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#42 - Troll
John Carl Buechler, 1986
A family moves into an apartment building that is slowly being taken over by a malevolent troll and the only one who seems to notice is the family's son.
The reason that Troll 2 is named Troll 2 despite the fact that it has no actual trolls in it is because the powers that be decided that it would be a good marketing ploy to make it a "sequel" to this film. Seeing this film definitely illustrated just how many parallels (both played straight and subverted) existed between the films. A nuclear family moves to a new place, the son is the only one to suspect anything is wrong, a short and hideous monster is causing chaos and picking off all the different side characters using twisted magic, there's an older character who serves as a guide for the young hero, etc. It would be easy to spend the whole review comparing the two films, but of more importance is the question as to whether or not Troll is actually an enjoyable (if not necessarily good) piece of cinema.
While Troll 2 rightfully earns it reputation as one of the best worst movies ever, Troll just comes across as downright awful without providing any unintentional comical respite. Even at the incredibly lean running time of 79 minutes, it drags hard. The tone of the film occupies a no-man's-land between the slightly silly safe-for-kids scariness of an episode of Goosebumps and various unsettling types of adult horror, so you're never quite sure whether or not you're supposed to be scared or amused so eventually you just settle on mildly disgusted boredom. The troll's various ways of disposing of the building's tenants range from the stupefyingly goofy (a pre-Seinfeld Julia Louis-Dreyfus is transformed into a near-naked, constantly giggling forest nymph) to the sickeningly ridiculous (Sonny Bono's mustachioed swinger is slowly transformed into a cocoon-like plant in a manner that is way too disturbing for a film that feels like it's aimed at children). The whole film just turns into a chance to showcase the various puppet effects that a Charles Band production would obviously feature (this was the same producer that gave us the Puppet Master franchise, after all). They even launch into some kind of cacophonous sing-along that, once again, I am not sure is supposed to be either unnerving or enjoyable. Even the "good" puppets look just plain wrong (case in point - the smiling mushroom that belongs to the good witch). The titular troll even looks like a really bad rough draft of Leprechaun, which is really saying something.
What really makes this film a depressing affair is that there is the occasional moment that doesn't come across as completely tone-deaf. Having the troll (in disguise as the hero's kid sister) befriend a terminally-ill little person and then use his normally destructive powers to "heal" said little person was admittedly an interesting touch (even if the execution involved even more horribly uncanny puppets). Unfortunately, such moments are still overshadowed by a film that is dull, tonally inconsistent, better at being disturbing than being frightening, lacking in decent writing, and full of just as many ridiculous factors as its much more infamous successor but without the humour to go along with it. Troll 2 might be the best worst movie, but Troll is definitely a contender for the worst worst movie.
Also, I made it all the way through this review without mentioning that the hero and his dad are both called Harry Potter. So there.
John Carl Buechler, 1986
A family moves into an apartment building that is slowly being taken over by a malevolent troll and the only one who seems to notice is the family's son.
The reason that Troll 2 is named Troll 2 despite the fact that it has no actual trolls in it is because the powers that be decided that it would be a good marketing ploy to make it a "sequel" to this film. Seeing this film definitely illustrated just how many parallels (both played straight and subverted) existed between the films. A nuclear family moves to a new place, the son is the only one to suspect anything is wrong, a short and hideous monster is causing chaos and picking off all the different side characters using twisted magic, there's an older character who serves as a guide for the young hero, etc. It would be easy to spend the whole review comparing the two films, but of more importance is the question as to whether or not Troll is actually an enjoyable (if not necessarily good) piece of cinema.
While Troll 2 rightfully earns it reputation as one of the best worst movies ever, Troll just comes across as downright awful without providing any unintentional comical respite. Even at the incredibly lean running time of 79 minutes, it drags hard. The tone of the film occupies a no-man's-land between the slightly silly safe-for-kids scariness of an episode of Goosebumps and various unsettling types of adult horror, so you're never quite sure whether or not you're supposed to be scared or amused so eventually you just settle on mildly disgusted boredom. The troll's various ways of disposing of the building's tenants range from the stupefyingly goofy (a pre-Seinfeld Julia Louis-Dreyfus is transformed into a near-naked, constantly giggling forest nymph) to the sickeningly ridiculous (Sonny Bono's mustachioed swinger is slowly transformed into a cocoon-like plant in a manner that is way too disturbing for a film that feels like it's aimed at children). The whole film just turns into a chance to showcase the various puppet effects that a Charles Band production would obviously feature (this was the same producer that gave us the Puppet Master franchise, after all). They even launch into some kind of cacophonous sing-along that, once again, I am not sure is supposed to be either unnerving or enjoyable. Even the "good" puppets look just plain wrong (case in point - the smiling mushroom that belongs to the good witch). The titular troll even looks like a really bad rough draft of Leprechaun, which is really saying something.
What really makes this film a depressing affair is that there is the occasional moment that doesn't come across as completely tone-deaf. Having the troll (in disguise as the hero's kid sister) befriend a terminally-ill little person and then use his normally destructive powers to "heal" said little person was admittedly an interesting touch (even if the execution involved even more horribly uncanny puppets). Unfortunately, such moments are still overshadowed by a film that is dull, tonally inconsistent, better at being disturbing than being frightening, lacking in decent writing, and full of just as many ridiculous factors as its much more infamous successor but without the humour to go along with it. Troll 2 might be the best worst movie, but Troll is definitely a contender for the worst worst movie.
Also, I made it all the way through this review without mentioning that the hero and his dad are both called Harry Potter. So there.