Director: Andre Ovredal
Stars: Otto Jespersen, Glenn Erland Tosterud,, Johanna Morck, Hans Morten Hansen, Tomas Alf Larsen
Troll Hunter is a Norwegian film that follows an amatuer film crew as they investigate mysterious bear killings. Along the way they run into Hans (Jespersen), but soon realize that he doesn’t hunt bears. He hunts Trolls. They become enveloped in a government conspiracy as they document Hans’ efforts to keep the country safe from Trolls, as some have escaped their territory and pose a threat to civilization.
This is a hybrid film, promoted as a horror/action/black comedy. I’m not sure it totally succeeds on any of those levels though. It’s not particularly scary, the action is sparse and the humour, well, I only laughed out loud once and that was at the last scene of the movie. Some parts are darkly amusing but in a wry way, not in a way that will have you chuckling.
I don’t know, it didn’t work for me. I wanted to like it because I like this quirky kind of premise and it was certainly different. The locations were stunning (more films should be filmed in Scandinavian countries) but the story was lacking and the characters weren’t very interesting. The movie dragged painfully at times. Brief moments of interest were separated by long, brutally slow sequences and it wasn’t a fun movie to watch.
The effects were impressive though, although I feel the Trolls were shown a few scenes too early. I liked the designs of the different creatures and the whole history behind them and how they fit into this world was interesting. The action scene on the bridge was possibly the highlight of the film as it had the perfect balance of tension and action.
I can’t recommend this one. I wanted to like it but it didn’t quite do what I hoped it would.
