Don't Believe the Hype

A Masterpiece!

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Blistering performances.

Another great film the mind of Charles Band and Empire Pictures!SPOILERS AHEAD!The film Troll was made in 1986. The film is directed by well known effects maestro John Carl Beauchler. Beauchler is known for his work on other cult favorites like Re-Animator (1985), Ghoulies (1984), From beyond (1986), etc. Troll also isn't the only time Beauchler has dabbled in directing, he also directed genre favorites like Ghoulies go to College (1990) and Friday the 13th Part 7: The New Blood (1988).The film stars a very talented cast. Once child star Noah Hathaway of Never Ending Story fame. Hathaway plays young harry Potter Jr., a teenage boy obsessed with horror films and comic books. Then we have Michael Moriarty playing Harry Potter Sr., the father of Hathaway character. Moriarty is known as a genre favorite, he has been in such cult classics as Q: The Winged Serpent (1978) and The Stuff (1983). Then we have Shelley Hack as the mother, Anne Potter. Hack is well known for her work in Tales from the Crypt (TV-Show) and The Stepfather (1988). The film also stars young child actress Jenny Beck as harry's creepy young sister. Beck is known for her work on V: The Final Battle. We also have another genre alumni, Phil Fondacaro of Ghoulies and Meridian fame. He plays duel roles. Fondacaro plays a professor living in the films apartment complex and the title role, the troll. The film also features the late great Sonny Bono of Sonny and Cher and surprisingly very young Julie Louis Dreyfus in her feature film debut.Along with a troop of great actors the film features some really good practical creature effects. The effects were accomplished by Magical Media Industries, a special effect company operated by the director John Carl Beauchler. The team included such legend as Gino Nonaligned, Bart Mixon, Cleve Hall, Gabe Bartalos, etc. The effects within the film are fantastic. The troll itself is a mix between animatronic and performer, the performer in the suit being Phil Fondacaro. The film is also full of other creatures and odd ghoulies. At one point there is a talking tree trunk! The effects in Troll are some of the best this reviewer has ever seen. If my word isn't good enough take this snippet form a review of the film by the Daily-News, "A Special Effects Pig Out!".Troll also features a wonderful orchestral score form legendary composer Richard Band. The score has a magical, almost childlike creepiness about. It rings Danny Elfman in many scenes. The score overall is great and very effective. The overall film is an underrated good time. I remember buying this film on double-feature DVD, the other film included was its awful, and i mean god awful not-so sequel Troll 2. I remember watching Troll and loving it. Its the perfect movie to start a child or small kid on. Its not too scary and its not too raunchy. It's PG-13, now wait i know what your thinking, "A PG-13 horror film, that isn't going to work!", well listen, this film does work on every silly and peculiar level. Its a wonderful movie that will always have a special place in my heart. Two-Claws Up!

This movie is stinky pooh. It is badly written and as an awful ending. I don't think to many people like this movie. I can see why. It is a horror movie but it is not scary at all. A troll comes into an apartment by kidnapping a little girl and taking her place by shape shifting into her. He starts killing people. And conjuring up more of his kind. Now the older brother of little girl he kidnapped as to stop him. This could have been a good movie if it was not so badly acted and badly written. And if the ending had not been so awful. It was not a very scary horror movie was well. With better actors and writers it could have been. It was a good concept but it was not done well. Do not see this movie. It is a wast of time and money.

The 80's was a time when Horror was a taboo word... Troll is a more simple film and nowhere near as dark as many of the films of the time.Its not the greatest movie ever made with clunky dialogue and some pretty poor acting even for then... Oh! And it also stars Sonny Bono which is a big Boob!!!But the story is not actually that bad... In fact it could be one of those films that could be given a reboot and really become a great movie in the right hands.The story is really quite reasonable and engaging enough. There are some truly laugh out loud moments as well.Sadly, its age is showing... But at least its not Troll 2...

Troll, one of the Band productions (that being Charles Band, who would later make such epics as the Puppet Masters), is not a good movie by any stretch, and while I can't recommend it (certainly not as ironic-much as Troll 2, which is now legendary) I enjoyed it as a friends-laugh-and-cry movie anyway. Unlike the second more notorious film, this probably isn't trying to be a good movie and failing, it's just a middling horror-comedy with a host of odd celeb (or not-yet celeb) guest star choices from Sonny Bono to Julia Louis-Dreyfus.The main story has the Potter family (yes, Harry Potter Jr and Sr, it's probably a given JK Rowling saw the film many times as a youth) moving into an apartment building where the little girl of the family goes to the basement. Always not a good idea, and here she meets a troll her captures her and disguises himself as said troll to infiltrate the family and start to make the troll universe in the apartment. This part gets a little confusing (until June Lockheart comes in and explains everything like a storybook teller for kids), but once it comes to showing all the trolls and wizardry and green forest-sections - and that WTF song sung by characters that is oddly catching - you just lose yourself in it... or not.The make-up actually is one of the things that work best for me here; it's so cheesy and slapped together, and yet some of it looks like they put effort into it, and the main troll who transforms from girl to troll and girl again looks convincing, if limited in movement (a pretty useless sub-plot and one of the big frustrations of the movie by the way, why keep screwing around with this family when making the eco-system in the apartment is the goal?) But... it's still not *good*. The guest stars all are mostly "oh just give me my check already" save for Julia Louis-Dreyfuss who does give it her all as multiple elvish-women. But Troll does work if you just watch it with a silly-open mind and don't take a shred of it seriously.