Chad

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I hate the beginning of this. Hey, there's a guy we think is a poacher. Let's just follow for miles, harassing him, constantly going up to him with a camera and trying to interview him. That'll get him to want to talk to us. Oh, he's going on a boat, let's get on and bother him some more. Hey, now the guy with a gun, who we constantly chase around and bother, is going into the forest at night where nobody can hear us scream. Let's go talk to him.

Once it gets past that dumb crap, I like it more.

Mondo Kane

^Yeah, at first, it didn't make sense how he would decide to quickly help them out after all of the harassment....But then, he basically said, "Screw it. I'm tired of this secret crap". I bought it after that.

Anyway, great pick, Chad. I certainly had some fun with this.

The CG seems to really improve lately within those nightvision & zoom tactics (Something I didn't think could ever be well achieved) and I thought it was cute to have a scene involving a troll....And a bridge.

Trevor

Biggest surprise of the Challenge for me so far. The good kind.

Undeadcow

Kudos to trollhunter for being ambitious and different. I love horror movies but the genre is in danger of becoming stale with decades of vampires (how many Dracula adaptations can one stomach), zombies, and serial killers. Maybe I'm not up to date on my troll mythology but I didn't understand the Christianity aversion shirt of being a plot device. Glad I checked this one out, nice film.

Giles

I thought the allusion to the Billy Goats Gruff was funny.

I also thought the 5.1 soundtrack is insanely fun.

LickTheABCs

Really enjoyed this one and that's even with being completely burned out of the whole "found footage" trend. I mean I kinda like Noroi: The Curse when I saw it, but most of them just bore me and don't really bring anything new to the table, which is one of the reasons I enjoyed this. You could see they were trying something different.

The Visual Effects were much better than I was expecting also.

rbrown498

Why is it that practically every country in the world can make excellent genre films except, it seems, the United States? Yeah, yeah, I know that's a grossly simple overstatement of fact, but it certainly seems that American filmmakers and studios have lost whatever modicum of originality that they once possessed. Movie audiences deserve better than the endless string of sequels and remakes that come from Hollywood. I'm sure the movie industry bean counters will say that retreads are the only sure bets in an increasingly volatile film industry, but I can't be convinced that pouring $40 million into a film with name recognition (as New Line/Warner Brothers did with Final Destination 5) will reap bigger rewards than financing four $10 million films that give audiences something fresh. Take TrollHunter, for instance. I have no idea how well it did in its native country of Norway, but in US dollars, it only cost around $4 million to make. It certainly didn't earn that back here in the States, but if you figure in worldwide theatrical and DVD sales, it would be difficult for a film as well-made and fun as this one with a budget that small NOT to make a tidy profit. TrollHunter posits that trolls are indeed real, and that the Norwegian government is covering up their existence, using a troll hunter to keep the population down to manageable levels. I was afraid that this was going to be too cutesy for my tastes, but it's both funny and thrilling (and not at ALL cutesy). Except for those who are too cretinous to bother with reading subtitles, I can't imagine anyone who gives this film a fair shake not enjoying it. TrollHunter was, for me at least, a hugely entertaining film (and the scene right before the end credits had me laughing for most of the credit roll).

Giles

um, you do know that a US remake is in the works - talk about Hollywood running out of new ideas.

Spiderbite

Guess I'll be the voice of dissent again. This really didn't capture my interest at all. Don't get me wrong...it is a well made film but the subject matter is so silly, it is hard to take it serious at all. Maybe you aren't supposed to take it serious but the film never seems to make a distinction on that. At times it appears it is taking itself extremely seriously and then at other times it appears you are supposed to laugh along with it. I don't know...I had a hard time balancing the two and I just never felt engaged.

It also went on for 45 minutes too long. This would have been a perfect film at 75 minutes or less. But an hour and 40 minutes...woah...too much time. And the trolls are the most non-threatening monster ever. The CG wasn't very good and they just looked like smurfs on steroids looking for the local muppet convention. And as Mister Peepers said...the beginning starts really dumb. The lone hunter decides to catch diarrhea of the mouth and let them film everything after stalking him for a day. And then the main TSS guy just lets them film him deceiving the public. Maybe that was part of the joke but as I said, the movie seems that it wants you to take it seriously most of the time.

It was beautifully filmed though. And the acting was pretty darn good. And I know if you dissect the legend of vampires, werewolves, and zombies...that they seem silly too. But Trolls just come across as a really dumb, non-threatening myth. Nothing intimidating or scary about them in the least. I came away disappointed.

My rating: **1/2 out of *****

rbrown498

Shack

My thoughts exactly. I was very surprised at how much I liked it, but then I realized how much the American "found footage" stuff is so derivative and deadly (not in a good way) serious. This one overcame that, by using so much sly humor and acknowledging how strange the situation was. I'm sure all this will be lost in the coming US remake.

Though I do agree that it went on a big too long. Trimming about 20 minutes would have made for a better pace and stronger storytelling.

Chad

I believe that's from Scandinavian folklore. From what I understand they were staying fairly true to it. I'm just thankful there wasn't the stereotypical talking fairy tale trolls hanging out at bridges, although the bridge scene was a nice touch.

Aside from that re-occurring found footage theme of overly obnoxious people, the one thing that bothered me was the lack of excitement from the new camera operator. Unless I missed something she seemed awfully calm for a person seeing a 300 foot troll coming her way for the first time. Other than that I was really impressed with the pacing and effects.

And honestly never thought I'd end up picking a film that was both PG-13 and full of CG, but neither seemed to be a hindrance.

clckworang

I had tried to watch this with some friends a long time ago. We got about 45 minutes into the film and started having equipment issues. This was early in the outdoor theater experiment and the moment I knew I needed to put in a wall plate or something to watch stuff on my DVR. Anyway, on that night, it got late, so we stopped watching and just never returned to it.

All in all, I liked it, though not as much as some of you. It definitely picked up the pace after we stopped watching (but yes, I did start the movie over again). Perhaps my favorite moment was when the one camera guy was eaten. I had to rewind that moment. It was done really well. I think something that would have greatly improved this film would be to have 15-20 minutes trimmed. It did seem to drag at times, and I think some slight trims would have really improved the flow of the film.