francisco would have stuff for both teams. Hell, I still hate the Cowboys, and it's 2022 now. Anyway, still better than the 30 random sports things in the bedroom of Troll 2.
I had the same look on my face when the Cowboys beat the 49ers in the NFC Championship in 92 and 93...
Image by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios via IMDB
The troll disguised as Wendy starts taking out the other apartment dwellers, one by one. It starts with Sonny Bono, going into his apartment right after one of his ladies leaves. Bono is a total sleazeball (I assume he isn't acting) but wants Wendy to leave because he doesn't want kids hanging around his swinging pad. The troll reverts to its troll form and pokes Bono with a needle from its magic ring. This immediately causes Bono to start swelling up and turning into what looks like a pickle. The troll grabs one of Bono's porno magazines and starts flipping through it while Cher's ex-husband turns into a pod of some kind and starts sprouting leaves. We then see multiple little fantasy creatures pop out and the whole apartment being taken over by plants. This transformation is the only one we see all of, the others are briefer.
"What do you mean Cher is more culturally relevant than me?"
Image by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios via IMDB
WKRP in Cincinnati is next, he tries to shoot the troll, which is ineffective. He gets turned into a plant. The Wendy Troll then interrupts the New Adventures of Young Christine by inviting herself into Julia Louis-Dreyfus' apartment and turning her into a forest nymph. The husband/boyfriend shows up and gets sucked into the fantasy world with the Elaine Benes nymph. This is a pretty hot scene, no nudity, but she runs around half-naked with tree branches. Don't look at me like that. I'm allowed to admire physical beauty. I mean, she's no John Cena in his tighty whities in Peacemaker, but she's still pretty. While all this is going on, Harry Potter puts on a record. Blue Cheer's rocking cover of Summertime Blues. Great song and a good choice to play! He cranks the volume up and does a really ridiculous dance around the apartment. It's a hilarious scene.
God Harry Potter grew up to be such a dork. This is what happens when you marry a Weasley.
Image by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios via The Horror Section
At one point, the Wendy Troll is playing ball in the street and almost gets run over by a car. She gets pushed out of the way by Fondacaro's character, the final apartment building resident we meet, the professor of English, Malcolm Malory. He tells her to be careful and she just stares at him, which makes him self-conscious, him being a dwarf (again, an actual dwarf, not a mystical one). But Wendy Troll asks him if he's an elf. He laughs and says no, he's just a person. He walks her home. Later, her family is making dinner for Wendy and her "little friend" who they think is a child and whom Wendy Troll invited over for dinner. They are surprised and taken aback when Fondacaro shows up. I honestly can't tell if they are surprised it's an adult, a small person, or both. They were clearly expecting a child, so this was obviously a shock to them. And I've seen some people online talk about how "weird it is that this adult is befriending a child." Ehhh. There doesn't seem to be any ulterior motive. Fondacaro was clearly showing up to dinner, not to hang out with Wendy, but meet the family that just moved in. There are no uncomfortable vibes as far as inappropriate relationships, he's just trying to be a friendly neighbor and likes kids. Honestly, that's the kind of thing we need more of, instead of paranoia that every adult who doesn't treat kids like garbage clearly wants to have sex with them. And this is coming from someone who generally dislikes children. Wendy Troll asks Fondacaro to tell his parents a story he wrote called "The Faerie Queene." While he recites this fantasy story, the music swells in the background, and all the faerie creatures in the different apartments start humming along. It's kinda cool. With the puppets and music, it feels like a Jim Henson bit.
That aside, later, Wendy Troll goes to visit Fondacaro in his apartment. He is in pain and she asks him what's wrong. Well. He's dying. Complications from his dwarfism, he explains. He tries to cheer her up by offering to draw her a picture of a bunny. Wendy Troll asks him if he ever wanted to be an actual elf. He goes on a great monologue about how, yes, he did. When he was young and trying to learn how to deal with his dwarfism, he would often fantasize about being a mythical creature. It's a great monologue, and you can tell that Fondacaro was putting some of himself into it. Whether or not he dreamed about being an actual mythical creature or not, he must have had a difficult experience growing up, and he channels that into this scene. Wendy Troll feels terrible and uses its magic ring to turn him into a plant and be reborn as an actual elf. It's one of a couple of times in this movie where the troll doesn't just kill out of malice, it kills Fondacaro thinking it's helping him.
