I think I've probably reviewed this movie before, but not recently. I'm feeling quite under the weather today, after a blissful 3 whole months of near perfect health, and I didn't feel up to scouring my Netflix queue looking for something decent. If it's any consolation, Trollhunter was showing on Chiller (that's a channel on my cable TV lineup) yesterday, and it's also on Netflix, so you have two places to catch it. Chiller generally shows their movies more than once.
Trollhunter is, not surprisingly, about a guy who hunts Trolls for a living. Three college journalism or film students in Norway manage to track down a guy they think is a bear poacher, looking to get a story about illegal bear poaching. The guy is reluctant to allow the students to film him at first, which only inspires the students to keep after him, because a real bear poacher certainly wouldn't want 3 kids filming him going about illegal activities, right? Exactly. Unfortunately for the kids, they manage to catch up to Hans, also known as a Trolljegeren, or Trollhunter in Norwayeganese (or Norwegian for those of you that speak english and not whatever the hell language I was just speaking), in the middle of his work day. Hans is fleeing from an encounter with a troll that's gone bad, and Hans is so surprised to see the film students standing in the middle of a dark forest at night, that he shouts a warning to them... TROLL! The film students chase after Hans as the trees behind them crack and splinter, fearful of their very lives, but without catching anything on film. Hans drives them back to their car, only to find that their car has been totally smashed. Apparently, Trolls like to gnaw on tires, and, well, their car had four of them on it when they left it. Now it's a wreck, covered in troll-spit. The film students hitch a ride with Hans back to town, and Hans, nice guy that he is, is getting tired of his job hunting trolls. He lets the film students tag along and film him, and what follows is known as TROLLJEGEREN, or Trollhunter, which sounds much cooler in the native Norwegian.
I've seen this movie several times now, and it just keeps getting better. It's kind of a 'found-footage' flick, and believe me when I tell you, I hate them as much as you do, if not more, usually because of the shaky camera work done by some idiot who keeps dropping the handheld mini-digital camera they've brought along to film the entire movie on during the BEST PARTS. That's done on purpose in these kinds of movies, of course, so they don't have to waste money on actual special effects. They can just let the camera film like 3 minutes of a bush poking out of the ground, while sound effects guy hoop and holler off-screen, making you think that there's something horrible going on off-screen. There isn't. But please understand, this film isn't like that.
Trollhunter actually has very good special effects, and the guy doing most of the filming is holding an actual, big-ass camera with a lens and everything, and he actually seems to know what he's doing. All the action is on-film, and the special effects (which is basically a bunch of trolls stomping about smashing things) are actually quite good. I've seen real trolls, and while these are computer generated images of trolls, they are actually quite close! I totally made that up. I've never actually seen a real troll, unless you count my mom, who's going to be 82 tomorrow and who I personally would bet money on if she ever got into a street brawl with an actual troll. Mom fights dirty.
This movie is actually pretty awesome. There are some scary moments, mostly brought on by tension and a bunch of humans getting way, way too close to trolls, and well, there's troll-rabies to consider. Nobody wants to get Troll-rabies. I had it once. I admit, it wasn't quite as bad as the flu of aught-six, but it was very close. Trollhunter is kind of a slow build, like when you put waayyyyy too many logs around just a little bit of kindling when you're starting a fire, and it takes a little bit of time to get the logs to burning. But when they do, that shit gets HOT. I have the singed sneakers to prove it. Actually, I don't have them anymore, I got new ones, but I DID have them. I just, don't have any actual evidence to back that up. What, my word isn't enough?
Okay, just to get you clued in on the nuts and bolts of the movie, low body count, lots of suspense and tense moments, plenty of troll vs man combat footage, no nudity, although one of the film students was told to take off her clothes and bathe in the freezing river nearby, which she apparently DOES, but they never show, sadly. She was slightly attractive, and I only say that because I am ill, it's getting into the winter season, and I may not see a woman again for seven months. Good special effects, and this was apparently a well-funded Norwegian monster movie. It doesn't even resemble a low-budget film. The acting is good, as far as I can tell. Since it's found footage, you have to deal with the usual "This footage is AUTHENTIC!" crap at the beginning and end of the movie, but they never interrupt the actual movie with it. I've heard others say the ending was kind of lame, but the last, oh, I don't know, 15-20 minutes of the movie were pretty epic, and I don't see how else they could have ended the last few minutes of the movie.
One of the coolest moments in the flick, at least as far as I am concerned, was the Trollhunter's final moment on film. I don't want to give anything away here, but you basically go from thinking Hans is an illegal bear poacher, to a bumbling idiot who has no idea what he's doing, to a wanton murderer at one point (at least, I got that impression during some of the conversations), to an epic viking warrior who would have out-drunk Thor in a drinking contest. And it's not like Hans goes through any transformations. That's just Hans, and all the students get is maybe a week or two of his life's work on film. Some parts funny, some parts scary, some parts tension and suspense, and a lot of atmosphere. This film shows some of the Norway countryside and people, and the view is spectacular.
That's all I got for tonight. Maybe tomorrow I'll feel up to scouring my Netflix queue for some new material, or catch something new on cable TV! heh, yea right. Til tomorrow night, keep warm and stay hydrated. Especially if you're sick. (cough, sneeze)
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