THE TROLL HUNTER - UNMYTHABLE

God dag! Here's a strange one. Norwegian shakeycam fake-u-mentary about a bunch of film students following the titular Troll Hunter of the title. WHAT DOES HE DO He's an old, grizzled doublehard ex-soldier who lives in a scabby caravan and spends his working day hunting down and exterminating evil legendary beings who have strayed from their reservations in rural Norway. "Trolls! GTFO" No....it's actually pretty cool. The found footage concept is getting a bit stale now, mostly because by its naturalistic construction it's almost impossible to construct a satisfying conclusion... Just look at The Last Exorcism...a decent little flick that puts in a fine performance over 60 minutes but then suffers an epic fail at the vinegar stroke and s**t all over the bed.

Troll Hunter does suffer from this iffy climax syndrome, but cheats a bit and drops in a jokey coda at the end. It still ends pretty abruptly....once you see the BIG troll, that's the movie pretty much over, and just when it seem to be finding it feet. It does take an age to get going but when the bug-eyed film crew finally come face to face with the Trolls...awesome effects, and a whole fascinating troll ecosystem and hierarchy is uncovered. The trolls come in all sizes and several breeds, some explode when exposed to UV light, some turn to stone, they hate christians, all of them are ugly c**ts and are violent to boot. The Troll Hunter however never misses a beat, he's just doing his job, and he's pretty good at it.

The effects are excellent as noted, the CG trolls are hollywood-quality, beautifully rendered and animated and even though they look a bit like refugees from a very dark depressed period of Jim Henson's adolescence (a period of intense genital abuse and initial traumatic attempts at growing a beard) they manage to be both convincing and menacing in a mildly goofy way. They are certainly more convincing than the Trolls from The Lord of The Rings trilogy (have you watched any of these recently? Whoo they are starting to look dated) The students are only vaguely annoying, the Troll Hunter is a cool old fearless troll-slaying machine and seems to view his quarry with a strange irritated affection, the way you'd view a pet dog with extreme bowel disorder. I'd like a sequel, this is the best thing to come out of Norway since.....er.......anyway yeah tune in and watch some mythological norse creatures getting a shoeing from a hatted man with a beard, its even more fun than that sounds.