This is a good time to pause for a minute and go on a brief rant. I really hate how dwarves are cast in movies. It's always either in a fantasy or sci-fi film where they need someone short, a comedy where they're the butt of a joke or a drama where their height is the plot point. Fondacaro is a good actor, his scene talking about his childhood proves it. I'm writing this as Peter Dinklage's Cyrano has just come out. And I'm sure it's a fine movie, I'm sure he does great in it because he's a good actor. But it annoys me that the crux of this version is that his Cyrano is a dwarf. I'm not saying there shouldn't be serious dramas about their height. Without seeing this movie, I'm sure it has a "being small is beautiful" message and that's awesome. I don't even think that tasteful comedies, where their height is the punchline, are necessarily bad. I'm thinking Dinklage again, in 30 Rock and Death at a Funeral. I just wish there were more films where their height wasn't the reason they were cast. The only one I can think of is Dinklage in X-Men: Days of Future Past. There are many, many times when a woman or a person of color or someone in the LGBTQ+ community is cast in a role because of who they are, and that's fine. But there are also movies where an actor is cast just because they're good in a role, and things like race and sexual orientation are non-factors. Not enough, to be sure, but still more than the dwarf community. I'm not trying to sound like an SJW, I just love Dinklage and Fondacaro's acting and want to see them in things where they can just simply act and who cares how tall or short they are. If you've seen movies with them, or other dwarf actors, where their height is inconsequential, let me know! I'm not aware of any, save from the aforementioned X-Men movie. Anyway, rant over.
So while all this is going on with Wendy Troll, her "brother" Boxey is making friends with June Lockhart upstairs. Lockhart befriends him quickly, which is unusual because she seemed to be grumpy and dislike children earlier in the movie. But whatever. Atreyu confesses that his sister seems strange and Lockhart immediately knows what's going on. Over the course of a couple of scenes, she reveals to him that she's actually a witch. She was a princess, many years ago, but fell in love with a wizard named Torok and learned magic. This isn't a huge shock to the viewer, as she has this talking mushroom plant thing who looks and sounds like Toad from the Super Mario Bros. Super Show. It's her old wizard teacher, Galwyn.
Anyway, long ago, the human world and the faerie world were separate. Well, Torok and some mystical creatures lead a war to take over the human world, lost, and Torok was turned into a troll. Lockhart tells Atreyu that his sister is still alive and that Torok is back to take over the world. Torok has 72 hours to cross over, starting on Walpurgis Night, and try to rebuild his kingdom. Why he's in a basement in an apartment building in San Francisco, we don't know. Why the witch princess lives there, I think it's implied that she follows him around, but it isn't really clear. Or maybe I just wasn't paying close enough attention, because the backstory for this is an info dump and I'm not interested. In the end, Lockhart tells our hero that he needs to slay the "biggest monster" in Torok's realm and free his sister. She gives him a magic spear and tells him to go defend his family.
At this point in our tale, Torok has taken over most of the apartment. He launches attacks on the Potter family as well as his ex-lover, Lockhart. Outside, plant tentacles start flailing around and the ground shakes. People gather, are amazed and watch what's going on. Lockhart does some magic and turns into a younger version of herself. Fun fact, this is June Lockhart's daughter, Anne, playing the younger version of her mother. She gets a sword, goes to the basement, and enters Torok's world to slay him. She confronts her lover and he uses his magic to turn her into a stump. Atreyu comes to the basement world, the stump tells him "It's up to you, kiddo" and so he enters and wanders around, in the same locations that Ellene's husband/boyfriend wandered. But our young hero finds his sister in a glass case. He puts the spear down like a dummy and takes his sister out. The End Game Boss Troll shows up and starts wrecking stuff. It corners Boxey and Wendy and then, in a face turn, Torok shows up and kills the monster with the magic spear. The two kids escape and Torok's realm and portal are destroyed.
