TROLL (1986)

TROLL' MAKES A NOBLE TRY FOR A NEW TONE IN HORROR -BUT MISSES

Seattle Post-Intelligencer - January 23, 1986

Author: William Arnold P-I Film Critic

After a decade-long cycle, movie audiences seem to have lost interest in traditional horror films. Except for ''A Nightmare on Elm Street,'' it's been ages since one has had any impact at all at the box office.

In reaction to this, horror filmmakers have been trying some variations on the standard form lately, and whatever else you may say about ''Troll,'' a new horror programmer that has been playing several local movie houses this week, it is at least a stab at something different.

The film is about a family that moves into a San Francisco apartment house that is being terrorized by a troll - a gruesome creature who is moving from apartment to apartment killing off the inhabitants and using their bodies as energy to create more troll creatures.

A kindly witch who lives upstairs makes friends with the son of the family and soon explains to him that the troll is using the apartment house as a base to take over the world - unless the boy can somehow kill him first and save his family.

The movie follows this familiar horror formula closely, while at the same time it tries for a strange new tone - a combination of terror, whimsical cuteness and out-and-out comedy the like of which I have never seen in a horror film before.

Unfortunately, it never quite finds the unique tone it is searching for - the experiment is, I think, a kind of noble failure - and the film is ultimately more disorienting than charming. It also fails pretty miserably in the big test of any horror movie: It's not scary.

The special effects, on the other hand, are quite good. Director and special-effects designer John Buechler has created an impressive menagerie of trolls, and in its more frantic moments his film looks for all the world like a Scandinavian gift shop come to life.

Less impressive are the humans in the cast, which includes June Lockhart, her daughter Anne Lockhart, Gary Sandy, Shelley Hack, Sonny Bono, and the wreck of Michael Moriarty, who, not that long ago, was considered to one of the two or three most promising young actors in America.
Memo: MOVIE REVIEW * * Troll, directed by John Buechler. Produced by Albert Band. Cast: Noah Hathaway, Michael Moriarty, Shelley Hack, Sonny Bono, Gary Sandy, June Lockhart, Anne Lockhart. Empire Pictures. Several theaters. Rated PG-13.
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TENANTS HAVE CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE 'TROLL' KIND

San Jose Mercury News (CA) - January 20, 1986

Author: GLENN LOVELL, Mercury News Film Writer

THANKS to Steven Spielberg and "Gremlins," there's a whole new movie genre with which to contend. It's called family horror -- funny, cuddly, gruesome spook shows that delight and amaze Mom and Dad, as well as Sis and Little Timmy.

The latest in this line of wholesome shockers is "Troll," an ingenious U.S.-Italian fantasy that combines Brothers Grimm lore, morbid Spielbergian yocks and a magical kingdom of naughty but basically benign puppet-trolls obviously inspired by Jim Henson's Muppets.

``Troll" opens with the impossibly wholesome Potter family moving into a San Francisco apartment. Little Wendy (Jenny Beck) chases her rubber ball into the basement laundry room and is there captured by Torok, a drooling, pointy-eared troll. The ring on Torok's finger allows him to take on Wendy's likeness whenever he chooses to infiltrate the building and raise general havoc.

What follows is a cross between "Poltergeist" and "The Bad Seed," with the suddenly willful -- and abnormally strong -- Wendy turning the tenants, one by one, into frolicking elves and wood sprites.

The forces of good reside upstairs in the person of that feisty eccentric Mrs. Eunice St. Clair (June Lockhart). St. Clair is a good witch with a talking mushroom sidekick right out of "Fantasia." She counsels Wendy's brother, Harry (Noah Hathaway of "Neverending Story"), and sends him off to save the world from a troll takeover.

Though "Troll" is only adequately directed by John Buechler, the film comes with wondrous stop-action effects, another winning performance by Michael Moriarty as the boogaloo-ing Daddy Potter and all those chattering, snaggletoothed beasties from a parallel fairy kingdom.

Also, we get Sonny Bono as the gauche swinger upstairs, and two generations of Lockharts as the scrappy June turns before our eyes into radiant daughter Anne for the climactic face-off with Torok's giant, horned demon.

Often as enchanting as it is scary, "Troll" comes highly recommended to those families who do everything together, including raising goose flesh.

TROLL. Directed by John Buechler; scripted by Ed Naha. PG-13 (profanity). (star)(star) 1/2
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'TROLL' MIXES FRIGHT WITH FUN

Boston Globe - January 17, 1986

Author: Michael Blowen, Globe Staff

The Potters are a relatively normal American family who move into an old apartment in

San Francisco. Harry (Michael Moriarty) and Anne (Shelly Hack) have two cute children, Harry Jr. (Noah Hathaway) and Wendy (Jenny Beck). Everything seems serene until little Wendy follows her bouncing ball down the stairs into the laundry room, where a slobbering troll transforms her into a little monster. (Judging from her rude behavior, he didn't have much to alter.) That is the beginning of "Troll," a movie that's surprisingly wry for an independent, apparently low-budget horror film.

