Troll Hunting for Fun and Profit

If I could quantify my love for new, fascinating films dropping into my Netflix instant queue, I'd need a disproportionately large measurement system. I wonder if I could rent the deck of an aircraft carrier? What's the going rate? It should take an enormous scaling to dish up the delightful cinematic ideas coming out of Norway. If your gore soaked funny bones weren't tickled by Dead Snow (which they should have been, rewatch it noob), then allow Norwegian film making to win you over with the dark fantasy, Troll Hunter.

Love the poster art

Heavily steeped in folklore, Troll Hunter never treats the titular monsters as such. Instead, we're introduced to them by a documentary crew following a government sponsored agent, Hans the Troll Hunter (Otto Jespersen, who is FANTASTIC). Hans is a tired, disgruntled employee who decides to expose the long kept government secret because he's underpaid and sick of government bureaucratics. He's a blue collar worker doing a thankless job which would be extraordinary to anyone else, but to him is simply another day-another dollar. In that sense, he's got a lot of the appeal of Hellboy (my favorite comic book character), minus some of the more overt comedy. For me, Hans makes this film what it is. His weapons and his methods are akin to that of an exterminator, methodically readying specialized equipment to deal with specific variants of pests. (I could also draw parallels to James Woods in John Carpenter's Vampires, but I don't want to call down the slings of arrows of outrageous 'net trolls.)

Our Hero: Hans

The Trolls themselves are thoroughly fleshed out, both scientifically and through associated folklore. There are different subspecies, their traditionally depicted abilities and vulnerabilities are given scientific explanations and they are confirmed as mammals, at one point, by a veterinarian whom Hans consults. Their haunts, behaviors and even physical oddities are cataloged and either exploited or defended against. It's intriguing. It sucks in the part of your brain which is always actively scanning to explain the dark parts of our world and our cultural imagination.

Set in and around Norway, we're treated to amazing vistas - the likes of which draw to mind scenes from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Waterfalls, mountains, green hills and frozen tundra are all fleetingly seen. Here is where I need to detail my only detractions from what is an otherwise fantastic film. To this point I haven't mentioned the cinematic style or over arching frame work of the story. That's because Troll Hunter is a found footage film. We're viewing through the eyes of an aspiring(and yawningly uninteresting) documentary crew, yearning to drag the mythological trolls screaming into the light of day. Why bring this up while speaking about the beauty of the Norwegian landscape? Because the herky-jerky nature of being a found footage film means the vistas were only glanced at, sideways with a camera sitting on a lap pointed out a window.

Indeed the parkinson's fueled cinematics lend difficulty to following along with the subtitles, which normally become second nature to viewers within a few minutes. I will admit bias on my part- I've grown very tired of the found footage motif. I'd have much preferred this be a traditionally shot piece of motion picture fantasy. It's not enough to ruin viewing experience - but I'd be remiss not to dock it a few cool beans for wearing the well used garb of a trend I'd like to see fade (mostly) away.

Troll Hunter is very awesome. It's a cinematic treat and well worth seeking out. It's apparently already on the fast track for an "Americanization" (since 90% of Americans are lazy fucks unwilling to see a subtitled film) - but it's destined to fail if it doesn't star Otto Jespersen. Chris Columbus had better hope Otto speaks English.

Teenage Manners are Atrocious

Last night, I learned a good number of things about the creature society has come to call "teenagers". For instance, did you know that all teenagers feel the irresistible compulsion to film absolutely every single moment of their, usually boring, lives? I thought this was a tendency rampant only among Americans, but I came across evidence to contradict that. Yes, if the film Atrocious is to be believed, adolescents in Spain have nothing better to do than film their hum-drum daily goings on using what appear to be expensive digital video cameras too. Who gives expensive cameras to kids anyway?

Yes, friends, we've come across some found footage, left among the bodies of an entire murdered family. So, that's fun. The authorities find and review 37 hours of footage, taken by brother an sister duo Cristian and July over five days of vacation at an old family estate. That's right, 37 hours filmed in just five days. With all that filming, how are they going to find time to drink and smoke pot? I mean honestly, it's as if they don't want to be graphically killed by a machete wielding killer.

Luckily for us, the police were kind enough to cut all this footage into Atrocious, an 80 minute horror film. While it was awesome of them to do that for us, it would have been nice if they had left out some of the more boring teenage antics from the early film. The first half hour of the film drags because viewers, on the whole, don't want to watch teenagers pack the car and go on a road trip, argue with their siblings, talk back to their parents, complete chores and generally dick around. I've got YouTube at my finger tips if I wanted that.

The real meat of the film takes place in the adjacent hedge labyrinth. It is a very interesting local, which is good because the bulk of our footage is shot there. There is a local legend of a woman in a red dress who helps lost travelers in the maze after nightfall, but c'mon folks, this is very much the wrong genre for kindly spirits. This time spent in the overgrown labyrinth is fairly divisive, as the first person camera work includes lots of running and turning in circles to look at hedges and paths that all look the same. If found footage movies make you nauseas, this one's got to be the carnival ride puke-a-thon of them. If that doesn't bother you, though, it's a great tension builder as you, along with the characters, are completely lost in the hedge maze.

The climactic 10 minutes are frenetic and the conclusion is really satisfying. In this respect, the pay off makes Arocious' premise work and is genuinely scary. If you're a huge found footage fan, this is a better than average entry in the genre with a great ending and is worth checking out. Atrocious is receiving a domestic DVD release on October 25th, just in time for your Halloween viewing pleasure.