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98 reviews in total

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19 out of 23 people found the following review useful:
Absolutely the funniest horror film ever !!, 19 June 2005

Author: D_ROCK1986 from United States

A couple of friends and I got into a craze of watching cheesy old horror films on the weekends because there is nothing else to do in a small town... But anyway, we rented this one and laughed like never before, it is so insane! We love the "Creature Symphony" part where all of the troll creatures start singing some gibberish song, it is hilarious. We still laugh about it randomly to this day. This movie has maybe half a minute worth of scariness, unless you are afraid of midgets. By the way, the little man in the movie is superb LOL with his little story that he tells. I recommend this film to everyone to see once, because once is all it takes and once is all you really could take. It is a crappy horror film, but a great comedy!!

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22 out of 33 people found the following review useful:
Harry Potter Junior . . . ., 15 February 2004

Author: Adrienne Naylor from Boston, Massachusetts

I'm more biased toward liking this movie because I kinda grew up on it. As pathetic as it is to say now, certain scenes were too scary for me to even watch.

Anyway, it's a really cute and fanciful movie full of imaginative whatnot. I mean, come on! An ancient troll takes over a modern apartment building, transforming it into a faerie tale wilderness, complete with a chorus of singing trolls. Wonderful.

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13 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
Worthy as a ridiculous 80's creature flick, 16 June 2004

Author: xordu1

This movie is not that great, but not as awful as you might hear. It's mostly a fantasy/horror/comedy that isn't too ambitious yet was weird enough to make a good midnight cult movie. The short eighty minutes weren't unbearable, and there was plenty of things that didn't make too much sense. 1: If everything in the fairy land was completely evil, how come the witch had the talking mushroom? 2: How come the troll didn't want the girl to die. Yes, the ending was pretty anti-climatic and some of the jokes missed, though some hit straight on. But this movie is worthy as its genre: a ridiculous 80's creature flick. Although, there is one very awesome musical number as the trolls are partying, which is just greatly scored and edited, other than that, nothing special unless you like creature/Full Moon flicks. 6/10

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8 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Watch as a creature systematically takes over an apartment complex., 11 February 2004

Author: Aaron1375 from Alabama

I rather liked this one a bit, though I can see from its score that I am in the minority in my opinion. Though at least most can agree this one is a lot better than the sequel. This movie has a family moving into a new apartment complex. Very quickly the little girl is taken by the title character and he takes her place. Throughout the movie the troll disguised as the little girl moves from one apartment to the next turning each room into a seemingly new dimension or something. The girl's brother has his suspicious and teams with this old woman to figure things out. The old woman seems to know a lot and she looks a lot better with her hair down. Soon the entire apartment becomes part of this world the troll is creating and the boy must finish it off because the old lady just is not in the position to help at the end. Rather fanciful and interesting...nothing to take to seriously, but I thought it was a rather good story and movie.

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13 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
So bad you almost HAVE to watch, 13 January 2004
Author: mamamiasweetpeaches from New York, NY

They play TROLL on TV every once and awhile and like a train wreck, its hard to look away. Its so bad its almost good. Almost. But not quite. What can you really say about an '80s film that boasts both Sonny Bono and Julia "Elaine from Seinfeld" Louis Dreyfuss??? The casting here is so strange that it reels the mind. Noah "NeverEnding Story" Hathaway?? Shelly Hack?? In short, a boy finds a mysterious land o' TROLLs in the basement of his new apartment building. The TROLLS are cheesy to be sure and the whole thing is silly,I guess. But there is something endearing about watching a little boy rescue his cute little sister who suddenly growls and bites people, something weird about watching June Lockhart play with her pet singing mushroom right before she morphs into a total blonde, buxom she-babe. I even love the friendly little dwarf man! TROLL is cheesy but in an inoffensive fun way, unlike it's sequel TROLL 2 which is a terrible cult classic that is painful to watch.

