Troll Hunter (2010)
Directed by André Øvredal
A group of students investigates a series of mysterious bear killings, but learns that there are much more dangerous things going on. They start to follow a mysterious hunter, learning that he is actually a troll hunter.
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6 films that influenced Troll Hunter
What critics say influenced Troll Hunter
His film plays like a northern response to Gareth Edwards's "Monsters," using the found footage device of "Cloverfield" with dashes of "Jurassic Park" and the satirical humor of neighboring Finland's "Rare Exports."
By the movie's climax in the tundra, up against the most fearsome type of troll extant, we get a Jurassic Park ride of terror and heroism.
There’s tons of delicious suspense of the horror-flick variety to be had in writer-director André Øvredal’s mockumentary, and plenty of Spielbergian shock-awe -- in places Trollhunter gleefully recalls Jaws and Jurassic Park -- but what makes it one of the most satisfying examples of found-footage flicks yet is its observational, journalistic ethos.
Norwegian filmmaker André Øvredal breathes zesty life into the found footage trend with The Troll Hunter, a monster thrill ride that combines handheld camerawork with rollicking action reminiscent of Jurassic Park.
Although easily categorised as a mix of Steven Spielberg's monsters-run-amok adventure Jurassic Park (1993) and the first-person mayhem of Daniel Myrick's and Eduardo Sánchez's The Blair Witch Project (1999), The Troll Hunter rises above such pat comparisons.
Remember the feeling you had the first time you saw Jurassic Park and wondered “Are those real dinosaurs?”
Shot in a faux-documentary style that makes its fantastically ominous happenings all the more real, "Troll Hunter" does for Norwegian mythology what 1999's " The Blair Witch Project " did for getting lost in the woods and 2008's " Cloverfield " did for alien invasions.
Filmgoers have endured similar faux exposés of the supernatural captured on video in recent years, ever since the blockbuster success of 1999's low-budget The Blair Witch Project.
The film takes the setup from “The Blair Witch Project” (1999), figuratively transplants it to the breathtaking (if constantly rain-swept) fjords, forests, cloud-clad mountains and Nordic magic of Norway and adds a fab new ingredient to the three-young-person-shooting-the-footage crew.
The real connection is with The Blair Witch Project, of course, and all the imitators that followed that 1999 surprise horror hit.
Although easily categorised as a mix of Steven Spielberg's monsters-run-amok adventure Jurassic Park (1993) and the first-person mayhem of Daniel Myrick's and Eduardo Sánchez's The Blair Witch Project (1999), The Troll Hunter rises above such pat comparisons.
Director André Øvredal applies the pseudo-vérité aesthetic of "The Blair Witch Project" and "Cloverfield" to this story of a student film crew whose exposé on poachers reels in a larger scandal than they anticipated.
In the manner of the special federal agents policing extraterrestrials in Barry Sonnenfeld's Men in Black pictures, he works for a secret government department charged with keeping trolls in their native areas and killing those who stray outside.
He’s a bona fide Norwegian troll hunter, a kind of “X-Files”-y, “Men in Black”-ish, comically disgruntled civil-service worker named Hans (Otto Jespersen).
Shot in a faux-documentary style that makes its fantastically ominous happenings all the more real, "Troll Hunter" does for Norwegian mythology what 1999's " The Blair Witch Project " did for getting lost in the woods and 2008's " Cloverfield " did for alien invasions.
We've seen shaky-cam hauntings (Paranormal Activity 1 and 2), possessions ( The Last Exorcism ), zombie uprisings (Diary of the Dead), monster attacks (Cloverfield) and alien invasions (Skyline, Battle: Los Angeles).
Troll Hunter, directed by André Øvredal, follows in the mockumentary footsteps of The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity.
Director André Øvredal applies the pseudo-vérité aesthetic of "The Blair Witch Project" and "Cloverfield" to this story of a student film crew whose exposé on poachers reels in a larger scandal than they anticipated.
His film plays like a northern response to Gareth Edwards's "Monsters," using the found footage device of "Cloverfield" with dashes of "Jurassic Park" and the satirical humor of neighboring Finland's "Rare Exports."
– and a surprisingly affecting turn from Jespersen as a man who really, really loathes his job, Trollhunter plays like the Brothers Grimm meets Cloverfield with a hint of Monty Python-esque ridiculousness.
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Its a neat and too-rare trick, and director André Øvredal pulls it off by combining the now familiar found footage conceit with effects that range from computer-assisted realism (some of the night-vision shots of the marauding giants are the scariest) to the retro (one face-off appears to have been staged via King Kong-style stop-motion animation).
Found footage horror refuses to go away thanks to the success of the Paranormal Activity franchise and reality TV shows like Paranormal State.
Troll Hunter, directed by André Øvredal, follows in the mockumentary footsteps of The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity.
The first-person horror movement born in the wake of The Blair Witch Project has resulted in movies as good as Paranormal Activity and as bad as Paranormal Activity 2 , but all up and down the chain of quality, one thing has remained constant: virtually all of these movies are interesting primarily because they are shot with a first-person camera, using that gimmick to prop up an otherwise uninteresting, boilerplate script (viz Cloverfield ), or crafting narratives that effectively could not exist without that gimmick (as the aforementioned Paranormal Activities).