An Exclusive Look At Troll Hunter Concept Art
Director Andre Øvredal on the birth of his monsters...
Generally speaking, Scandinavian cinema is more associated with dolorous dramas than epic adventure — but that might be about to change, thanks to Troll Hunter, from director André Øvredal (the association with accented letters stands). A Norwegian fairy tale told as a mock-documentary, it takes as its premise the idea that trolls are alive and well and living in remote areas of Norway — from which they sometimes escape to make trouble.
Bearing obvious comparisons to The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield (although it’s lighter than either), we follow three student filmmakers (Glenn Erland Tosterud, Johanna Mørck, Tomas Alf Larsen) making a film about bear hunters. But one loner catches their eye, and after they dog his steps, they realise that it’s not bears he’s after. Otto Jespersen, the troll hunter of the title, is a matter-of-fact government employee but — disillusioned with his superiors — agrees to talk to the documentarians and allow them to follow his journey.
“I wanted it to be grounded in something Norwegian,” says Øvredal. “And the documentary style was to maximise the potential, because I realised that I can’t do a film like Jurassic Park in Norway. So the first thing I told the producer after I pitched the idea was, ‘We’re going to shoot it as a documentary.’ He immediately saw how that was going to work.”
The tone of the film treads somewhere between horror, comedy and adventure, landing somewhere in unmissable territory. “I didn’t want to make it a comedy, per se, and I didn’t want to make a horror movie where I would alienate the people who went there for an adventure film. I definitely intended it to have a fairy-tale quality.”
With a rogues’ gallery of trolls, ranging from the faintly cuddly to the monstrously terrifying, and a brilliantly deadpan performance from Jespersen, this could be the film to reclaim the word “troll” from internet provocateurs: see it before Hollywood remakes it. And read on below for Øvredal's description of his monsters...
WORDS HELEN O'HARA
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