I remember the moment in “Best Worst Movie” where one of the stars of “Troll 2” are looking at a DVD box of “Troll” and “Troll 2” at a video store, and the clerk explains that the movie meant for the bad movie section of the shop is “Troll 2.” After finally watching “Troll” I can safely say that this absolutely unbearable film should also be in the same category as the film that ventured in to the town of Nilbog. Harry Potter and his family have just moved in to a mysterious apartment complex directly near a small wooded area. Upon discovering their surroundings, irritating little sister Wendy entering the basement, she’s captured by a troll, and the monster takes on her form. Rather than playing it cool and sneaking about the apartment building, the troll of course begins wreaking havoc acting like a hyperactive child for reasons never actually explained, and biding its time by venturing around the building making mischief.
We’re told the troll is in fact a troll king with a devious plan in mind, but we’re never actually explained why he acts like such a monstrous brat when he becomes a little girl. The logic would indicate that if he’s planning something terrible he’d want to keep a downbeat attitude, but this allows “Troll” to introduce oodles of idiotic and inadvertently comedic scenes involving Wendy running around the apartment building stealing burgers from the family, and her insistence on being a brat for reasons never even remotely clarified for viewers. A majority of the film revolves around Wendy running around the building and making friends with the neighbors, including a dwarf who, of course, ends up catching on to the magic of the apartment complex.
“Troll” is often unfocused and lazily paced turning in to a family drama at times, and then anxiously trying to win over horror crowds with the troll monsters. If that’s not enough by the second half, director Buechler completely abandons any horror overtones and transforms “Troll” in to a dark fantasy where we see the troll looming in separate apartments, killing the neighbors and turning them in to his own twisted monsters. Why Wendy’s older brother never actually rats her out when he’s convinced she some kind of monster is never explained to audiences, and we’re never really told why no one here acts beyond the idea of rational.
Wendy is able to walk in and out of apartments without the neighbors drawing much attention and she’s able to run around and sneak in corners without her parents doing much to stop or discipline her. What culminates from this foggy genre mess is nothing but an insufferable piece of tripe that may or may not have inspired “Harry Potter.” In the same league as “Troll 2” for one of the worst movies about a troll and or goblin ever made, Charles Band’s notorious trademark does little to help an otherwise unwatchable and tedious little title that’d best be forgotten with other eighties garbage.