The Troll Hunter

Director: Andre Ovredal (2010)

Starring: Otto Jespersen, Glenn Erland Tosterud, Johanna Morck

Find it: IMDB

Students making a documentary find more than anticipated when the man they're trailing is revealed to be a 'troll hunter'. Keyboard warriors rest easy; he's after the other type of troll. Fairytale Trolls roam the Norwegian woods and countryside, looking for Christian men to munch upon. Hans (Jespersen) is part of a government conspiracy, ensuring that the Trolls stay within their designated areas. It's like Men in Black meets Cloverfield.

It's films like Troll Hunter with which the found footage subgenre shines. I have little interest in seeing middle class people being scared in their own homes, or in snotty kids being chased around ugly woods by unseen Blair Witches. I want to see the Moon (even when it's as half-arsed as Apollo 18), jungles full of cannibals and above all, I want to see Norwegian Trolls eating men dressed in tin suits. Fairy tale Trolls, that is. Although I would definitely watch a movie about a killer who hunts people that go around talking shit on Internet message boards. The Dark Knight Rises looks whack, does it? How would you like an axe in the face? It'd basically be The Punisher, except his victims are mostly children and me.

The locations are breathtakingly beautiful. Landscape fetishists should take great joy in Troll Hunter. It's certainly better than crappy old New York in Cloverfield. And then the Trolls appear, and that's incredible too. They look too unreal to ever be scary (like something out of that old PS2 game that nobody played), but there's a fairytale quality to the dodgy CGI that somehow befits the film. You won't quite believe it when you see it, but you'll really want to.

As our intrepid filmmakers follow Hans the hunter (think Quint from off've Jaws) on his travels, they encounter a number of Trolls, all beautifully designed and great to watch. The standout sequences see a Troll hiding under a bridge (how very Billy Goats Gruff), farting in a cave and a thrilling final bit with the biggest Troll of all.

Unfortunately, there are a few too many scenes which see the cameraman running through pitch-black forests, huffing and puffing like a paedophile in the kids' section at Primark. There's a character introduced too late into the film that slightly upsets the status quo (apparently Rossi was really unhappy with it) and the ending is a trifle predictable. Atheists will come away feeling smug though (oh, we come away feeling smug about everything) and it really is a beautiful film. Where the Blair Witches and The Cloverfields and the [RECS] have you feeling terrified to go back into the woods/New York/Barcelona, Troll Hunter will leave you disappointed by the lack of real Trolls there. Also, it has 'Teddy Bear's Picnic' on the trailer, and that gives me a warm feeling inside. Aaw.

The Bunny Game

Director: Adam Rehmeier (2010)

Starring: Rodleen Getsic, Jeff Renfro, Norwood Fisher

Find it: IMDB

This is the film that The Human Centipede 2 wishes it was. Hearing that it was denied a UK release by the BBFC immediately put it on my radar. Like that other infamous film, August Underground, I wish I hadn't bothered. When the film opened with a sloppy blowjob scene, I knew it wouldn't be my cup of tea. I prefer my tea without spermatozoon, thanks.

Like The Human Centipede 2, the film is entirely black and white and features characters performing bizarre sexual acts on one another. There's shit in The Bunny Game that they'd even balk at on Fetlife. Prostitute Bunny (the aptly named Rodleen Getsic) accepts a lift from a deranged trucker. You don't need to be Jeremy Clarkson to know that this is a bad idea, but hey, Bunny is desperate. The trucker spends the next few days torturing Bunny and making her play his sick, depraved games. He's a terrible antagonist, crying and screaming, huffing plastic bags like a low-rent Dennis Hopper. She meanwhile, gets by far the worse end of the bargain, all ball gags, crappy haircuts and ridiculous masks. To criticise is unfair though: don't hate the playa, as they say, hate the game.

As I watch more and more of this nonsense, it becomes increasingly difficult to review films like The Bunny Game. I mean, there are only so many ways to write "she gets tied up and tortured". Occasionally I have to say things like "newborn porn" or "the centipede goes up his arse" or "he puts a stupid rabbit gimp mask on her head" but mostly it's like reviewing the same film over and over again. It's a sad state of affairs when the edgiest thing a horror movie can do these days is have a happy ending. Just for once, I'd like to be able to write something along the lines of "and then the bad man realised that he was acting like a bit of a dickhead. He let the nice prostitute go and sought psychiatric help. Then he apologised to the S&M community for perpetuating negative stereotypes."

Like so many other controversial slash banned movies, The Bunny Game is perfectly competent. It's well acted, looks good (in a surrealist sort of way) and has a properly unsettling vibe. Had it the bravery to tell a story about something other than rape, I would probably have enjoyed it. It's a great film wasted on a shitty story. There are only so many stories one can tell about perverted men acting out their fantasies upon unwilling victims. And I don't want to see any of them. Dude, she's a prostitute. If you were to just pay her, I'm sure she'd let you tie her up and do whatever anyway.

It's easy to see why the BBFC wanted none of this. Since almost every moment of the film features some variety of sexual violence or other, there's literally nothing that could have been cut, save for ten seconds in the middle where our dirty trucker leans against a wall for a bit. There's a time and a place for pieces like The Bunny Game. Maybe an art gallery or Chris Brown's dressing room. These aren't films to be enjoyed; they're here to be endured. I have a friend who loves rollercoasters but hates horror movies. I hate rollercoasters but love horror movies. She asked me how I can bear to watch the gory bollocks I do. To me, horror movies are like mental rollercoasters. You have nice log flume rollercoasters (like Scream or A Nightmare On Elm Street), fast rollercoasters (Saw, Hostel) and then you have the fucking horrible ones (The Bunny Game, August Underground). Just as you don't ride a mental rollercoaster to look at the scenery, you don't watch The Bunny Game if you like films. I watch this shit to see if I can. And The Bunny Game beats Hostel in horror Top Trumps any day.

I doubt The Bunny Game is going to corrupt anyone. It won't damage anyone's mind (unless you happen to be epileptic. There's some pretty crazy flashing imagery) nor will it inspire any copycat killings. It sure damaged my liver though, for all the drinking I had to do to make it less boring. The only interesting part of the film was The Bunny Game itself, whereupon both characters wear stupid gimp masks and run around in the desert like it's a really gross episode of Star Trek.

As games go, The Bunny Game is not a particularly fun one. It's like playing Twister with the smelly weird guy who invited himself to the party. This is an intelligent, thoroughly artistic movie with far more attitude than your average torture flick. But fuck it, if this is the game, I don't want to play anymore.