Troll (1986)

Confused by his little sister's strange behaviour upon moving home, a teenager is shocked to learn that a troll has kidnapped her and has changed his appearance to look like her in this fun horror-comedy blend. The film is curiously at its weakest when exploring its mythology and what the troll is trying to do by taking the sister's form and unsettling all the other residents of their apartment block. The best moments instead come from Jenny Beck (as the young girl) doing all sorts of crazy and unusual things, including picking her older brother up and throwing him across the room (!) and wandering into her neighbours' apartments and fondling their possessions without being invited in. The chemistry between Beck and Noah Hathaway (as her brother) is simply great and there is a lot of hilarity to how he comes to shudder in her presence and constantly wonder if she is about to beat him up or growl again. The film also has some very creative stop motion special effects with truly oddball moments as Beck's neighbours are turned into plants - and as their apartments become covered in plant matter too. There is a lot of time spent on trying to defeat the troll towards the end though, which is nowhere near as interesting as the mischief it gets up to on its own, but this is generally a decent watch - and certainly more worthwhile than its low IMDb score would seem to indicate.

I've seen the movie before, years ago when I was a teen. Watching it again, about twelve years later, I realized how immature I was to forgive some of the terrible acting and the ridiculous dialogue. I love B-rated horror flicks, but usually most of them don't take themselves seriously, and the ones that do try are just so bad that they're fun. The reason of my disappointment lies in it's potential. There were scenes that really creeped me out, and I loved that the Troll's smile was sweet and appeared like he came out some kid's film. Seeing something so child friendly hurting people to me is terrifying. When it smiled at it's victims I really felt dread. I don't want to spoil the movie, I do recommended it. It's terrible in a lot of areas. The scene where the dad's dancing was so embarrassing.

(18%) Best known now as the trash J.K Rowling watched while/before writing the Harry Potter books. And lets be perfectly clear, this is trash, but it's still somewhat entertaining trash nevertheless. The characters are some of the most annoying examples of badly drawn "people" in any film ever, and it's little wonder why the troll, who has the ability to shape-shift, can go around undetected when everyone is so over-the-top and grating. Although why the troll thought it best to be so overly aggressive while disguised as the little Potter girl is questionable. A key draw to this is the practical effects of the many creatures featured that do manage to raise a chuckle, and the song they "sing" is oddly fun. But besides the rubber monsters everything else is too sub par to bother with.

I saw this movie as I was a kid and thought it was cool. Now that I am older I still find the movie good. The characters have personality and the movie has a good storyline. The special effects are great for the time. I don't know why it has such a low rating. Okay okay I do know why but use your imagination when you watch this flick and you will not be disappointed. Ignore Troll 2. If you are a fan of fantasy movies then this one is a must. Let's not try to ignore all the character names in the movie. There are so many references to fantasy books and stories. Don't pass it up because of all the bad reviews! This is one time where I say the negative reviews are dead wrong.