This weekend, the Norwegian action monster troll documentary The Troll Hunter premieres on Video on Demand. (And yes, all of those words belong in that sentence.) Director Andre Ovredal's new film is an eagerly anticipated new genre-bender about a beleaguered troll hunter who lets a young documentary film crew tag along as he investigates a strange rash of troll attacks, fighting monsters as big as mountains. You can find our enthusiastic review here. We sat down with Ovredal to discuss the genesis of his strange film project, the lack of decent troll movies in Hollywood (and the preponderance of bad movies like the infamous Troll 2), along with the plans for an American remake!
Crave Online: I wanted to get the hardest part of any interview out of the way. This is the part where I tell you what I thought of your film.
Andre Ovredal: Okay…?
Crave Online: It’s really good.
Andre Ovredal: Okay, great!
Crave Online: I actually really enjoyed The Troll Hunter, and one of the things… It was refreshing to see a different movie monster. Obviously trolls are ancient creatures, but vampires are so hot right now…
Andre Ovredal: Yeah, and zombies.
Crave Online: What was it about trolls?
Andre Ovredal: It’s part of my mythology, my country’s mythology. I wanted to make a Norwegian blend of American filmmaking sensibilities and Norwegian mythology and Norwegian characters. So it would appeal to Norwegian audiences – which was my primary target audience – but have the movement and the humor of an American film… The trolls are such a big part of Norwegian culture but they haven’t been used very well.
Crave Online: I can’t think of many troll movies. There’s Troll, Ernest Scared Stupid, but all those are kind of jokey. Has there ever been another troll movie that you thought was pretty good?
Andre Ovredal: In my opinion there’s never been a troll movie [before]…
Crave Online: A proper troll movie…
Andre Ovredal: Yeah. I haven’t seen these Troll films, which are… I guess not so good.
Crave Online: They’re really bad. Everyone says Troll 2 is bad, like ‘the worst movie ever made,’ but Troll 1 is almost as bad.
Andre Ovredal: (Laughs) – But those are completely different creatures to me. They’re like leprechauns…
Crave Online: Or goblins. That’s literally what they were in Troll 2. In Troll Hunter you feature many different breeds of troll. Are those based on myth or did you make any of them up?
Andre Ovredal: Our knowledge of trolls in Norway is based on a book of fairy tales that was written in the 18th century. It’s a collection of like 200 short stories…
Crave Online: All about trolls?
Andre Ovredal: I think maybe a third of them are about trolls. And there are some amazing drawings that are really scary; trolls that are as huge as mountains. This is what inspired [the] trolls in Troll Hunter. This is the way I see trolls. When I see any other kind of troll, I’m almost, you know, “What is that thing?”
Crave Online: There are a lot of different elements in Troll Hunter. There’s sort of an action movie element, a documentary element, straight up horror… What was the first thing that started you on the project? “Let’s make a troll movie?” “Let’s make a faux documentary?”
Andre Ovredal: No, it was the character.
Crave Online: The character of the troll hunter?
Andre Ovredal: Yeah. I wanted to make a movie about an action-type hero but in a different way. So I was trying to think of some character, and the troll hunter came up pretty quickly actually: the idea of a guy who does something amazing for a living [and] doesn’t really know it. He doesn’t acknowledge that fact.
Crave Online: It’s sort of mundane to him. It’s his day job.
Andre Ovredal: Yeah, it’s his day job. To us it’s an amazing job. You know, a lot of people do that… I even find myself [in that situation]. I direct commercials for a living, to me that was actually an amazing job, but…
Crave Online: Every once in a while you catch yourself saying, “Oh my god, I have to go to work today…”
Andre Ovredal: Yeah. I have to go to South Africa or Argentina…
Crave Online: You bastard.
Andre Ovredal: (Laughs) – Yeah, basically. And I’m complaining because I have these long flights, and that’s ridiculous. So I wanted to put that understanding of life into the film. And then of course the trolls came second, and then the documentary style came third. They all came pretty quickly after each other. We couldn’t do a Jurassic Park style movie in Norway, even now. I’m sure there are people who’d want to do that now, after Troll Hunter…
