Troll Hunter – Review

September 11, 2011 10 Comments

TROLL HUNTER (2010) Trolljegeren 

Director André Øvredal. Writers: André Øvredal, Håvard S. Johansen. Cast: Otto Jespersen, Glenn Erland Tosterud,Johanna Mørck, Tomas Alf Larsen

C’mon, let’s just face it: the fake-documentary/found-footage genre which started off with the admittedly original Blair With Project, has probably been running its course for quite now while! Cloverfield sort-of worked for about half of its length, Paranormal Activity (which seemed to have scared everybody else but me) is a one-time-trick-type-of-film which felt a lot longer than it actually was, the last exorcism could have worked but was not only heavy-handed but also had one of the most terrible ending of recent memory, even the Spanish outing REC outstayed its welcome and actually went nowhere. In the end they all suffer from the shaky-cam exhaustion and from the fact that, being part of that found-footage genre, it’s pretty easy to see how they’re all going to end.

I had been hearing glorious things about “Troll Hunter” ever since the first screening in Norway last year. The trailer seemed intriguing enough and the first few reviews from several known newspapers here in the UK for some reason were all rather positive (I wonder if the film had been American whether it would have been embraced with as much warmth).

I must that say aside from the fairly good special effects, which nowadays don’t really surprise me anymore, I found it all rather predictable and actually quite boring.

Yes, the settings might be original (with those desolate, cold and yet glorious Norwegian landscapes) and there was a certain appeal about the way the director filmed everything in a certain matter-of-fact way as if this was all indeed a real documentary. I suppose there was an noble attempt to try to mix horror and comedy, but the main problem is that I didn’t find it particularly scary nor funny.

The concept is of course ludicrous and the Trolls are just way too silly looking to cause any real fear (in fact they are a lot more scary when they are just off camera), and as far as the comedy aspect is concerned, the jokes come much too late into the film and they are way too few (Well yes, the Muslim joke is rather enjoyable… but that was pretty much about it). Otherwise I felt I was left with a lot of running about in the forest (definitely too much for my taste) and not enough to care about.

Last but not least, even the big scary final Troll, instead of coming as a surprise is actually spoilt in the poster itself! Strange marketing campaign.

5.5/10

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Insidious – Review

April 30, 2011 1 Comment

Insidious (2010) 

Directed by James Wan. Starring Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Ty Simpkins

I’m going to be quite upfront in reviewing this film: the plot is preposterous, it has virtually no original ideas, it is a derivative from all sorts of films we’ve seen before, the end is ludicrous, and yet it scared the living daylight out of me, like very few films have managed to do in the last few years. Just for this reason I would recommend it to every horror/thriller fan out there. It is one of the most skilfully made horror I’ve seen in quite a while.

Director James Wan certainly knows how to create the most tense atmosphere out of a simple scene where a person is walking along a corridor. His mastery in the use of sound, in the use of music (or better, when to use music and when silence is a lot more powerful), the positioning of the camera is to be admired.

Wan clearly knows that the anticipation to an event could be a lot more powerful than the event itself. He knows that the fear of seeing the devil can be a lot scarier than the moment when the devil actually reveals himself.

There are some incredibly tense sequences (a particularly creepy one involving a baby monitor) throughout the whole first part of the film. There’s a constant sense of dread as the camera moves around the empty rooms of the house and when the scares come, they really make you jump, however expected some of them might be.

A lot of time is spent in building some believable characters and making the audience care about them (credits due to both Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne too of course) and it’s good to see the “usual sceptic” changing his mind and actually believing the supernatural.

The film looses a little bit of its edge and its eerie atmosphere once the supernatural get officially introduced, and yet even the reveal of the Devil (which is usually quite a let-down in any other horror films like this one) still manages to be incredibly unsettling. Since the script is a bit obvious and a photocopy of films like Poltergeist (including the Ghostbusters team and the not-so-reveal of the fact that it’s not a haunted house, but a possessed child), and of course the Exorcist, I can only deduce that it’s the direction of Insidious that really makes it work.