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13 out of 20 people found the following review useful:
Many Little Creatures..., 16 September 2004
Author: Freya(sableOnBlond) the-real-roobeemoon from orbiting around Marz

This movie is good.;) Yeah... - different , interesting Sarcastic , dark comedy...And... I like how the little girl always has this really evil smirk on her face.But she faked me out a bit when she was eating....(huh, ew) The parts with Sonny Bono - those are so silly. All the little earth wandering trolls keep coming out of the woodwork... And they look hilariously silly putty - ish. Freaky , funny stuff. Oh - '86...

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4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
A neat little follow up on GHOULIES, 15 July 2005
Author: Prolox from Canada

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

And fans who loved that one will definitely want to check this one out as well, since it contains the same brand of cheesy humor & gross slimy monsters. The story goes like this, a family moves into a grungy apartment, where an evil troll from another dimension possesses & assumes the identity of their little daughter, the only ones who knows what's going on is an ancient witch & a young boy, who must not only save the young man's family, but the entire world from going to the trolls!. I had a good time watching this one, I enjoyed GHOULIES & this one was equally entertaining as well, the direction & make up work not to mention the acting, was great & TROLL has several slimy & humorous moments to keep you hooked from beginning to end. Followed by a sequel, TROLL 2 which a lot of people hated & isn't really a sequel, but I dug it in a cheesy B movie sort of way & supposedly a TROLL 3, which I viewed & can honestly say that it's about as much as a sequel to this one, as Friday THE 13TH PART 2 is to FOOTLOOSE, which is to say there are no trolls in it, it's about killer vines!

**** stars

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
more corny than scary, 26 October 2003
Author: vchimpanzee from North Carolina

I don't like scary movies, so when I saw they Shelley Hack was going to be in this one, I figured it was going to be a good choice. I was right. She looked good, and that was about all.

On the Witches' Sabbath, Harry and Anne Potter and their children Wendy and Harry Jr. move into an apartment building where a number of quirky people live. Wendy goes into the laundry room and meets Torok, an evil-looking creature. Harry Jr. goes into the same laundry room but doesn't see Torok because, using a green ring, he has the ability to change his appearance.

The experience of running into Torok is apparently very traumatic for Wendy. While not exactly Linda Blair in 'The Exorcist' (I've only seen clips from that one, and that's all I want to see), she does worry her parents quite a bit. Meanwhile, residents of the building start disappearing mysteriously.

Jenny Beck was wonderful as Wendy, and she appeared to be having a good time acting in a way kids can only fantasize about behaving. Phil Fondacaro also gave a very good performance as Malcolm, an English professor who was shorter than young Wendy and became her friend. The movie's most memorable scene is one between the two of them that seemed out of place in a movie like this but made sense later. Fondacaro also appeared in the credits as the troll, who was more adorable than scary, a quality you could see in his eyes (which must have been Fondacaro's). Anne Lockhart also did well as the mysterious Eunice, who lived upstairs and became Harry Jr.'s friend. As for Sonny Bono's performance as a not-so-suave ladies man, I think he made the right choice going into politics, because his talents in government are well-documented (though I liked him a lot when he performed with Cher and in many other TV appearances).

This movie may be a little too scary for young children, but the various monsters still had a cartoonish quality about them. Overall, the movie was more comedy than horror, though toward the end horror would describe it better.

It's not a bad movie, really.

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11 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
Rat Burgers!!!!, 26 March 2001

Author: frazieaj from Virginia

This is a great movie to watch with your friends when bored. Troll is one of the worst movies I have ever seen, but for some reason I continue to watch it because it is so bad that it's funny.

Amazingly enough, several celebrities are in this film: Sonny Bono is in it (which gives this film a "seal of quality") and he turns into this disgusting booger-like pod, Julia Louis-Dryfus turns into a nymph, and June Lockhart is the creepy old lady who knows everything.

Favorite parts: When the mushroom starts singing and when the midget gets turned into the Troll's "brother" and becomes this puppet that whimpers like a puppy.

I think they wrote the plot as they filmed it. The boy chases his sister out of their apartment on the first floor, but in the next shot they are running from the second floor and bump into their own parents as their door opens and they run out to get the children(?). Also, these parents have no problems with their kids spending their days with total strangers.

