The troll hunter movie review
THE TROLL HUNTER is the story of a group of Norwegian film students that set out to capture real-life trolls on camera after learning their existence has been covered up for years by a government conspiracy. A thrilling and wildly entertaining film, THE TROLL HUNTER delivers truly fantastic images of giant trolls wreaking havoc on the countryside, with darkly funny adherence to the original Norwegian folklore.
Trolls! It's a premise that could very easily come off campy and without any sincerity at all. The thought of a found footage film about hunting trolls in the forests and mountains of Norway could work against the film. It could illicit laughter from the audience, as ideas of Harry Potter or Gandalf saving the day might fill their distracted heads from what is playing out in the film before them.
Thankfully, with Troll Hunter, director Andre Ovredal has achieved the extremely difficult. He has made up the idea of trolls living out in the wild, he has taken that myth that is so instilled in his own, Norwegian culture, and he has crafted a film that is as terrifying as it is awe-inspiring. Troll Hunter is yet one more instance of a found footage horror film taking its audience and placing it solidly in the middle of frightening and extremely intense situations, and it does so without the slightest sense of unintentional jest.
The film centers on a crew of students who set out to document a potential bear poacher. What they find instead is a government conspiracy and a man whose job it is to keep the trolls of Norway out of the public eye. The man, aged and tired of the life he is leading, agrees to let the students document his job at hand.
I said "unintentional" earlier, because Troll Hunter is not the hardcore, balls-to-the-wall thriller you might expect from other found footage films like Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity. The terror here is more of a grand scale, like watching dinosaurs walk the earth rather than hearing strange noises in the woods or in your darkened house. There are moments that are no less terrifying that what might be found in those more horror-driven films, but Troll Hunter is the monster movie equivalent, a Cloverfield-esque sense of style but on a much grander scale.
What Ovredal has done here (he both wrote and directed the film, but, outside of that, there is very little information to be found about this project) is create an entire myth, sometimes delving into the biological elements of it, for the trolls he depicts here.
When the hunter takes the documentary crew to a veterinarian who helps him in his hunts, the vet explains, somewhat scientifically, no less, the way trolls' inner biology works and why they react the way they do when hit with sunlight. In essence, some trolls turn to stone and some just explode into gushy piles. It's something Ovredal takes from the myths of his homeland, the stories of old about trolls and puts those rules to the task of modern science.
THE TROLL HUNTER is the story of a group of Norwegian film students that set out to capture real-life trolls on camera after learning their existence has been covered up for years by a government conspiracy. A thrilling and wildly entertaining film, THE TROLL HUNTER delivers truly fantastic images of giant trolls wreaking havoc on the countryside, with darkly funny adherence to the original Norwegian folklore.
Trolls! It's a premise that could very easily come off campy and without any sincerity at all. The thought of a found footage film about hunting trolls in the forests and mountains of Norway could work against the film. It could illicit laughter from the audience, as ideas of Harry Potter or Gandalf saving the day might fill their distracted heads from what is playing out in the film before them.
Thankfully, with Troll Hunter, director Andre Ovredal has achieved the extremely difficult. He has made up the idea of trolls living out in the wild, he has taken that myth that is so instilled in his own, Norwegian culture, and he has crafted a film that is as terrifying as it is awe-inspiring. Troll Hunter is yet one more instance of a found footage horror film taking its audience and placing it solidly in the middle of frightening and extremely intense situations, and it does so without the slightest sense of unintentional jest.
The film centers on a crew of students who set out to document a potential bear poacher. What they find instead is a government conspiracy and a man whose job it is to keep the trolls of Norway out of the public eye. The man, aged and tired of the life he is leading, agrees to let the students document his job at hand.
I said "unintentional" earlier, because Troll Hunter is not the hardcore, balls-to-the-wall thriller you might expect from other found footage films like Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity. The terror here is more of a grand scale, like watching dinosaurs walk the earth rather than hearing strange noises in the woods or in your darkened house. There are moments that are no less terrifying that what might be found in those more horror-driven films, but Troll Hunter is the monster movie equivalent, a Cloverfield-esque sense of style but on a much grander scale.
What Ovredal has done here (he both wrote and directed the film, but, outside of that, there is very little information to be found about this project) is create an entire myth, sometimes delving into the biological elements of it, for the trolls he depicts here.
When the hunter takes the documentary crew to a veterinarian who helps him in his hunts, the vet explains, somewhat scientifically, no less, the way trolls' inner biology works and why they react the way they do when hit with sunlight. In essence, some trolls turn to stone and some just explode into gushy piles. It's something Ovredal takes from the myths of his homeland, the stories of old about trolls and puts those rules to the task of modern science.