Troll (film)
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''Troll'' is a 1986 American
horror comedy Comedy horror, also known as horror comedy, is a literary, television, and film genre that combines elements of comedy and horror fiction. Comedy horror has been described as able to be categorized under three types: "black comedy, parody and spo ...
film directed by
John Carl Buechler __NOTOC__ John Carl Buechler (pronounced ''Beekler''; June 18, 1952 – March 18, 2019) was an American special make-up effects artist, film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. He was best known for his work on horror and science-fictio ...
and produced by
Charles Band Charles Robert Band (born December 27, 1951) is an American film producer and director, known for his work on horror comedy movies. Career Band entered film production in the 1970s with Charles Band Productions. Dissatisfied with distributo ...
of
Empire Pictures Empire International Pictures (aka Empire Entertainment) was an American small-scale theatrical distribution company. Charles Band formed Empire in 1983, prompted by his dissatisfaction with distributors' handling of films made by his previous b ...
, starring
Noah Hathaway Noah Leslie Hathaway (born November 13, 1971) is an American actor and a former teen idol. He is best known for his roles as Atreyu in the 1984 film ''The NeverEnding Story'' and for portraying Boxey on the original television series ''Battlestar ...
,
Michael Moriarty Michael Moriarty (born April 5, 1941) is an American-Canadian actor and jazz musician. He received an Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award for his first acting role on American television as a Nazi SS officer in the 1978 mini-series ''Holocaust'' ...
,
Shelley Hack Shelley Marie Hack (born July 6, 1947) is an American actress, model and producer. She is best known as the face of Revlon's Charlie perfume from the mid-1970s until the early 1980s, and for her role as Tiffany Welles in the fourth season of '' ...
, Jenny Beck, and
Sonny Bono Salvatore Phillip "Sonny" Bono (; February 16, 1935 – January 5, 1998) was an American singer, actor, and politician who came to fame in partnership with his second wife Cher as the popular singing duo Sonny & Cher. A member of the Republica ...
.


Plot

The Potter family – Harry Sr. and Anne with teenage son Harry Jr. and young daughter Wendy – move into a new apartment complex in San Francisco. While unpacking, Wendy is attacked by a grotesque little creature wielding a magic ring. The troll captures Wendy and takes on her appearance. After meeting the other eccentric tenants, the family notices Wendy's unusual and aggressive behavior, but they attribute her behavior to the stress of the move. The troll goes from apartment to apartment transforming the tenants into fairy tale creatures (such as
goblin A goblin is a small, grotesque, monstrous creature that appears in the folklore of multiple European cultures. First attested in stories from the Middle Ages, they are ascribed conflicting abilities, temperaments, and appearances depending on t ...
s,
nymph A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label=Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are ty ...
s and
elves An elf () is a type of humanoid supernatural being in Germanic mythology and folklore. Elves appear especially in North Germanic mythology. They are subsequently mentioned in Snorri Sturluson's Icelandic Prose Edda. He distinguishes "ligh ...
) and their apartments into lush forests. Concerned by his sister's behavior, Harry Jr. seeks solace in the company of a mysterious older woman named Eunice St. Clair, who reveals herself to be a
witch Witchcraft traditionally means the use of Magic (supernatural), magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In Middle Ages, medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually ...
. Long ago, she and a powerful wizard named Torok were in love. At that time, the world was divided between fairies and humans. The realms were equal and independent of each other; however, Torok and some of the fairies challenged this balance, resulting in a great war in which the humans prevailed. Torok was mutated into a troll as punishment. Torok seeks to regain his power, destroy humanity and recreate the fairy tale world he had once lived in. As Torok requires a princess, he is keeping Wendy alive. Eunice and Harry Jr. discover that all the apartments have been transformed into a part of the magical world. Eunice gives Harry Jr. a magic spear capable of killing the largest and most vicious creature in this world. Eunice is attacked by Torok and mutated into a tree stump, and Harry finds his sister trapped in a coffin of glass. Harry Jr. saves Wendy, but loses the magic spear when Torok's great batlike monster attacks. Before the monster can kill Harry Jr. and Wendy, Torok kills it himself to spare Wendy, destroying his carefully constructed fairy realm. As the magic world collapses around them, Harry Jr. and his family are given a chance to escape, leaving just as the police arrive. Eunice is restored to normal as well as she bids Harry farewell and departs. As the police investigate the house, one of them is drawn into a remaining fragment of the alternate fairy world. Torok's arm rises into view, preparing to use his ring on the cop.


