I Swear I’m Not Trolling, This Movie’s Actually Good

This article was originally published on Ferretbrain. I’ve backdated it to its original Ferretbrain publication date but it may have been edited and amended since its original appearance.

Unfairly overshadowed by the infamy of its sequel, I would actually go so far to say that Troll is a pretty good movie – certainly, from the mass of dreck that Charles Band’s movie empire has churned out of the years, it stands out as a particularly fun and imaginative one. The Potter family, presided over by one Harry Potter (Michael Moriarty) – no, not the Hogwarts one – and Anne Potter (Shelley Hack), are moving into an apartment building in San Francisco. Eldest child Harry Potter Jr. (Noah Hathaway) – no, not the Hogwarts one either – doesn’t do a great job of looking after his young sister Wendy (Jenny Beck) and she gets captured in the laundry room by Torok (Phil Fondacaro), a gross little troll.

Torok, it turns out, is a wizard, and he’s quickly able to hide Wendy away in the faerie realm he calls home and take on her form to make a bit of havoc in our world. In between bouts of terrorising Harry Potter Jr. – still not the Hogwarts one – and generally alternating between being adorable and a horror, Torok-Wendy one by one enchants the various inhabitants of the apartment building. Each time Torok slays an adult, they turn into a chrysalis from which emerges a twisted mass of vines, foliage, and fae creatures summoned. As one by one Torok turns the apartments in the apartment complex into elfin groves, Harry Potter Jr. – not the Hogwarts one – must face down Torok, save Wendy, and close off the gate to Torok’s realm again – with the help of Eunice St. Claire (June Lockhart, with Anne Lockhart as a younger version of her), the guardian witch who has stood guard over the apartment complex against the day of Torok’s return.