I took this one out from Family Video at the same time as "[Rec]", which was probably too much found-footage filmmaking for one week, but even though the narrative hook has gotten old quickly, "Trollhunter" certainly has pleasures all of its own to offer.
This film follows a group of three young folk who are looking to do some attention-getting investigative reporting on recent bear attacks in a remote part of Sweden. However, they quickly learn that something much more dangerous and fantastical is responsible for these attacks and they team up with a reluctant and reclusive insider who takes them behind the curtain at their own peril.
OK, so far, so standard. Swap out 'Sweden' for anywhere in the States and 'bear attacks' for 'mysterious disappearances' or 'strange occurrences' and you've a scenario that would fit about 90% of all found-footage films languishing on store shelves or flooding the 'Recent Releases' section of Amazon, Netflix or Hulu.
And indeed, we do get elliptical edits, scenes shot all in night-vision green and running-with-camera shots that make Sam Raimi's 'shaky-cam' in the first "Evil Dead" movie look like the steadicam shot from "Goodfellas." We get moments where we wonder why anyone with any interest in survival would keep shooting. We get shots that may look cool, but how on earth could any of our characters actually be shooting that? And we get an ending that just... ends, because 'hey man - found-footage.'
But as the screen-shot above shows, this is also a film that shows every bit as much as it suggests and in a really good way. The trolls themselves aren't wonders of seamless CGI (though the 'final troll' pictured here is pretty damn great), but they make an imaginative and enjoyably absurd difference from the zombies and evil spirits that are the staples of the found-footage craze.
And all of this comes with just enough character reality and detail to make the story compelling and a sly sense of humor that respects our intelligence. Otto Jesperen as the titular trollhunter is awesome - the straight man of the narrative, Jesperen carries the unspoken self-confidence of someone who is a veteran professional (whose profession just happens to be troll-hunting) along with the bone-deep weariness of a man who is simply getting sick of his job. He's tired of the physical wear, lousy pay and bureaucratic bullshit he's experienced in his 30-some years of keeping everyday Norwegians blissfully unaware of - and uneaten by - the monsters hidden in their back-fjords.
"Trollhunter" doesn't give new life to the found-footage horror sub-genre, but its imagination, absurdist humor and deadpan lead performance certainly make it a cut above the rest.
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