TROLL!

So I'm watching a movie on Netflix right now about a team of Scandinavian college kids (I'm sure at some point in the beginning they said which country but by now they're all sort of just one tall pasty stereotype to me.) To sum up the plot these kids are following a guy they think is a bear poacher, which is a big deal in whichever country this takes place (Norway?). Who it later turns out is hunting Trolls, not bears.

But before I get too into it there's one thing that sort of makes all of the flaws stand out in the movie, as it could have been just fine without it. It's filmed just like the Blair Witch project. The exact same format but with trolls instead of ghosts. This movie actually begins by telling you that this is unaltered footage that someone found and decided to give to a Swedish (Dutch?) movie company. Movies like the Blair Witch Project and Paranormal activity are one thing, but they rely on the fact that even the most reasonable people on the planet still think there's like a ten percent chance ghosts exist and maybe, just maybe, someone finally caught them on film, but Trolls? Are the Finnish (Icelandic?) people actually so frightened of Trolls that they think they could sell this thing like that? They're god damn trolls. Even some of the craziest people in the world probably don't believe in Trolls. But this movie is trying to make you believe that it takes place in a world where not only do Trolls exist and are constantly roving the hills of Denmark, but that also that world is this one. That being said:

As these college kids (one ginger looking fellow as the anchor guy, the obscure off camera cameraman you almost if ever see, and of course their sassy blonde sound girl) have their journey through Iceland traveling on roads that look remarkably exactly the same as shots from ten minutes earlier, they run into several sites where a Bear poacher they've been following to get a report on for a Dutch journalist college final or something, and at the sights are some of the most absurdly fake looking bear corpses. Now I'm not saying I know a whole lot about bear corpses, but I do know that they tend to resemble bears in some way or another. And if you're going to try to make people believe that Trolls are real, shouldn't the rest of movie be god damn believable too? The first bear stand in you see is placed like it had gotten hammered the night before and just passed out, tongue out and all, spread eagle in the middle of a vast and beautiful Norwegian field. The next one is hunched over in the back of a van like the world's saddest beanie baby, also with its tongue out. And it's also probably worth mentioning that neither of them looked like an actual species of bear.

After the college kids finally have their first encounter with a troll, the movie basically turns into a documentary capturing all the different sub species of trolls, which totally exist, and how they're all super scary, which I'm sure they would be if your worst nightmare was really stupid. Some of these totally existing Trolls can range anywhere from what I'll guess to be twelve feet to one that I shit you not was like two hundred feet tall. Not that I can accurately guess two hundred feet either but it sounds better than tall as balls.

The trolls do all have similar traits of being hurt and killed by sunlight, and being able to smell christian blood. So now this movie is trying to tell us that not only do trolls exist, but because of that God and Jesus also definitely exist, and they like dick to around by making an entirely separate species of horrible monstrosities complete with different races of sometimes three headed and/or dong nosed trolls that look like something only a really bored guy who worked for Dreamworks would, and possibly did, design.

They even make a point to bring up their fairy tale connections by showing a fairly large troll who, no shit, lives under a bridge. It may not ask for a toll, but it will totally eat the shit out of any spare goats you have. Apparently all members of the TSS, that is the Troll Security Service which is also apparently a real life government conspiracy, have three goats with them at all times for situations such as luring a troll from under a bridge.

But now you've got this troll out from under the bridge, what do you do? Blast it with high powered UV ray lamp guns? Sure! Just they way everyone knows medieval Swedes fought off blood thirsty trolls in the past. Honestly, how could civilization get anywhere if there were 200 ft trolls running around and the only way to stop them was blasting them with technology that wouldn't be invented in basically forever? I understand they only come out at night, but I'll bet a few big ass trolls could murder a shit load of people and still manage to make it back to wherever the hell a 200ft monster hides during the day, with plenty of time to eat some goats on the way home,

Besides the whole "Trolls do not and could not possibly exist, why bother having stupid messages like that at the beginning and end of the movie trying to make us think it's real" thing, there isn't much to say about this movie. Although I did find it funny that when their first cameraman (who we are led to believe is close friends with the other two) gets eaten for having the blood of a christian (because blood changes by religion) they instantly replace him and don't seem to care, but when the ginger gets rabies all of the sudden it's an absolute necessity they make it to a hospital. The movie is about as good as your average shitty B horror movie, which is to say, something I would probably watch anyway.