After a fairly inspired opening, with an Empire State Building window washer getting his head bit off, and some funny sarcastic remarks by David Carradine playing a New York City detective who cleans up the mess; I thought I was in for some good cheesy fun. But unfortunately the film quickly devolves into a boring mess. About every 15 to 20 twenty minutes the ancient bird-monster Q shows up and carries some poor soul off to eat, and those moments are decent, but they're too few and far apart.

For some reason a movie called Q: The Winged Serpent, is more about some low life scum named Jimmy Quinn, played by Michael Moriarty (also in the much better Troll). Quinn is an unemployed alcoholic with a shady side; he has hopes to be a better man, mostly for his long-suffering girlfriend, but with no job offers, he takes up with a couple of jewelery robbers as a getaway driver. When they force him to come into the store with them, the robbery goes wrong, and he escapes with the jewels and runs for his life; eventually he makes his way up into the top of the Chrysler Building, where he finds a giant nest full of human skeletons.

Meanwhile, David Carradine and Richard Roundtree, great B-Movie casting, but sadly wasted, are detective partners looking for a serial killer with an Aztec twist. It seems an Aztec Priest, who's been sacrificing people by carving their skin off, has invoked the god Quetzlcoatl, a giant bird monster who has a penchant for rooftop sunbathers. Not a bad idea, but it's not too deeply explored. Again, they spend way too much time with Quinn. The guy's a total drag, he's constantly whining about how horrible his life is, and wondering why he can't be a better person. I wanted to see some people get eaten by a flying monster, not a lamely done drama about a guy with a conscience problem.

Quinn proves that he's a real scumbag when he holds the city hostage by not revealing the location of the bird's nest. He insists on a million dollars and some respect, or the killings won't stop. The last five minutes of Q are by far the best part of the film. We finally get to see more than a beak or a claw of the monster, as they show all of Q in glorious stop-motion animation, flying around the Chrysler Building as Carradine and his crew of cops shoot her down; the poor thing only wanted to collect some food for her soon to be hatched egg. So what if some heads had to be removed, she's an endangered species and should be protected.

If the movie had been about Q attacking New Yorkers, and Carradine and Roundtree investigating, it could have been a fun B-Movie; when those elements were on screen, it is an entertaining film. But they let what should have been a minor character take over the film; I didn't care about Quinn in the least, he could have found the bird, and that would have been enough. I didn't care about his feelings or his relationship with his girlfriend. His unredeemable character drags the film down so far, that it's not worth sitting through for the few good scenes of Q swooping in to grab people. It's unbearable for even those that love bad movies. - Grade: D

(It seems there is new attention for this movie, based on the filmmaker's lawsuit against J.K. Rowling. The main character is named Harry Potter Jr., there's a fantasy element to the film; but those are the only similarities.)

I hadn't seen this film since I was a kid, so long ago that it actually scared me. I didn't have a lot of hope for it to hold up, but I'm always willing to take a stroll down memory lane. Immediately I could understand why this scared me as a child. Within minutes of starting, the film has an evil ugly troll kidnap a little girl and take over her body, begin living with her family, including her brother, a little boy that I could easily identify with.

The Potter family has just moved to San Fransisco, into an eclectic old apartment building, where everyone knows everyone else, and everyone has interesting quirks. Harry Jr.; yes, that makes him Harry Potter, a good decade before the books, which is also highly distracting whenever they call him by his full name, which seems to be a lot; almost immediately notices that something is wrong with his sister. After watching a cheesy sci-fi film, he believes she's a pod-person, but soon discovers the truth, thanks to a friendly witch living upstairs from them.

Meanwhile, the Troll, hiding in plain site as a little girl, is quickly taking over the apartment building, thanks to his nasty ring that has poison needle on it. He's turning all the residents into various mythical creatures, because he's lonely. All their apartments start overgrowing with trees and plants, to better accommodate their transformed residents. Of course the Potter parents are completely oblivious to what's going on, and it's left up to Harry to save the day, with a little help from his witch friend and her weird mushroom boyfriend.

The film has some cool stop-motion effects, most notably when some giant vines start to take over the entire building, as a crowd of San Fransisco-ians watch. There's one creepy scene, at least from a child's perspective, towards the end of the film, where Harry is laying in bed, with his troll/sister lying in the bed next to him, and she keeps transforming back and forth between them. A pretty terrifying idea for any kid with a sibling sleeping in their room.

While I wouldn't call the film well made, it's too goofy for that; it is undeniably entertaining. In a so-bad-it's-good type of way. A kid can look past the bad acting and silly plot-line and enjoy it as a creepy fantasy story. Us grown-ups can enjoy it for the scene where all the puppet Trolls start singing in unison or a very young, half naked Julia Louis-Dreyfus starts frolicking around as some sort of fairy princess high on pixie dust. Troll is some good brainless fantasy/horror fan, if you enjoy it with a double order of cheese.

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Don't confuse this with Troll 2, which has absolutely nothing to do with this film, beyond the name; and has gone on to gain some infamy as the "best worst movie". There's even documentary in the works about it all.