The story revolves around a troll who, centuries ago, was banished into the netherworld after losing a battle with the humans. This particularly nasty little creature, complete with a runny nose and the power to turn upstairs neighbor Sonny Bono into a pod, eventually assumes control over most of the building.

Aside from a few shoddy special effects, including a background matte painting of the Golden Gate Bridge that looks as if it was painted by Bonzo, "Troll" is an imaginative, passably frightening monster movie that never takes itself too seriously.

Screenwriter Ed Naha, author of " Horrors - From Scream to Screen," borrows from sources as divergent as "Invaders From Mars" (1953) and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1978), but it's all in good fun. In fact, "Troll" has 10 times more laughs than "Spies Like Us.

Memo: MOVIE REVIEW TROLL - A film directed by John Buechler. Written by Ed

Naha. Starring Jenny Beck, Noah Hathaway, Michael

Moriarty, Shelly Hack and June Lockhart. Produced by

Albert Band, executive produced by Charles Band. Music by

Richard Band. At the Pi Alley and suburbs. Rated PG.
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Horrors ! `Troll' nothing more than flight of fancy - MOVIE REVIEW

The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution - January 17, 1986

Author: RINGEL, ELEANOR, Eleanor Ringel Film Editor: STAFF

Movie review on "Troll," a horror /fantasy movie starring Michael Moriarityand directed by John Buechler.

More and more Michael Moriarity is becoming a name to look for when deciding whether to take a chance on an otherwise unheralded low-budget horror movie. He has

steered us right with "Q" and "The Stuff" and now there's "Troll," a droll little tale of the misuses of enchantment.

Moriarity is less the star here than a stalwart supporting player to a gallery of sprites, elves and gnomes up to no good, all designed with fiendish glee by John Buechler who apparently had a few creatures left over from "Ghoulies." (Remember the infamous ad with the whatz-it in the toilet?)

Harry Potter (Moriarity), his wife (Shelley Hack), and their two kids, Harry Jr. (Noah Hathaway) and Wendy (Jenny Beck), have just moved into a new apartment. Along with the usual problems of getting settled (including Harry's 3,000-record collection), there's the small matter of the troll in the basement laundry room.

Little Wendy goes on an ill-advised trip downstairs by herself and is zapped by the creature. Meaning, the real Wendy is spirited away to some fourth-dimensional fairy land and the troll assumes her human form. Her parents notice there's something wrong with their fair-haired baby when she starts behaving like a cross between the bad seed and little Linda Blair pre-exorcism. But they figure she's just a bit upset by the new surroundings.

However, Harry Jr., who exists on a steady diet of horror movies and monster magazines, knows something is up. At the very least, Sis is a pod person from Mars. At the very worst, well. . . .

Meanwhile Wendy/Troll is busy trollifying the neighborhood, transforming all the neighbor's apartments into one-bedrooms in the fairy kingdom. If Harry Jr. and the wisecracking witch upstairs (June Lockhart) don't do something, the entire building - perhaps, the entire world -will become one big slice of non-real estate.

"Troll" is less a fright film than a flight of fantasy put together by people who actually appreciate Spenser's "The Faerie Queene." It may be a major disappointment to the teen audience at which its ad campaign is so wrongly aimed. There's not much in the way of blood 'n' guts, but there are some very unsettling scenes - such as the transformation of Sonny Bono (the ex-Mr. Cher) into a lit eral forest primeval. However, on the whole, the movie has a relatively gentle, once-upon-a-time tone . It's more like a Muppet's nightmare than anything else.

Moriarity and Miss Hack (former Charlie Girl turned failed Charlie's Angel) are amusing as the parents blissfully oblivious to the changeling in their home. Noah Hathaway is a believably reluctant hero, and Miss Beck is fine as the possessed little girl hiding a demonic imp under her angelic features. June Lockhart, making up for years of milk-and-cookiedom on "Lassie" and "Lost in Space," has a ball as the capable conjurer who firmly believes trolls should stay where they belong: under Bill y Goat Gruff's bridge.

"Troll" has a fractured fairy-tale appeal that's scary and knowing, all at the same time. In one scene, the Potters open their door to discover a lobby filled with otherworldly flora and fauna, some of it not very friendly. A sympathetic talking tree stump tells them to get back inside immediately; even magic has its rules, and the fairy world can't intrude unless it's been invited. A properly upset Moriarity slams the door shut and says, "I don't know what's going on out there, but I'm listening to that tree."

Proving, I guess, that he has the same good taste in talking trees that he has in horror scripts.

"Troll." A horror /fantasy movie starring Michael Moriarity. Directed by John Buechler. Rated PG-13 for some graphic special effects and occasional profanity.