If someone shot a wildlife film about Middle-earth, it would probably look a lot like The Troll Hunter, a Norwegian mockumentary that has the internet buzzing.
An impeccable production with a brilliant concept, The Troll Hunter successfully blends scares with dry humor. The movie sags slightly during some flaccid interludes, and the plot loses some steam as time goes on, but the low points are overshadowed by the film’s sheer inventiveness.
In keeping with mockmentary protocol, The Troll Hunter opens with a title card claiming the footage is real and of uncertain origin. Fortunately, the clichéd setup is forgotten as the plot gets swiftly under way.
It is bear season in the mountains of Norway, and three student filmmakers are on the trail of a suspected poacher with a bizarre MO. The students are hoping to get an interview with this elusive character, known only as “Hans.”
Hans, portrayed by Otto Jespersen, exudes a cool menace, and there are plenty of good reasons to leave him alone. After the kids tail him back to an RV park, residents tell them Hans never comes out during the day. His camper is bedecked with stadium lights that are always on, and hung with mysterious bundles of herbs. It might as well have a license-plate holder that says, “I’d rather be serial killing.”
(Spoiler alert: Minor plot points follow.)
Otto Jespersen, Johanna Mørck and Tomas Alf Larsen hunt trolls in The Troll Hunter by director André Øvredal.
Photos courtesy Magnet ReleasingOnly by invoking the name of Michael Moore do the young filmmakers muster the courage to confront their subject. Hans exhibits the brusqueness of a bad liar with a big secret, and after he rebuffs them a few times, the students know they are onto something. In pursuit of a career-making story, the budding journalists follow Hans on his next nocturnal outing.
Once in the deep, dark woods, earth-rattling groans echo through the trees, and suddenly a breathless Hans charges into view, bellowing “TROLLLLLL!!!!”
He’s not kidding.
After the crew escapes a hair-raising encounter, Hans has a change of heart, and lets them tag along as he goes through his daily work as Norway’s lone troll warden.
Hans turns out to be Van Helsing with a 401K. Troll-hunting is a thankless government job that relies on aging equipment and requires bureaucratic paperwork. Hans is unhappy with the state of “troll management,” and is gambling that an exposé will force his bosses to change their approach.
The Troll Hunter‘s greatest strength is in submerging absurdity in mundane minutiae.
The movie’s greatest strength is in submerging absurdity in mundane minutiae, exemplified by the form Hans must fill out each time he kills a troll. It looks like a rental car agreement, complete with crude diagrams and checkboxes, a format so familiar that we can ignore its zany purpose.
Strong performances help bring off the nonsense.
Jespersen, who steals the show as the stoic Hans, is one of Norway’s most popular stand-up comedians, and two other major characters are portrayed by straight-faced comics. In spite of that, there isn’t much joking around.
The laughs come from watching characters react to ludicrous scenarios with total seriousness, as perhaps only comic actors can. Framing the story with such matter-of-factness also makes the preposterous events feel real enough to be scary.
Excellent production values help sell the promised horror. The trolls manage to be grotesque but not cartoonish, and their primal growling will rattle your reptile brain. Effective night-vision shots create a sense of helplessness as characters flee hungry monsters in the dark.
When action is afoot, The Troll Hunter is gripping, but it suffers from some dead air, mostly in the form of long drives. Hans is always on the move, but director André Øvredal could have communicated that with fewer shots out the car window.
More problematic is the characters’ reaction, or lack thereof, to what should have been the movie’s most dramatic moment. After a tragic loss, the protagonists get the chance to walk away with plenty of troll footage, but forge ahead without blinking. Luckily, once the mind-blowing final sequence begins, it doesn’t matter how the protagonists got there.
The Troll Hunter was a runaway success in its home country, and buzz has been building for months in anticipation of the U.S. release. The wait ends Friday, when the movie becomes available on-demand from iTunes and other outlets. It hits theaters in limited release June 10.
No matter the medium, The Troll Hunter will indulge your childhood wish for fairy tales to come true, while comforting you with the notion that if your wish had been granted, things would not have ended well.
WIRED Makes trolls seem so real you will be afraid to go camping.
TIRED Long road trip sequences have you asking, “Are we there yet?”
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