Troll (1986)

There are a surprising amount of familiar faces in Troll, a low-budget cheeseball that makes no sense whatsoever and fails on pretty much every level.

First, there’s Michael Moriarty. Four years before he became the district attorney on Law & Order, he plays Harry Potter. No, not the boy wizard, a married book critic with an extensive record collection and two kids, a teenage son, horror movie fanatic Harry Potter Jr. and a young daughter named Wendy.

We first meet them all moving into a new apartment. Wendy loses her ball in the laundry room and is attacked by a mysterious thing unbeknownst to her family. They sense something’s up because of her suddenly odd, aggressive behaviour but only Harry Jr. bothers to follow-up and learn the truth already evident to the audience.

That thing wears a magical green ring that allows him to assume Wendy’s identity and indulge his worse impulses like overeating and attacking both Harry Potters who could’ve used some help from the more powerful Harry Potter. (If only someone would think to remove it. God knows she’s sleeping more.)

About ten minutes in, following the false danger of a fire alarm being set off, we meet a number of their eccentric neighbours. There’s the tumbling Sonny Bono, a Ralph Furley wannabe stuck in the past based on how he decorates his apartment. He thinks he’s a ladykiller but the only lady he gets can’t wait to get out of there after disappointing sex. I bet Cher loved this scene.

When fake Wendy suddenly arrives at his door, we eventually learn that green ring she’s wearing has a hidden needle that protrudes when needed. And the thing pretending to be her doesn’t like Bono or his decor. I bet Cher loved this scene.

Then there’s Gary Sandy, the former WKRP programming director Andy Travis. Now sporting a beard and completely consumed with his physical appearance, supposedly retired from the military (he can’t describe what death looks like after “dozens” of tours which suggests fabulism) he’s a right-wing kook who thinks the printed word has an intractable left-wing bias. Fake Wendy pays him a visit, too.

Shortly after her undistinguished stint on Saturday Night Live, Julia Louis-Dreyfus decided appearing in this fake-looking dreck would be a good career move. She plays an aspiring actress dating her SNL colleague and eventual longtime husband Brad Hall who coincidentally bares a striking resemblance to the actual troll quietly causing all this mayhem. That might explain how the troll is able to pull off a robbery. Looks don’t matter, apparently.

And then there’s June Lockhart who I’m presuming is the landlord but in reality is something of a lazy protector of this place. Over time, her role becomes much clearer as she explains to Harry Jr., who befriends her, why all this nonsense is even happening at all.

Back in the day, humans and fairies had some kind of territorial dispute over their two-state solution (ahem) and the fairies got pissed and rebelled but ultimately lost the war. Lockhart was in love with one of them and now her ex, transformed against his will into a harry little troll, is vowing revenge. If he thinks those bad special effects are an intimidating army, he should rethink his entire military strategy. He’s already lost one battle.

Troll was released in mid-January 1986 by the short-lived genre house Empire Pictures, the same company that released Parasite with a young Demi Moore (Harry Jr. has the movie poster on his bedroom wall) and the so-so Prison that starred future King of Middle Earth Viggo Mortensen.

Trying to follow the Roger Corman method of making profitable cheapos, the film actually became a surprise hit making about five times its tiny budget. Unlike the mighty Halloween or the more recent Gretel & Hansel though, it doesn’t look great. It very much resembles its low cost. Hard to believe this was filmed in beautiful Italy (to be fair, there are a couple of nice albeit brief transitional outdoor shots with the sky bathed in orange) with a mostly Italian crew.

The biggest problem is we see too much of the troll who nearly isn’t hideous enough. He smiles too much, in fact. Ironically, he’s much angrier when he pretends to be Wendy. (He constantly switches back and forth between the two identities, all performed off-camera of course. Gotta love cutaways.)

Clearly not meant to be taken seriously, it nonetheless can’t produce one genuine scare nor one bonafide laugh. Kids love horror films but it’s hard to imagine older ones having nightmares about this. It’s a reluctant campfest. It’s nowhere near being a guilty pleasure. It’s too dull.

