I’ve grown quite fond of Scandinavian film. Dead Snow, Let the Right One In, Rare Exports–all of these films have taken a seemingly overplayed genre and spiced it up with unique perspectives and fresh approaches. I felt no different about watching Troll Hunter.

Basically, a group of young and inquisitive students from a Norwegian college start investigating a slew of strange bear deaths and stumble upon a truth that has yet to have been revealed to the rest of the world, or at leastNorway—Trolls do exist! With their trusty camera and microphone, they track a mysterious and lonesome hunter (Trolljegeren) who reveals that trolls roam the hills and forests ofNorway’s picturesque countryside.

Troll Hunter is a subtle mockumentary, one that relies on the actual story and plot of the movie to provide humor. There are no blatant attempts at slapstick humor here. No, this movie tells a serious tale of ambitious students, an underappreciated and troubled troll hunter, and their quest to track down the strange beasts.

While the action was not as hair-raising as I might have expected, I was still impressed. Just seeing a movie about a secret agency that tracks the movement of troll territories, that uses dead Croatian bears to explain livestock deaths to the general public, and employs the skills of a retired Navy man to assassinate families of trolls, was enough of an innovation for me to remain interested.

There are two main groups of trolls in the film:Forestand Mountain trolls. There are also many subgroups that appear. Really, it is the imagination of the story alone that sets this film apart from the rest. For instance, the group vigorously rubs themselves with “troll stink” to remain undetected while on the hunt. The troll hunter employs the use of huge light guns that look as if the army got a hold of a flashlight and engineered it to blind God himself, or herself. Then, the trolls either turn into stone or explode. The writers also were kind enough to include some sort of scientific explanation in the script as to why trolls turn into limestone or explode with the exposure to bright light. There is another twist, but I won’t ruin it for you.  Did I mention that the trolls can also smell the blood of Christians?

Overall, this is a fun movie. While the ending falls a little flat, I enjoyed the general progression of the movie, with each troll that we see being bigger and more brutal than the last.