Troll Hunter, a.k.a Trolljegeren

The ‘found footage’ genre is on the rise thanks to films like ‘Cloverfield’ and ‘The Blair Witch Project’, but it originally came into existence with ‘the 1980 production ‘Cannibal Holocaust’, a film which came out during the video nasty era, in which people thought it was real. Granted the filmmakers didn’t help by having the actors sign contracts which prevented them from appearing in other media in order to make the film look even more real.

Now films like ‘Cloverfield’, ‘The Zombie Diaries’ and ‘REC’ have become increasingly popular, making the audience feel part of the action, as well as a re-emergence of monster movies. So along comes Norwegian found footage monster film ‘Trolljegeren’, a.k.a ‘Troll Hunter’.

‘Troll Hunter’ follows a group of college students initially seeking to find what they believe to be an illegal bear hunter. It then turns out that the dead bears are a ploy to cover up and even greater threat; trolls. The guy they were following is in actual fact, a Troll Hunter, the only one in Norway, who effectively keeps the trolls in line, killing any who break out of their territory.

Now, before I go into anything else, I’ll talk about the main feature, the trolls. Now, the filmmakers don’t use machinery like ‘Jurassic Park’ did, it was CGI, but they were fantastic. Whilst most films which use CGI look fake, the trolls in this looked realistic, they looked like they were actually on set, they looked life-like. They were fantastic.

Acting wise they were superb, especially the initial three students whose performances appeared authentic, they were natural. But the stand-out performance was definitely Otto Jespersen as Hans, who was just the perfect choice as the Troll Hunter. He gives a brilliant performance, especially when he recalls the story of how he was forced to kill pregnant troll mothers and newborns who couldn’t even walk yet, and all because some company wanted to build some tunnels, and Hans Morten Hansen does a great job as Finn, the official who wants to keep the trolls under wrap.

The film did bizarrely introduce a new character with about ten minutes of the film left though, a seismologist who was investigating the tremors being caused by the giant. That seemed a bit unnecessary.

But you can truly tell the makers put a lot of effort into this, they had done a lot of research into this. They had gone through troll stories, making two references to ‘Billy Goats Gruff’ and eating contests, seeing the best way of using trolls weakness to sunlight, the two different types of troll (mountain and forest) as well as the many different species, the trolls being able to smell Christian blood, and thinking about what different procedures the STS (Secret Troll Service) would have.

A side note to trolls being able to smell Christian blood though, they do raise a good question when asking Hans if being Muslim is alright (when Malica comes into the film), with Hans saying “I don’t know, we’ll see,”. I mean, Muslims believe in a God, but they’re not Christian. Heck, a troll we see later (I believe the giant) looked like he was unsure what to do. And it was very intense when the group were hiding from five trolls in their cave, and the Christian amongst the group started to panic.

The plot is pretty standard, some might say the genre is getting old. But this film is fantastic, it’s not meant to be scary, but for a mock documentary you really do start to believe in the storyline, we feel we are actually being educated. That is actually the best thing about this film, it takes itself and the viewers seriously. It invests in the characters to make you actually care about them, it invests in the story so it’s taken seriously and has some great humour as well. I absolutely loved the reaction of the guy at the end (I think it was Finn but I can’t seem to confirm it online) when the Prime Minister just blurts out in an interview that Norway has trolls, it was priceless!

Overall, this was a masterpiece, a brilliant piece of Norwegian film making. So of course, CJ Entertainment and Media in America has to ruin it by purchasing the remake rights. See you in four years for the inevitably terrible remake!