Of course, once the film is over and the lights are on, it’ll take you 2 seconds to realize that it was all pretty silly and it’s going to be a lot easier to dismiss it as junk (really scary horror films should really stay with you long after they finish), but while you’re in it I’m sure you’ll be as frighten as a little boy who hears a suspicious noise coming out of his closet at night…

6.5

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The Last Exorcism – Review

January 8, 2011 14 Comments

The Last Exorcism

Directed by Daniel Stamm. Starring Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell, Iris Bahr.

The success at the box office of a film like “the Last Exorcism” can only prove one thing: there’s still a great hunger for horror out there… and it doesn’t matter if it’s good or not. There have probably been worse films but this takes the crown as the biggest letdown of them. For a short
moment I really thought the film could have become one of the defining horror of the decade, but, sadly, the things that are wrong with
it, mainly in the last act, are SO BAD that somehow they manage to ruin everything and eventually plunge this film into the “pit of catastrophe”, despite some good performances ere and there.

In order to prove my point I am going to have to spoil the hell out of it, so if you haven’t seen it or
you’re planning to waste… erm.. sorry, I meant “to spend”, 90 minutes of your precious life watching it, then stop reading right now.

“The last Exorcism” is actually a clever spin on the usual exorcist fare, but more than that it is the latest entry into that much exhausted “found footage” genre started off by Blair Witch 12 years ago (My God, has it been that long already?) .

The film is produced by Eli Roth who in the last few years has created a name for himself, with titles like Cabin Fever and the infamous Hostel, for pushing the boundaries of taste and gore. This time the “shock factor” is kept down to a minimum, which is what makes the first part of the film quite intriguing and succesful. Because of its premise the film manages to put to rest right from the start the ever-ending question of a type of mockumentary like this (Blair Witch Project, REC, Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity): why would the characters keep on filming, despite everything that’s happening? Would they actually been filming that instead of running away or saving their butts? It’s the sort of thing that usually annoys the hell out of me and pushes our suspension of disbelieve to absurd levels. In this case the plot requires the cameraman to actually film everything that’s going on.

A disillusioned evangelical minister, after years of performing exorcisms, decides to be filmed for a documentary exposing the fraud of exorcisms, proving that they do not really exist and it’s actually all in the heads of the people who think they are possessed… So far so good. The whole beginning of the film actually made me hope for something quite good: a new and intriguing take on the seen-before theme of exorcism.

However the film fails to keep it real by constantly breaking the rules of “mokumentary”, by having reverse angles, by adding sound effects and,
worse of all, a cheap music score underneath which goes for the cheap jumps out of your seats. Am I watching something which is
supposed to be real, or just a cheap heavy handled, tricksy, manipulative piece which doesn’t really care for its integrity but just wants to make me jump every time somebody goes “booo” on the screen?

It is a real shame, because I really thought this was working up to a certain point. And finally, a couple of words about the ending of the film, which is one of the most awful ending I can ever remember. It is so bad that it actually makes you forget all the good things you’ve seen up until that point.

I haven’t yet met a single person or read a single review that hasn’t actually mention how terrible it is!! How can that happen? Either they got cold feet and changed their mind at the last moment or they must be really stupid to even think for a moment that the audience could buy into something so stupid. They wanted to do a “Rosmary’s Baby” type of twist, without realizing that Rosmary’s Baby actually builds up for two hours towards the revelation. This one feels just like a last-minute turn.

In a way  “The last Exorcism” is the type of film that doesn’t really work for any kind of audience: the avid horror fans will get disappointed by the lack of “action” and “gore” (the marketing campaign is incredibly misleading!!), the people who like good storytelling and good twists (the Sixth sense fans) will hate its clunky turn and awful ending. All the others people who never really liked horror films will find no redeeming feature in this either.

The DVD and BlueRay has just come out and it’s packed with Special Features including 3 types of commentary tracks. It will be interesting to know if we learn anything more to explain how such bad ending was conceived. If anyone has listen to those commentaries or seen the many special features available, please let me know. I am not giving a single extra dime to Ely Roth.
5/10

 

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