A trio of students in Norway are making a documentary about poaching, and try to latch themselves onto a suspected poacher. Instead, he turns out not to be poaching at all, but rather hunting down and exterminating escaped trolls for the Norwegian government.
Okay, at this point I feel like I've written more screeds on the internet about my distaste for most phony documentary horror movies than I've had hot meals in my life. So I don't want to be a broken record here, but let me at least give the greatest hits. The main thing is I just resent the way the format makes filmmakers think they've been given a license to ignore the basic tenants of competent film making. Awkward framing, choppy editing, incoherent shaky cam, pointless zooms, lazy storytelling, etc., all suddenly become acceptable in the name of making the movie look "realistic." TrollHunter is just another in a long line of movies to cover up shoddy directing with this tired gimmick.
Which is a shame, because I think there's a dynamite concept here for a deadpan horror/comedy. The trolls are inherently ridiculous, but everyone treats them with grave sincerity; it's a great dynamic. Too bad every time the trolls show up, the audience is treated to five minutes of a cameraman waving his camera around as he runs through the woods, showing us a bunch of blurry trees while the shot cuts every 3 seconds despite the fact that we should probably be watching an uninterrupted take.
Grade: C
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