A group of enthusiastic Norwegian students stumble upon a disillusioned hunter of trolls and document his encounters with the giant ugly creatures of Norse fairytale.
If there was any doubt, this is an outright comedy and it must be approached as one. Unlike other shaky camera supernatural pseudo-documentaries along the lines of Blair Witch, Paranormal Ugh-tivity, and Apollo 18 that generally take themselves very seriously (cuz it’s real and scary, innit?), Troll Hunter pokes some fun at the tiresome sub-genre at the same time as having fun with it. A wildly preposterous concept contains mad characters and ridiculous situations but it isn’t so wild, mad and ridiculous that the film falls into complete farce. Dry wit gradually builds from a slow, serious start until, by the end of the film, the nicely clichéd naïve, ballsy young protagonists have experienced a wealth of oddities from debates on whether trolls distinguish between different religions to giant flatulence and hair-brained government-funded schemes employed to cover up the trolls’ existence.
Troll Hunter doesn’t really break any new ground - the low budget “actual footage” style of filmmaking remains a little tiresome - but the injection of a comedy element is refreshing and the film is good daft fun.
15th Sep 2011 | Official site | On IMDb
