User blog:Stofferex/A Movie Review- "Troll Hunter"

It's been awhile hasn't it?

Well this wasn't planned but for reasons I wanted to.

So in my asbence from this place I've done a couple of things. For example, watching movies. And this one in particular I just wanted to talk about and share with others, hence my "review"

I've seen posters of this movie before but I have never seen it until now that is. The reason why I decided to watch this was because one day I had a weird dream about giant trolls and that somehow led me to this. I checked out some clips and eventually the movie itself. And I gotta say, it's pretty damn awesome.

I'm usually not a big fan of found footage movies (except for REC) but this one appeals to me in a way that most other movies don't. Namely, it's Nordic or more specifically Norwegian (I'm Swedish btw) and we share many of the same cultures.

When you think of the word "troll" you think of the a-holes on the internet right? Well that's what I do to but also ever since I was a kid the word "troll" has been a word to describe huge mythological beasts with big noses, tails and all kinds of appearances. And this movie makes an amazing job putting all those fairy tales onto the big screen and present them as a reality. I had a slight fears of trolls, of the tales that they would break into your homes and kidnap you or even devour you so seeing them come to life here was breathtaking for me to say the least.

And I can only thank André Øvredal for this masterpiece. He, similar to me, also grew up with fairy tales about northern creatures like the trolls. After being highly inspired by movies like Jaws and Jurassic Park, one day he wanted to make a monster movie and decided that trolls would be a perfect subject to tackle. But with a relatively short budget, how do you make a movie like this? By making it a mocumentary.

Plot (Spoilers)
3 highschool student goes out into the woods to document about a supposed "bear poacher". This leads them to a man named Hans who supposedly have something to do with this. They start following around Hans trying to secure an interview (obviously annoying him) and asking him questions about his professions which he's very brief about. However reluctantly Hans agrees to let them join his daily routine.

In one night when they follow Hans they see flashing lights and hear strange roars. Hans comes rushing back and yells "TROLL!" The lead student, Thomas, get's bitten by some mysterious animal and they discover that their car has been completely wrecked and covered in some gooey slime. Hans then admits that he's not a bear hunter, he's in fact a troll hunter. The students obviously believe he's joking at first but eventually gets curious and decide to hang around him some more. Hans agrees very reluctantly but only if they follow his instructions.

He makes them cover themselves with "troll stench" (which is a slimy concentrate made from everything you can squeeze out of a troll) and asks them if anyone of them are Christian or believes in God since apparently a troll can smell a Christian's blood. Hans is also armed with powerful UV-Lights which works kind of like sunlights since trolls HATES sunlight and can actually die from it by either turning them into stone or simply make them explode.

Hans then flushes out a giant three headed troll called Tusseladd out from the forest who spots the students and starts chasing them. They manage to escape and Hans flashes the gigantic beats with the lights, turning it into stone.

Hans reveals that the only reason he let the kids join him cause he's tired of his job, costantly keeping both humans and trolls safe from each other, yet never get the recognition he deserves. He also comments how the trolls has been behaving way more aggressively than usual and needs a blood sample from one of them.

What follows is a beautiful scenery road trip movie with more troll encounters and twist and turns. That's all you're getting for now.

Types of troll
I wanna talk about the different types of trolls that shows up in the movie. There are 4 types in total

Unknwon troll:
There' supposedly a troll at the beginning which Hans tries to fight off with lights but manages to bite Thomas. It's unknown if Hans killed it or if it escaped.

Tusseladd:
A tree-sized three headed troll which is the second troll they encounter in the film but the first troll we as the audience gets to see. Hans says that the two extra heads on it's shoulders are not actual heads but more like extra protuberance which it can use to scare other trolls, attract female trolls or sniff out prey better. If you look closely you will notice how they don't have any eyes. According to Hans this type of troll can grow up to 9 heads in total.

Raglefant:
The third troll in the film and the second smallest. It was hiding under a bridge but Hans manage to attract it with live goats (which is directly inspired by the fairy tales of the trolls under the bridge comeing after goats). This one in particular seems to be missing an arm.

Dovregubbe:
The 4th and smallet trolls encountered. This is probably my favorite scene in the entire movie cause of the pure intensity and fear. The crew goes into an abandoned mine where troll tracks has been reported. Hans discoveres that this mine is used by a pack of trolls. When they're about to leave the trolls unexpectadly and the crew is forced to hide in a little hole they manage to find. They're trapped inside while the trolls prepares to go into slumber. Nerv-wrecking if you ask me...

Jotnar:
The final troll encountered and definitely the biggest. This garguantuan beast almost rivals Godzilla in size. It shows up in the northern snowy parts of Norway and the crew gets into a Jurassic Park esque car chase with it and Hans tries to desperately fight it off with the lights. Of course being as big as it is it's not easy.

Synopsis:
Troll Hunter is an amazing film to me. Like I said before it's awesome to see the things you used to fear as a child coming to live in an adventure like this. And it's awesome to see them take inspirations from classic designs straight from the books or even tales (like the troll under the bridge) or old troll mythos (like how they hate sunlight, eat rocks or can smell a blood of a Christian). And they do an amazing job explaining "how" and "why" for many of these reasons which paints the trolls less like monsters and more like a common animal trying to survive in the wilderness.

And instead of focusing on one troll they took the time and design all kinds of uniquely looking trolls which always a plus and shows their dedication. All the trolls are CGI animated but they all look good and none of them looks fake. For a small budget they managed to hire 3 different effect studios for animating them: Storm Studios, Gimpville and '''Superrune. '''They also made sure not to shoot any scenes with the trolls infront of branches since it would cost more to animate them into the branches. They also shot the footage in order and animated the trolls around the scene with no storyboard, only with the CG work in mind. To make the characters feel alive and not scripted they sometimes even improvised the lines

Now I wouldn't call this a straight up horror movie, more like a dark comedy.

In fact, most of the actors in this movie are actually famous Norwegian comedians. The protagonist Hans for example is played by Otto Jespersen who's a famous comedian actor and TV personality. Hell there's even a scene at the end which makes a political satire.

And there was some talk about Troll Hunter 2 featuring more trolls that were unused for this like a sea troll. However an American studio got the rights to it and wanted to make... a remake (cause I guess reading subtitles is too hard so let's just reshoot the entire movie with English speaking actors) which I would guarantee bomb. It would completely miss the Northern charm from the first movie and just be a generic monster movie.

THANKFULLY the remake was cancelled in 2016 and the rights went back to Øvredal where they belong so the possible sequel can finalyl happen... hopefully.

Troll Hunter is a must watch if you're a fan of found footage movies, Northern mythos, Monster movies or simply just like movies I guess. It's fun, scary, adventurous, beautiful and all other things collected into a nice package named Troll Hunter!

Check it out! :D