Film Review: Troll Hunter

It's not often that a foreign language cult movie hits your local multiplex, normally they are reserved for a few weeks at a nearby art house, followed by a swift Blu Ray and DVD release.

Oddly, this isn't the case for Troll Hunter, originally released in Norway last year, and only now seeing the light of day in this country. Backed by a big marketing campaign which included amusing 'Troll Hunting Guides' in some DVD cases, I was suitably intrigued by the whole thing, and the trailer with it's 'Teddy Bears Picnic' backing music (still genius) promised a lot.

But, after all that, I was disappointed...

Troll Hunter is a 'found footage' film that follows a group of students investigating the mysterious circumstances surrounding the killings of bears, and soon come across an equally mysterious hunter, who they follow and discover he's not hunting what they think, but trolls. Of course. They follow him as he looks for the trolls responsible...

As much as I wanted to like this, I was quite bored for long stretches. Not to say the film doesn't have its moments - the initial 'Troll revelation' is hilarious, and a good part of all the troll action (particularly the 'final' troll at the end of the film) is great stuff, but too much of the film dragged for me. And considering the film ran an hour and forty minutes, that's not good.

Some of it is down to the same problem I have with most 'found footage' films: "Why is this bit in here if they were editing the footage down to the important stuff?". And the conclusion of the film ("This was the end of the footage that was found") was so abrupt it seemed that the filmmakers couldn't think of a good way to end it, except for a small (Norwegian) political swipe.

It's a one watch kind of thing, with good performances (particularly Otto Jespersen as the weary titular character), and some great troll action (I guess that's the term you use for it) but ultimately I found it to be a bit tiresome.

**
It had it's moments, and at least it's original, but I was restless too many times and the films 100 minute running time seemed double that. Unless you really, really like trolls you may want to give it a miss.