Cast

*
Noah Hathaway Noah Leslie Hathaway (born November 13, 1971) is an American actor and a former teen idol. He is best known for his roles as Atreyu in the 1984 film ''The NeverEnding Story'' and for portraying Boxey on the original television series ''Battlestar ...
as Harry Potter Jr. *
Michael Moriarty Michael Moriarty (born April 5, 1941) is an American-Canadian actor and jazz musician. He received an Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award for his first acting role on American television as a Nazi SS officer in the 1978 mini-series ''Holocaust'' ...
as Harry Potter Sr. *
Shelley Hack Shelley Marie Hack (born July 6, 1947) is an American actress, model and producer. She is best known as the face of Revlon's Charlie perfume from the mid-1970s until the early 1980s, and for her role as Tiffany Welles in the fourth season of '' ...
as Anne Potter * Jenny Beck as Wendy Anne Potter *
Sonny Bono Salvatore Phillip "Sonny" Bono (; February 16, 1935 – January 5, 1998) was an American singer, actor, and politician who came to fame in partnership with his second wife Cher as the popular singing duo Sonny & Cher. A member of the Republica ...
as Peter Dickinson *
Phil Fondacaro Phil Fondacaro (born November 8, 1958) is an American actor and stuntman. Standing , Fondacaro is best known for his performance in the horror comedy '' Bordello of Blood'', as well as his roles in the fantasy films '' The Black Cauldron'', ''T ...
as Malcolm Malory and Torok the Troll *
Brad Hall William Bradford Hall (born March 21, 1958) is an American actor, comedian and filmmaker. He is best known as a ''Weekend Update'' news anchor on ''Saturday Night Live'' and for creating the sitcoms ''The Single Guy'' and ''Watching Ellie''. H ...
as William Daniels *
June Lockhart June Lockhart (born June 25, 1925) is an American actress, beginning a film career in 1930s & 1940s in such films at ''A Christmas Carol'' and ''Meet Me in St. Louis''. She primarily acted in 1950s and 1960s television, and with performances on ...
as Eunice St. Clair ** Anne Lockhart as Young Eunice St. Clair *
Julia Louis-Dreyfus Julia Scarlett Elizabeth Louis-Dreyfus ( ; born January 13, 1961) is an American actress, comedian, and producer who worked on the comedy television series ''Saturday Night Live'' (1982–1985), ''Seinfeld'' (1989–1998), ''The New Adventures ...
as Jeanette Cooper *
Gary Sandy Gary Lee Sandy (born December 25, 1945) is an American actor. He is best known for playing program director Andy Travis on the television sitcom ''WKRP in Cincinnati'' (1978-1982). Early life and education Sandy was born in Dayton, Ohio, the ...
as Barry Tabor


Production

The film was shot back-to-back with Empire Pictures' ''
TerrorVision ''TerrorVision'' is a 1986 American science fiction horror comedy film directed by Ted Nicolaou, produced and written by Albert and Charles Band and composed by Richard Band, all of whom would go on to found and work with Full Moon Features in 19 ...
'' in Italy, at the Stabilimenti Cinematografici Pontini studios near
Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...
. Many of the same crew worked on both productions, including Buechler as creature effects designer, Romano Albani as cinematographer, and Richard Band as composer. The two films were released a month apart from each other in the United States.


Release


Box office

The estimated budget for ''Troll'' was between $700,000 and $1.1 million. ''Troll'' opened in the U.S. on January 17, 1986, on 959 screens, earning $2,595,054 that weekend, and placing ninth on the box office charts.


Critical response

On
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film has an approval rating of 30% based on 10 reviews, with an average rating of 3.67/10. On
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
the film has a weighted average score of 30 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Janet Maslin of
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
wrote: "''Troll'' has a knowing tone that's more smart-alecky than clever. And it hovers uncomfortably between comedy and horror, without ever landing decisively in either camp". Variety gave the film a mixed review and called it a "predictable, dim-witted premise executed for the most part with surprising style". Patrick Goldstein of the
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
described it as "a clunky, poorly executed shocker".


Accolades

In 1986, Beck was nominated in the
8th 8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9. In mathematics 8 is: * a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2. * a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of t ...
Youth in Film Association The Young Artist Award (originally known as the Youth in Film Award) is an accolade presented by the Young Artist Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded in 1978 to honor excellence of youth performers, and to provide scholarships for young ...
, for Exceptional Performance by a Young Actress.


