The mockumentary/found footage approach to a narrative has become a sub genre that lends itself to films with a modest or low budget, combating the restrictive productions with lo-fi techniques such as handheld cameras and naturalistic locations. The Blair Witch Project (1999) was the game changer of this new breed of cinema, using amateur footage and unknown, untrained actors. It also used the internet to begin an online back story that what the audience was seeing was actually real, enhancing the feeling that this was something that had taken place, or at the very least that this was based on a real legend. Since this milestone, there have been many movies, particularly in the horror genre that have used this approach such as Paranormal Activity, My Little Eye, Rec and The Last Exorcism combining the simple home movie/documentary style with shocks galore.The latest addition to this cinematic persuasion is Troll Hunter, a Norwegian mockumentary film written and directed by André Øvredal which carries a horror element but also is a dark fantasy mixing with the mundane. Troll Hunter begins with news footage of a spat of illegal bear killings that have taken place in the Norwegian western countryside, three college students are filming the events and begin to follow a mysterious man named Hans (Otto Jespersen), whom they believe to be the poacher behind the bear slaying. Through their persistent trailing of Hans, they stumble across what he is really doing and who he really is, a Troll Hunter and although the crew of students are at first skeptical of what he has told them, despite one of them suffering a bite at the hands of a creature, they ask if they can join the hunt and film it, to which Hans agrees. What follows is expeditions with frantic shaky footage, tussles with Norwegian bureaucrats and really really big Trolls.
Troll Hunter is a curious unique watch, it uses the shock doc technique for all its worth and with creative aplomb, the modest budget uses the most of the stunning Norwegian landscape as its backdrop but also affords to create visually effective creatures amidst the amateur camera feel. The film also manages to incorporate humour into the mix, the scene where Hans tries to extract a blood sample from a troll, dressed like a iron welder from the past, looks like something from Monty Python and fun is poked at the folklore of trolls with references to 'Three Billy Goats Gruff'.
But what is most striking about Troll Hunter is the juxtaposition of the film from the everyday and the fairytale. As the hunter, Hans is a veteran of his job, his almost blase nature to what he does seems at odds with the risky, life threatening position he is constantly throwing himself into. Whenever he kills a troll, he has to fill out a form as part of his job working for TSS (Troll Security Service), it is this mundane activity, like that of an office pen pusher, that highlights how the mystical quality that the presence of a creature such as a troll should instill, has become so normal to Hans. Otto Jespersen is an imposing enigmatic presence as Hans, he commands the authority but also empathy, he is simply a man doing his job, albeit one of a very dubious quality, he is one who questions his role in the field he is in, his acceptance to let the students film his actions reveals his contempt for the government he works for. This also raises the morality of his, and the Norwegian governments actions to the audience, the trolls are simple creatures acting in nature as other creatures would, they hunt for prey, they fight for seniority and their inability to stay within the borderlines that have been drawn for them, makes them an issue for the government. If the trolls were any other endangered species, would it be inhuman to kill them off?
Part horror, part fantasy and part social satire, Troll Hunter takes a now familiar concept of the found footage film but uses it to new creative heights. Bursting with originality, Nordic folklore and a great central performance, Troll Hunter is a surprising gem, one that should be seen in its pure form before the Hollywood remake, that is already in progress, taints the entertaining original.
