This Cast in Troll (1986), though!

This was one of several 80s films part of a Saturday afternoon/evening lineup. 

Michael Moriarty goes off into a Karaoke Dance to a song, but while his daughter is kidnapped, put into a Sleeping Beauty like coma, encased in a type of forcefield bed, left in a wilderness dimension, and imitated by a Troll named Torok (the great Phil Fondacaro, who has a wonderful role as a professor dying of degenerating cells and decaying marrow), he's quite bewildered with how bonkers she acts (one of those veggie burgers he picks up from a restaurant in the city seems to cause Torok quite a hyperactive reaction, to say the least) but hardly breaks a sweat to determine why. Shelley Hack, as the wife of Moriarty, seems quite confused by how sudden and overt her daughter's behavior is, too. I'm astonished that these caliber of actors wound up in Troll (1986), a fantasy produced by Charles Band and directed by monster-makeup extraordinaire, John Carl Buechler (R.I.P. to an icon of horror) that features familiar puppet creatures you might see in Ghoulies (1984) two year prior. Charles Band always loved his puppets, his fantasy creatures. And it gave John Carl Buechler plenty of work in the 80s. Moriarty was always a curious cat to me. He is a genuinely exceptional actor. His work on Law & Order as a cerebral, hard-working attorney for the early era of the show before Sam Waterston became synonymous with the ADA role seems to be his effort to prove to anyone watching he could star in serious drama. Granted, I think his performance in Cohen's Q - The Winged Serpent (1982) is some of the best of his career, but what would I know, really? In Troll, he and Hack seem to be almost in a completely different movie from the rest of the cast. Set almost exclusively in an apartment complex, the married couple go about their daily lives, trying to integrate into their new home, not quite sure if their daughter is just going through some phase. I know Jenny Beck as Eastwood's daughter in the 1983 Nawlins serial killer thriller, Tightrope and the popular alien invasion series, V.  She's the daughter who visits each apartment with Torok eventually revealing himself before his emerald ring shoots up a needle that turns tenants into creatures and the rooms into mini-forests. I did find Fondacaro's particular tale poignant, sad, and touching...it's the rare moment in the film when Torok is not some human-threatening troll but sympathetic to a person he wanted to help not harm. I always felt Fondacaro was able to get us to look at dwarfism differently because he is still a human being. If Browning's Freaks (1932) didn't already do it, I felt Fondacaro's presence in plenty of Band projects was yet another way. They are people, living, breathing, feeling, people who deserve dignity, affection, empathy, humility, and maybe less gawking or staring. I thought Troll gave Fondacaro quite a pleasant if tragic, and, ultimately, sympathetic character...it's not a big, big role, but, heck, it left an impression on me. Hathaway got the star treatment of the film thanks to his big role in The Never-Ending Story (1984), a fantasy kids like me were ready for in the early 80s. He's more or less the teenage boy trying to figure out what is wrong with his sister, looking to find where she is, how to stop Torok, befriending June Lockhart's "good witch", Eunice St. Clair, in order to save Jenny Beck. Lockhart's foul-mouth is certain to earn the film some brownie points considering her moms of television's past were so cookie cutter sweet. The mushroom creature who sings to her will melt the hearts of some viewers while others might go, Yuck. There is even a giant monster with wings that must be impaled through its heart with a certain sword given to Hathaway by Lockhart (even Anne Lockhart makes an appearance as a younger June, looking to stop Torok, failing as he turns her into a tree!). This plot is what it is...those who are familiar with Band's work are used to it. 

I hadn't even mentioned Sonny Bono as this Casanova swinger wannabe, Brad Hall (Saturday Night Live alum) and wife Julia Louis-Dreyfus as boyfriend/girlfriend tenants, and Gary Sandy (WKRP in Cincinnati) as a military guy with his apartment dressed in Safari motif who likes to jog intensely with loud music blaring through his walkman earphones. Bono's bachelor pad is hilarious and his encounter with Moriarty while Beck runs around berserk is just zany enough to entertain. 2.5/5