Troll (1 & 2)
TROLL (15)
D: John Carl Buechler
Empire Films (Albert Band)
US 1986
86 mins
Horror/Fantasy
W: Ed Naha
DP: Romano Albani
Ed: Lee Percy
Mus: Richard Band
Michael Moriarty (Harry Potter), Shelley Hack (Anne
Potter), Noah Hathaway (Harry Potter, Jr.), Jenny Beck (Wendy Anne Potter), Sonny Bono (Peter Dickinson), June Lockhart (Eunice St. Clair), Phil Fondacaro (Malcolm Malory /
Torok)
Albert Band's productions were never blessed with a
generous budget or decent script, but his Empire Films label still managed to churn out a decent number of schlock horrors during the mid-1980's to cash-in on the VHS market. The standard of
films were quite poor, and the same has to be said of Troll, a film which is only notable for featuring a character named Harry Potter and for a sequel which had nothing to do with the first
film.
In a nutshell, the story sees a troll disguise himself as
a young girl so he can create havoc around an apartment complex, killing its residents so that their cadavers can evolve into forests. It sounds worse than it actually is, but it's still
tacky garbage with some truly awful visual effects.
Still, the quality on display here is still much better
than the 'sequel', which is often dubbed the "best worst film ever made".
5/10
TROLL 2 (15)
D: Drake Floyd (Claudio Fragasso)
MGM/Epic/Filmirage (Brenda Norris & Joe
D'Amato)
Italy/US 1990
94 mins
Horror/Fantasy
W: Drake Floyd (Claudio Fragasso)
DP: Giancarlo Ferrando
Ed: Vania Friends
Mus: Carlo Maria Cordio
Michael Stephenson (Joshua Waits), George Hardy (Michael
Waits), Margo Prey (Diana Waits), Connie MacFarland (Holly Waits), Deborah Reed (Creedence Lenore Gielgud)
Notoriously known as one of the worst films ever, it leaves no
stone of badness unturned in all aspects of its production. It actually looks as though it was filmed on a budget of $10 or less, using a cast of amateur actors who were given leading roles
despite believing they were only auditioning as extras and bit-parts.
It has nothing to do with the original Troll movie from 1986,
it doesn't even feature any trolls in it. The movie was originally called Goblins, but they changed the name hoping it would bring more success (even though the 1986 film Troll wasn't a
hit!).
The plot follows a suburban family of hideously awful actors
and their vacation to the small rural town of Nilbog (see what they did there?) where the town's populace wants to eat the family, but must first turn them into a chlorophyll-like
substance.
Only Josh, the young son of the family, and the ghost of his
dead grandfather know the town secret, but can Josh convince his parents and older sister of the truth?
This movie is unintentionally hilarious, especially the bits
which are supposed to be scary, the 'clever' parts are just stupid and the pacing is ridiculous- rushing through parts which could have used more time (like the ending) and dragging through parts
which should have been quick (driving, shopping trips, etc). The rest of the movie is mostly strange.
The director is adamant that this movie is a masterpiece and
while that's true in the respect of belonging in a bad movie museum, the quality in all departments of filmmaking lack even amateur standard.
Ironically, I would still recommend this as a watch over most
modern Horror movies, but not for shocks or terror, just mouth agape astonishment or bawl-your-eyes-out laughter.
It's one of two films on this website (the other being 2003's
The Room) which can't be rated out of 10 simply for its sheer awfulness vs entertainment ratio. A bad movie, but probably the best bad movie ever.
-/10
