The Troll Hunter

Every so often a movie comes around that picks you up out of your seat and firmly plants you in its own universe, this universe being Norway, in particular. And Norway is infested with trolls. I knew I loved this movie in one very particular scene: the camera crew have followed the hunter and lost tack of him in the woods. We see a series of flashes in the distance, then the scampering of somebody running towards the camera; the hunter enters the frame, only slightly out of breath, quickly looks at the student filmmakers and yells: "TROLL", with a strong focus on the "oh." From there the scene gets a little nutty and you know what you're in for. This movie features trolls in all their glory, and couldn't have done it any better.

The movie opens with some text on the screen that - properly translated - indicate that what you are about to see is found footage. Cloverfield? I must say this is my only gripe on the film; it could have just as easily picked up on the first scene, set itself up and told a proper story. The thing with Cloverfield is that you can believe it was one "tape" and the events were recorded over the course of an hour and a half. This movie takes place over a few weeks: basically you are looking at footage that was "found" then edited over a month or so to feature a proper, gripping story of a group of students learning that not only do trolls exist, they come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. It's a small gripe but it's there; the movie finishes in a cheap manner but it's easy to get over.

This is an independent (presumably) film that features really fantastic special effects, but also some great characters. Otto is the perfect hunter; sufficiently confident, disgruntled and humbling. He's fascinating to watch whenever he's on screen, whether it's fighting a big troll, or eating breakfast filling out paperwork. The students do a good job too, with Glenn being on-screen more often than the others and conveying exactly how we feel: frightened, excited, intrigued; you name it. And the country itself is another character: in what feels like color-enriched mountainsides and lakes, there are many shots where the characters are talking with nature in the background. Now that you know what to look for, you scan the mountains and rocks, looking for signs of troll activity. You want to be there, dangers included.

So what happens next is the American adaptation, or remake. Supposedly it's been optioned by somebody, and in the works already. Perhaps we'll have a Dragon Tattoo situation, wherein the original foreign version is released Stateside, practically used as marketing tool for the soon-to-be remake. We'll hopefully get a proper BluRay release in the meantime too. I highly recommend the film: very original, with the perfect amount of humour, action and fantasy.