Troll
Blu-ray
Director: John Carl Buechler
Screenwriter: Ed Naha
Cast: Noah Hathaway, Michael Moriarty, Shelley Hack, Jenny Beck, Sonny Bono, Phil Fondacaro, Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Scream Factory
Release Date: November 17th, 2015

Before John Carl Buechler directed films like Cellar Dweller, Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, and Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College, he made his feature-length debut with Troll, a 1986 fantasy film about a kid named Harry Potter.

Yes, over a decade before J.K. Rowling’s magical novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, there was another Harry Potter who dealt with trolls, hobgoblins, elves, and nymphs. Played by Noah Hathaway (Atreyu from 1984’s The NeverEnding Story), this Harry Potter moves into a rundown apartment building in San Francisco with his mom (Shelley Hack) and dad (The Stuff‘s Michael Moriarty), and little sister Wendy Anne (Jenny Beck), who seems to be a clone of Carol Anne from Poltergeist.

Best Worst Movie
DVD
Director Michael Stephenson
Starring George Hardy, Michael Stephenson, Darren Ewing
New Video Group
Release Date: November 16, 2010

Imagine, somewhere out there in the United States of America, there is a video store that actually has a section called “Holy Fucking Shit.” It must take a very special movie to end up in that particular section, and it must take a very special audience to embrace that movie. The new documentary Best Worst Movie is about such a film.

Meet George Hardy. He’s a dentist living and working in the small town of Alexander City, Alabama. George is a really nice guy. Everyone loves the man and it’s not hard to see why. George approaches everything he does, from giving one of his patients a filling to playing a rollerblading tooth fairy in the town’s annual Christmas parade, with an indomitable spirit and a zest for life. Give him a smile and a howdy and the man will be your friend for life. It’s hard to not like George Hardy. The mayor of Alexander City greets him with a hug, and even the guy’s ex-wife has not a single bad word to say about him. But if you bring up the one moment of notoriety in the life of George Hardy, that one time he decided to indulge his youthful passion for acting by taking the lead in a little-known horror flick that was filmed quietly in the town of Morgan, Utah, not far away from where an independent film revolution was brewing at the Sundance Film Festival, then suddenly everything gets awkward. The reason is because the movie George starred in had charted a two-decade journey from reviled exploitation toss-off to beloved cult phenomenon. The movie in question is Troll 2 and Best Worst Movie (now available on DVD after a limited theatrical run) tells the story of how it all happened and how this extraordinary turn of events came to affect the lives of nearly all involved, primarily George Hardy.