Troll (film)

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Troll is a 1986 B-Movie about Torok, the Troll (no relation to Turok). Directed by John Carl Buechler, this was misbranded as a horror movie, but it shares far more aspects with the Urban Fantasy genre, and in fact it works better when viewed as such.

The movie focuses on the Potter family. In case you are wondering, yes, there is a Harry Potter, two in fact (father and son), and this was way before the books. Wendy Potter, the obnoxious little girl of the family, is abducted by the troll, who then takes her form and infiltrates into the family. The rest of the movie he basically turns the neighbours into plant pods to generate more trolls to take over the world. Why didn't he do that before nobody knows. Anyway, Harry Potter Junior, played by a teenager Noah Hathaway, realises his sister was replaced...after watching two sci-fi movies. And even so he thinks she's an alien. It takes him to meet Eunice St. Clair to realise what its really happening, and then he solves everything.

Its worth to note that this movie has no sequels. The So Bad It's Good Troll 2 is actually an Italian movie with no relation whatsoever to it, and has goblins instead of trolls. The Troll 3 movies (original names being The Creepers and Quest For The Mighty Sword) are even less related; the first has no humanoid creatures or magic whatsoever, instead featuring radioactive plants, while the later does feature a few trolls/goblins/whatever but it was meant to be part of the Ator series.

Tropes used in Troll (film) include:
  • All Trolls Are Different: Literally; all the trolls produced differ greatly from Torok.
    • The only actual troll is Torok. The other creatures he spawns from the tenants are assorted fey folk. Damned ugly fey folk, but fey folk nonetheless.
  • Brainless Beauty: Harry Potter Junior (played by Noah Hathaway, who at the time aged quite nicely since his role as Atreyu) is fairly nice looking, but comes across as rather stupid.
  • Better Than It Sounds: Nobody is ever going to accuse this movie of being a masterpiece, but it is highly enjoyable.
  • Brown Note: The horn Eunice blows to shut the singing faeries up.
  • Cool Old Lady: Eunice, once she and Harry Jr. start getting to know each other.
  • Dolled-Up Installment: The so called "sequels" were all original movies renamed in order to look like sequels to this movie. Considering how famous this movie is, one has to wonder why.
  • Everything's Better with Princesses: Somewhat subverted; Eunice was a princess, but she decided to become a witch.
  • Fan Service: It really just depends if you're either into girls running around wearing nothing but leaves covering naughty bits or into teenager boys showing their naked torsos, but either way you will be satisfied. An in-universe case for Torok, who stares at the body of the girl he turned into a fairy/elf/whatever.
  • The Fair Folk: Torok began his evil ways when he was still an elf (he was turned into a troll for punishment), and after mistaking a midget for an elf he turns him into an actual elf. He also turns a woman into some sort of fairy that lures her boyfriend, and it is slightly implied Eunice may be a fairy.
  • Green Thumb: One of the few times not only a villain has it, it also doesn't fall into Good Powers, Bad People because of the way it is used.
  • Kid Hero
  • Our Demons Are Different / Our Gargoyles Rock: A gargoyle/demon thing attacks our protagonists in the end.
  • Pet the Dog: Torok does care about the little girl, and so he kills the demon/gagoyle thing mentioned above. He also turns a person suffering from cancer into an elf.
    • Killing the creature that attacked Wendy has nothing to do with his caring about the girl. He can't allow her to be harmed because her death would basically make the new faerie kingdom he was trying to create implode. She was the keystone for the whole thing.
  • Reality Warping: seems to be a side effect of the ring's transformation process although from the transformed perspective it's Reality Warping Is Not a Toy.
    • It isn't a side-effect, it's part of what Torok is plotting. He's trying to recreate a faerie kingdom in the apartment building, so that he can have another go at what got him turned into a troll in the first place.
  • Spawn Broodling: Although the plant pods seem to be the same people that are killed, with a different body, it otherwise fits since they become rather mookish.