The Potter family – Father Harry Snr. (Michael Moriarty), Mother Anne (Shelley Hack), Son Harry Jnr. (Noah Hathaway) and daughter Wendy Anne (Jenny Beck) – move into a new apartment on Mockingbird Lane in San Francisco, unaware that it has been built over the doorway to another dimension.
Young Wendy Anne wanders down to the laundry room in the cellar and is nabbed by Torok the Troll (Phil Fondacaro) who dissolves himself into her body – thus Torok becomes Wendy Anne while the real girl is spirited off to the fourth dimension to lie in state, poised to become Torok’s princess at an undisclosed future date.
Torok begins transforming the other residents in the building – including a swinging bachelor (Sonny Bono of Sonny and Cher fame), an aspiring actress (Seinfeld’s Julia Louis-Dreyfuss in her feature film debut), a former Marine-turned-insurance salesman (Gary Sandy) and a midget who is a professor of English (also Phil Fondacaro, hence he never appears in the same shot as Torok!) – into mystical forests that hatch more little trolls
His goal is to turn the apartment building into a troll universe from which he can take over the world.
The rest of the film concerns efforts to thwart Torok and his minions and bring Wendy Anne back to her normal pre-teen existence.
Harry Jnr. and Eunice St Clair (played variously by real-life mother and daughter, June and Anne Lockhart), a 2000-year-old white witch who lives upstairs, are responsible for most of the work here.
Obviously inspired by Gremlins, Troll has some decent special effects, but Ed Naha’s script is thoroughly mediocre.
The film was shot in Italy and director John Carl Buechler was also responsible for the special effects work.
Harry Potter Jr.
Noah Hathaway Harry Potter Sr.
Michael Moriarty Anne Potter
Shelley Hack Wendy Anne Potter
Jenny Beck Peter Dickinson
Sonny Bono Malcolm Mallory/Torok the Troll
Phil Fondacaro William Daniels
Brad Hall Eunice St. Clair
June Lockhart Young Eunice St. Clair
Anne Lockhart Jeanette Cooper
Julia Louis-Dreyfus Barry Tabor
Gary Sandy Policemen
Robert Hathaway
James Beck Dickinson’s Girlfriend
Dale Wyatt Fairies
Barbara Sciorilli
Viviana Giusti
Jessie Carfora
Director
John Carl Buechler
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Young Wendy Anne wanders down to the laundry room in the cellar and is nabbed by Torok the Troll (Phil Fondacaro) who dissolves himself into her body – thus Torok becomes Wendy Anne while the real girl is spirited off to the fourth dimension to lie in state, poised to become Torok’s princess at an undisclosed future date.
His goal is to turn the apartment building into a troll universe from which he can take over the world.
