Trollhunter (2010)
Written and directed by André Øvredal
Produced by Trond G. Lockertsen, Sveinung Golimo, John M. Jacobsen, Lars L. Marøy, Marcus B. Brodersen
Starring Otto Jespersen, Glenn Erland Tosterud, Johanna Mørck, Tomas Alf Larsen, Urmila Berg-Domaas, Hans Morten Hansen
All tongues onscreen remain buccally lodged in found footage purported to contain the adventures of collegiate documentarians (Tosterud, Mørck, Larsen) seeking a presumed poacher, who’s actually a rugged hunter (Jespersen) of trolls sanctioned and stintingly subsidized by the Norwegian government to track and eliminate the mindless, mammoth, mucilaginous, multifarious monstrosities with singular ways and weapons. Most demythologization is dull, but Øvredal’s blackly comic, quasi-extemporal modernization of Norse fairy tales succeeds for graphic SFX of enormous proportions, cryptozoological quirks, an involvingly inconstant pace, and felicitous characters created believably — particularly the huntsman whose wryly brusque temperament Jespersen perfectly portrays. Videorecorded in Norway’s magnificent forests and mountains, this northland’s model of the monster movie delves a vast compass that isn’t bound by its economy.