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
"Your sister isn't an alien, she's something much worse." Strangely entertaining in a bad sort of way., 3 December 2007

Author: Paul Andrews (poolandrews@hotmail.com) from UK

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Troll is set in San Francisco where Harry (Michael Moriarty) his wife Anne (Shelley Hack) & their two young children Harry Potter Jr. (Noah Hathaway) & Wendy (Jenny Beck) move into a new apartment building. Wendy decides to go play in the basement & is kidnapped by Torok the Troll (Phil Fondacaro) who takes her physical form, Torok the Troll was once a prince who was turned into a Troll & is now using his magical powers to flood the Earth will Trolls in an attempt to rule it...

This Canadian American co-production was directed by John Carl Buechler who is also credited with the special effects & was another cheap horror film that Empire Pictures specialised in during the home video boom of the 80's before they went belly up in the 90's, founded by Charles & Albert Band they would rip-off various well known films & make cheap horror flicks out of them. With Troll they seem to almost rip themselves off & one of their previous films Ghoulies (1985) which was a big success on video even though it was crap, anyway I quite liked Troll for what it was despite the low IMDb rating & plenty of 'this is the worst film ever' type comments & message board threads. The script by Ed Naha who would go on to write the impressive Dolls (1987) for Empire Pictures as well certainly doesn't take itself too seriously which is a big plus point & if your in the right mood Troll is an enjoyable light hearted fantasy horror flick. There are plenty of ambitious ideas here, witches, living mushrooms, Trolls turning people into pods which then sprout all sorts of Troll foliage, turning individual rooms into Troll forests, magical powers, the end of the world type stuff & it even has Michael Moriarty in a totally bizarre & off the wall dance scene. I mean any film which has a character say 'your sister isn't an alien, she's something much worse' in a serious tone can't be all bad, can it? At a little over 80 odd minutes (for some reason the IMDb lists the US version as lasting for 30 minutes!) the film doesn't mess around & it moves along at a really fast pace which means at the very least it isn't boring.

Special effects man Beuchler does alright in his second directorial effort after another Empire Pictures flick The Dungeonmaster (1985) a poster for which can be seen on Harry Potter's bedroom wall as well as other posters for Empire Pictures films. Speaking of Harry Potter ones mind instantly turns to the JK Rowling penned books, I suppose it's a testament to how much the character of Harry Potter has now become part of popular culture & searching through the message boards there are threads which ask if JK Rowling saw Troll & named her hero after the character's in this, I think I can in all honestly say with complete confidence that she hasn't seen Troll & if she had why would she have called her hero Harry Potter? It's an unassuming name & surely she'd have thought of another one, even subconsciously I doubt she'd have wanted anything to connect Troll to her books although the fact Troll does contain magic, witches, sorcerers, goblins & monsters does make one think. To get a family friendly rating Troll isn't violent or gory, there's a slightly gross scene of someone changing into a green pod but otherwise there isn't a single drop of blood in the entire film.

Technically the film is alright, it's reasonably well made with some decent special effects from ugly looking Trolls to animated plant vines to large monsters to a few basic but functional optical effects. Although set in America Troll was actually shot in Italy & I am almost certain I read an interview somewhere in which Michael Moriarty only agreed to make Troll because he wanted a free holiday in Italy as he'd never been there before. The acting is OK, Moriarty is good, one time husband of Cher the late Sonny Bono has a small cameo while Julia Louis-Dreyfus who appeared in over 170 episodes of Seinfeld (1990 - 1998) makes her screen debut here.

Troll is one of those film that you'll either love or hate, I thought it was mucho fun over it's short 80 odd minute duration. It doesn't always make perfect sense & it's silly but who cares when somethings this entertaining? Followed by an unconnected sequel Troll 2 (1992) ironically made by Italians in America whereas this was made by Americans in Italy! A remake has been announced, again directed by Beuchler & apparently in production Troll (2009) should be with us soon & I just hope the cute living mushroom is back or I'll boycott it!

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