The troll is played by longtime character actor Phil Fondacaro (Willow, Bordello Of Blood) completely unrecognizable in all that prosthetic make-up. He also plays a kindly English professor with a cliched past who basically rescues himself, well, the fake Wendy, from an oncoming taxi.

As a thank you, she invites him to a family dinner but neglects to tell everybody that the adult professor is a little person which leads to a needlessly awkward scene where the parents pretend to be shocked at his diminutive stature, a constant annoyance in his life. He’s a good sport, though, and everyone’s quickly put at ease.

But his health has supposedly deteriorated (he seems fine to me) and the troll decides to do something drastic that does not look and feel like an improvement. Imagine a man of letters being reduced to an even tinier and now mute animatronic puppet. Nice mustache, though.

Lockhart is supposed to prevent such calamities from ever happening in the first place but the most she ever does is belatedly blow a stupid horn once that only aggravates the growing troll army and then eventually hand off a magical sword to Harry Potter Jr. to do battle with a giant monster who easily tosses him aside, not unlike his fake sister earlier on.

When Lockhart does finally confront her ex in a doomed bid to get over, she has already suddenly transformed herself back into a younger woman, Lockhart’s real-life daughter Anne. But why is this even necessary? If anything, it makes her weaker. For someone who’s created her own useless troll companion, an Asian-looking mushroom that she’s always hiding from Harry Jr., that’s about the extent of her power, apparently. I’ve never seen someone so lackadaisical in vanquishing evil. She leaves everything too late.

Even dumber is the troll sabotaging his own scheme out of desperation. Of course, the real Wendy has been his sleeping prisoner for a while (where did he hide her before creating one of his many makeshift gardens?) but he doesn’t want her harmed. In fact, he has plans for her, something about making her the princess of the trolls or some bullshit. Is he looking to replace his ex? I thought he hated humans.

When one of his rogue minions doesn’t listen to him, he intervenes, leaving an opening for an eventual escape. Later, when a nosy cop makes the mistake of entering one of the apartments, we are reminded that even if he did manage to pop him, the heel would survive fully intact, based purely on what happens earlier on with Gary Sandy. Empire was clearly thinking franchise right from the start.

Troll is a typical independent mid-80s horror film, very dated in multiple ways and exceedingly moronic. Heavy on phony, crude-looking practical effects (think demented Muppets without the cheer) but thankfully free of a single drop of blood. This was never meant to be excessively violent. It was also never meant to be any good.

Before his early run on Law & Order, Michael Moriarty did a bunch of these cruddy indies, mostly with schlock director Larry Cohen. His weirdest scene in Troll sees him dancing around like a knob and miming wildly to Blue Cheer’s erratically off-putting version of Summertime Blues which only has a decent opening before quickly falling apart. Guess the superior Who version was too expensive.

Lockhart’s character is so confusing and contradictory to me, especially in the beginning. When Harry Jr. pays her a visit just to throw up, even though nothing comes out of him, her front door opens on its own which he doesn’t notice. (Or am I losing my goddamn mind?) She’s not happy to see him at first and wants him to leave after he admits it was a false alarm. (Who does this?)

She’s rather grumpy here, being every bit the crotchety old bag she wants to convey to strangers. But immediately after Harry Potter Jr. reveals he’s friendless in his new environment, suddenly it’s hey, the door’s always open, kiddo, just knock! Hey, kiddo! I made you a snack! Why is this cranky old lady suddenly acting as a warm-hearted grandmother?

When Wendy starts acting up around her family, there’s talk of maybe seeking medical support but nothing ever comes of that. It’s not until members of the troll’s army are literally outside their front door that they finally clue in. How quickly they start packing afterwards.

There isn’t much suspense in Troll. There isn’t much excitement, either. Like Lockhart’s ineffectual sorceress (like the Potters, she bails having not stopped the villain), it seems so hesitant to do anything that might actually help move the story along. For a movie running not even 85 minutes even highway traffic jams aren’t this slow.

Lockhart takes so long to react to the changes around her, it’s no wonder she puts all her faith in Harry Potter Jr. since she’s clearly ill-equipped to get the job done herself. One can only imagine the laughter if she ever had to face Voldemort.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Monday, June 10, 2024
7:57 p.m.