Film Review | Troll Hunter

Don't bother looking for this film in the cinemas. It feels as if, a second after I exited the air-conditioned doors of the multiplex, this quirky little Norwegian monster fantasy done good had already evaporated into thin air.

Alas, Troll Hunter - first released in 2010 - enjoyed a week or so in our cinemas, and we should feel lucky that it even lasted that long. It's not often that European films make it onto our big screens, though the Norwegians have enjoyed some success with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo saga... and given how Hollywood has already purchased remake rights to Troll Hunter, it may not be the last time that the giant creatures visit us again.

Placing itself within the milieu of the 'found footage' genre that has grown tired in a Hollywood context, the film pits a group of university film students who take to the Norwegian woods to film a documentary about a supposed bear poacher, Hans (Otto Jespersen).

But when the hapless group - made up of Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), Johanna (Johanna Mørck), and their cameraman Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) - manage to track down Hans, they find a lone wolf with an eccentric array of hunting equipment, and curiously bureaucratic employers.

It doesn't take too long for the truth to come out: Hans is no bear poacher, he's a 'troll manager' - ensuring that the public is kept in the dark about the indigenous rural beasts.

But as the amateur filmmaking team insists on documenting Hans on the job - trekking through forest, lake and mountainside - they begin to realise that they may be putting their lives at risk... not to mention the shady government organisation that insists on keeping a lid on everything they're capturing on camera.

While it's really not all that scary and low on thrills, Troll Hunter is definitely worth a watch for its unique angling of the found footage/monster genre. In a way, it recalls both the genre's progenitor - The Blair Witch Project - and J.J. Abrams's more recent Cloverfield, with its mixture of rural shaky-cam action and a focus on large monsters instead of witches or serial killers.

Taking actual Norwegian folklore to build its central concept, André Øvredal's film gives us monsters that look as endearing as they are scary. The various trolls encountered throughout the film as the team go on their rambling quest are direct interpretations of classic paintings and folk art, and as such have none of the horrific-disgusting appeal of standard Hollywood beasties.

The rest of the film operates on a similar attitude. With its mix of professional and amateur actors (while employing a comedian to play the titular character), liberal sprinkling of Norwegian folk legend and more of a focus on satire and humour rather than terror, it's a mixed bag, but one that doesn't really make excuses for itself and trudges merrily along.

It does stumble unforgivably during its middle stretch, though. Cosmetic details about trolls are relayed to us through dry interviews with some of the protagonists - Hans included - and they slow down what could otherwise have been a truly witty and well-paced monster-cum-road movie. The meandering structure is also a bit of a problem... you get the feeling that the filmmakers just wanted to shoehorn different types of troll into the mix, and it just comes across as a bit assembly-line.

But when it hits, it hits. The climactic conflict is particularly thrilling - we finally get to see a troll at close quarters, and as the team dodges the beast's giant feet, you're bound to gasp at least once.

But even if the thrills of troll hunting are of no interest to you at all, the Norwegian landscape is a breathtakingly beautiful thing to behold, and in Troll Hunter it's particularly impressive, given that you're experiencing it all through a more or less raw 'shaky cam'.

I would love it if a quirky monster film was the cause of a spike in Norwegian tourism statistics.