Legacy

''Troll''s plot has no relation to the film ''
Troll 2 ''Troll 2'' is a 1990 horror film directed by Claudio Fragasso (under the pseudonym Drake Floyd) and starring Michael Stephenson, George Hardy, Connie McFarland, and Jason Wright. Although produced under the title ''Goblins'', the American ...
'' or the two '' Troll 3'' films, which are intended to be more horror than fantasy. Its first "sequel", ''Troll 2'', produced under the title ''Goblins'', is considered one of the worst films of all time, and was retitled ''Troll 2'' to cash in on the success of the original. Over time, it has developed a cult following. The films '' Creepers'' (also known as '' Contamination .7'' or ''The Crawlers'') and ''
Quest for the Mighty Sword ''Quest for the Mighty Sword'' (also known as ''Ator III: The Hobgoblin'', ''The Hobgoblin'', or ''Troll 3'') is a 1990 Italian fantasy adventure film directed by Joe D'Amato. It is the fourth and final film in the ''Ator'' film series. Plot ...
'' (also known as ''Ator IV'', ''Ator III: The Hobgoblin'', or ''Hobgoblins'') both adopted the name ''Troll 3'' at some point as an alternate title, despite neither having a plot relation to the two previous ''Troll'' films, with the exception that the Hobgoblin in ''Quest'' does resemble the Goblins in ''Troll 2''. In August 2011, rumors circulated of another sequel. In July 2015, plans for a prequel were reported, titled ''Troll: The Rise of Harry Potter Jr.'', along with an animated series. The film, starring
Patricia Arquette Patricia Tiffany Arquette (born April 8, 1968) is an American actress. She made her feature film debut as Kristen Parker in '' A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors'' (1987). Her other notable films include ''True Romance'' (1993), ''Ed Wo ...
and Baxter Bartlett, was supposed to be released in 2017, with the animated series broadcast in 2018.


Proposed remake

In the mid-2000s, plans were announced for a remake with Buechler again directing. Script samples were made available online, with actors encouraged to film auditions and submit them. In 2009,
Uriah Shelton Uriah Shelton (born March 10, 1997) is an American actor and singer. He is known for his television roles, such as playing Jeff Cargill on '' The Glades'', Josh on the web series ''Blue'', and Joshua Matthews on ''Girl Meets World''. Shelton was ...
was attached to play Harry Potter Jr., and Noah Hathaway was set to make an appearance as a human Torok. Issues with financing, largely because of legal issues involving the use of the name "Harry Potter", led to long delays, and Buechler's cancer diagnosis ultimately led to the project being cancelled.


Home media

''Troll'' was released on a double feature DVD with ''Troll 2'' by
MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
on August 26, 2003.
Scream Factory Shout! Factory is an American home video and music company founded in 2002 as Retropolis Entertainment. Its video releases include previously released feature films, classic and contemporary television series, animation, live music, and comedy ...
released a double feature Blu-ray of ''Troll'' and ''Troll 2'' on November 17, 2015. The first 5,000 copies included a DVD of ''
Best Worst Movie ''Best Worst Movie'' is a 2009 American documentary film about the making of the infamous 1990 horror film ''Troll 2'' and its subsequent resurgence as a cult film. Directed by Michael Stephenson, the child star of ''Troll 2'', the film was dis ...
'', the documentary about the production and legacy of ''Troll 2''.


Similarity to ''Harry Potter''

Since the release of the ''
Harry Potter ''Harry Potter'' is a series of seven fantasy literature, fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young Magician (fantasy), wizard, Harry Potter (character), Harry Potter, and his friends ...
'' books starting in 1997, some of those involved in the film have accused
J. K. Rowling Joanne Rowling ( "rolling"; born 31 July 1965), also known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author and Philanthropy, philanthropist. She wrote ''Harry Potter'', a seven-volume children's fantasy series published from 1997 to ...
of " borrowing" elements from ''Troll''. Producer Charles Band stated in an interview that "there are certain scenes in ''Troll'', not to mention the name of the main character, which predate the ''Harry Potter'' books by many years". In 2008, John Buechler's partner in the ''Troll'' remake, Peter Davy, said about ''Harry Potter'': "In John's opinion, he created the first ''Harry Potter''. J. K. Rowling says the idea just came to her. John doesn't think so".


References


External links

* * * {{John Carl Buechler 1986 films 1986 horror films 1980s comedy horror films 1980s fantasy comedy films 1986 independent films American comedy horror films American fantasy comedy films American independent films American supernatural horror films American dark fantasy films Supernatural comedy films Supernatural fantasy films Films about fairies and sprites Films about trolls Films about witchcraft Films about wizards Films directed by John Carl Buechler Puppet films Films set in apartment buildings Films set in San Francisco Films scored by Richard Band Films shot in Italy Empire International Pictures films 1986 comedy films 1980s English-language films 1980s American films