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Mike S reviews Troll Hunter

Mike S, the creator of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly and curator of  The Corner of Terror joined me in The Basement recently for a screening of the Best Flick of 2011 (in my opinion), Troll Hunter. But The S is a biased man, just like Shawn and I, so he might not agree with me on that. What does he think?

Read on . . .
A few months ago Jay and Shawn reviewed the 2010 Norwegian film, "Troll Hunter".  Well, I finally managed to get the chance to sit down and watch it so that I could give you guys my thoughts on this unique film.

And here they are:

I was expecting it to be a rather cheesy movie in the same horrid way that "Leperchaun" was, but since Jay and Shawn enjoyed it, I was anxious to see it.  I was quite pleased with it from start to finish.

The plot is fairly simple and easy to follow: a college film crew wants to document events surrounding strange disappearances and property damage that are reportedly done by bears.  While trying to get a possible poacher to talk, the crew stumble onto something even stranger and far more dangerous... troll hunting.

I found it highly appropriate that a Norwegian film would deal with such a topic, as trolls are more of a Nordic tradition than and English/North American one.  It helped add to the reality of the whole situation that was only enhanced by the CGI work and the acting.

I really enjoyed how the trolls looked the way they've been portrayed in old illustrations with the small, beady eyes, and bulbous noses, etc.  Just fantastic for a monster geek like myself.  The CGI was also used sparingly, which was nice since it didn't distract from the characters involved.

The acting was also pretty decent considering that most of them were unknowns.  Otto Jespersen was great as Hans, the troll hunter, and Thomas Alf Larsen, Johanna Morck, and Glenn Erland Tosterud were believable as college film students as well.  The cast worked well together, and the humourous parts of the movie came naturally.  The way Jespersen delievered some of his lines with such a straight tone was just priceless, and I couldn't help but smile and chuckle.

While the movie isn't, "I can't sleep now, thank you," scary, it does pull you into the story and makes you a little worried about the safety of the characters.  I was quite impressed with how easily "Troll Hunter" made it for me to forget that it was just a movie, and enter the reality presented before me... by the end, I believed in trolls.

Because of that, I'm giving "Troll Hunter" a honoured spot in "The Good," and will be adding it to my collection as soon as I can.

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