I don't know why they didn't sick the Dad on the monster, Harry Potter has faced down trolls before.
Image by Wizarding World Digital via Wizarding World
After this, the Potter family does the most sensible and logical thing you can do in this situation. They pack up and move out! Yep. They leave just as the police arrive. We see a young Lockhart outside with the crowd and, in a quick Battlestar Galactica reunion, Sheba tells Boxey that he "did good, kiddo." The police decide to check the place out, even though they think it was just the Potter kids playing their stereo too loud that caused the problems. One cop goes into the basement, opens a door, and walks out into Torok's realm! Torok comes up behind him and stabs the cop with the magic ring! Oh no! Fade to black, movie is over.
Toll had a budget of $1 million and it shows. This is the difference between $1 million and Troll 2's $100K. And Troll made $5.5 million in the box office, actually making it a fairly successful movie for what it is. Although it became more of a cult film later, after being released on home video and shown on TV.
The movie was originally going to be much more violent, more like the slasher movies that Buechler was used to directing and doing effects for. But the studio wanted to keep it PG-13, so he had to tone down the graphic violence. Roger Corman passed on producing it, I guess the budget was too high for him. I can imagine him saying "A million dollars to make a movie? Sure, but what am I gonna do with the rest of the $750,000?"
You might think that Fondacaro was originally cast as the Torok the Troll and they decided to have him play Malcolm to save money on another actor... but it's the reverse of that. He was supposed to be just Malcolm and the troll was going to be animatronic. Buechler scraped that and went with a full suit instead. They were going to cast someone else but decided to have Fondacaro play double duty, to save money. I honestly thought it would have been the other way around.
As far as the JK Rowling Harry Potter connections, there is no confirmation that Rowling stole the character name (and some loose plot elements) for her novels. The studio almost filed suit, but didn't. Rowling has said she never had heard of Troll, which honestly I believe. The name Harry Potter is common and it looks like just a coincidence. There are so many movies and books and TV shows and games, that eventually, names will get recycled. Hell, I used to know someone named Anna Morgan, and when The Ring came out and she heard that name used for one of the characters in the movie, it freaked her out. Still, even though Rowling likely didn't steal anything from Troll, it is fun to put them in connection with each other. Especially since Harry Potter in Troll is such a dork.
What the hell is going on with that hat, Harry
Image by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios via Suggesting Movie
There is no actual sequel to Troll. My last review, Troll 2, went more into detail on how Troll, Troll 2, and both versions of Troll 3 are unconnected (yes there are two). I won't rehash that here. Buechler did try to make an official sequel to Troll, starting in 2007, but it languished in pre-development. It went through several versions, including an animated prequel called "Troll: The Rise of Harry Potter, Jr." It never came through, sadly, and Buechler, unfortunately, passed away in 2019.
So this movie is 100 times "better" than Troll 2, in almost every way. The movie is crisp and clean, has good music, fairly well-done effects, solid acting, tells a pretty decent story. Honestly, it's not that terrible of a movie. I would say that it lacks a certain level of refinement and, while it's a solid film, doesn't do anything extraordinary. It's a by-the-numbers, made for kids, 80s fantasy action movie. Nothing wrong with that. That said, while I would be willing to watch this again, I wouldn't do so as eagerly as I would Troll 2. I've already seen Troll 2 again since posting my review of it. And I'll watch it again. Troll is a better movie in almost every way imaginable, and enjoyable, but not as entertaining as Troll 2.
But that's my hot take on it. You can find it streaming online at JustWatch, and I highly encourage you to watch it and form your own opinions! Let me know what you thought, especially if you've also seen Troll 2. How do they compare/contrast to you?
Next time, I'm going to continue in the unconnected Troll series to the first version of Troll 3 aka Quest for the Mighty Sword aka Ator III: The Hobgoblin aka The Hobgoblin. I'm not doing the other Ator movies at this time (honestly I probably never will), so hopefully, I won't be lost, but I doubt there's much continuity with those movies either. Until then, home skillets, stay crispy!
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