Exhumed: Julia Louis-Dreyfus in "Troll" (1986)

by Joseph Perry and Mike Imboden

In their “The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict” film reviews, Joseph and Mike normally give their thoughts on a slice of cinema. However, “Exhumed” will focus on the first (or very early) credits of established actors, giving their roles the GBV treatment.

For this installment, it’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Intro

Although she’s been in plenty of TV shows like The New Adventures of Old Christine and Veep and being the youngest female member of the Saturday Night Live cast, Julia Louis-Dreyfus is always going to be known as Elaine from Seinfeld. However, she’s either been in, or lent he voice to, a number of films. She was a neighbor to the Griswolds in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and was the voice of Rochelle in the movie Planes, but before she was the voice of Princess Atta in A Bug’s Life, Louis-Drefus was in a movie called… Troll (1986)

The Details

So… Troll. Well, if you’ve never seen Troll but for some reason HAVE seen Troll 2 or Troll 3, let us put your mind at ease by saying this movie has absolutely nothing to do with either of them. What it DOES have is a nearly naked Julia Louis-Dreyfus giggling and prancing around in the woods and for some, that might be enough.

Troll is about the Potter family (including dad, Harry, and son, Harry, Jr.!!), moving into an apartment building in San Francisco. The Potter daughter, Wendy, is then possessed by a former wizard-turned-troll named Torok who intends to transform the building into a new realm of faeries, goblins and other beasties by transforming each of the tenants into woodland, fantasy creatures according to their personalities and their apartments into fantasy worlds.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays Jeanette Cooper, one of the other tenants in the apartment complex. We first meet Jeanette (an aspiring actress working as a waitress) as the residents all bump into one another during a false fire alarm. Jeanette and her boyfriend Bill joke about the alarm and you can see a flash of Elaine Benes as she laughs when Bill mentions them coming home late one night after drinking.

We’re Jeanette-free for a while until Torok-as-Wendy pays her apartment a visit in order to continue changing everyone into creatures. Jeanette is transformed into a wood nymph and we are treated to a naked Louis-Dreyfus with strategically planted leaves and vines. Bill arrives and sees Jeanette who giggles mischievously and then leads him on a chase into the woods, magically multiplying into a few different copies of herself. When he catches up to her, she’s still giggling like she’s stoned and hanging on the arm of Torok (who is in his Troll form) and we’re left wondering what the heck happens to Jeanette and Bill.

The Verdict

Troll is a fairly fun film and much better than one might expect and Julia Louis-Dreyfus is cute, giggling her way through what is a pretty limited role. On one hand you want to leave it buried because of the short screen time that she has, but on the other it’s amusing to watch her frolic as a wood nymph. Since there are equal parts things to like about it as there are to dislike, we’re going to wrap this one up with a caveat of “your mileage may vary”.

Troll