Troll Hunter

A group of students follow a man they take for a bear poacher and discover he hunts trolls for the Norwegian government. It runs as found footage. André Øvredal takes the folklore seriously: different troll species are defined separately, the Mountain King from Grieg's Peer Gynt is used directly, and the visual design draws on the paintings of Theodor Kittelsen and John Bauer. The troll here is not a monster but a national mythology turned into a biology lesson. Otto Jespersen, one of Norway's best-known comedians, plays the hunter as a completely exhausted civil servant, and critics called it a star-making dramatic performance. It opened on 29 October 2010 and took 24 million Norwegian kroner, around 4.2 million dollars, against a 19 million kroner budget. Remake rights went to Chris Columbus's 1492 Pictures and CJ Entertainment with Neil Marshall attached to direct, and the project was abandoned by November 2016. Who it is for: viewers who like found footage and dry Nordic humour. Who it is not for: anyone bothered by handheld camera. The film applies that rule to the end.