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"Drive for love, Roy! Drive for love!" Netflix has debuted an official trailer for an action comedy film from Norway titled Asphalt Burning, which is the new English release title. This is actually the third movie in an action comedy, high octane car racing franchise from Norway called Børning - the first one (Borning: The Fast & The Funniest) opened in 2014, followed by Børning 2 in 2016. When the brakes slam on his wedding, Roy (the main character from all the Børning films - played by Anders Baasmo Christiansen) accepts a challenge from a new foe to race for his own runaway bride at the iconic Nürburgring track in Germany. "Børning 3 is mainly set in Germany, still focusing on car racing – high speed, fierce competition, with an exciting confrontation at the famous race track." Also starring Kathrine Thorborg Johansen, Ida Husøy, Otto Jespersen, Sven Nordin, and Trond Halbo. This looks like good-hearted racing fun.

Exclusive: Danish drama The Man has sold to China as one of several deals closed by the sales outfit.

Swedish sales company Sf Studio has sold Danish drama The Man [pictured], directed by Charlotte Sieling, to China (Lemontree Media), Mikkel Munch-Fals’ comedy-drama Swinger to South Korea (MediaSoft), and Hallward Braein’s comedy action film Borning to South Korea (Micon).

Starring Soren Malling, Jakob Oftebro, Ane Dahl Torp and Soren Pilmark, The Man had its world premiere at the recent International Film Festival Rotterdam in the Iffr Live section. The story is about a wealthy, well-known artist whose son suddenly shows up out of nowhere, disrupting his comfortable lifestyle and turning out to be the world-famous graffiti artist ‘The Ghost’.

Swinger is about 40-year-old Adam who feels his life is over until he falls in love with a young girl in the only place where no one should fall in love - a swingers’ club. The film stars...

In the world of horror cinema, the best way to fight a monster–be it supernatural, human, or natural one–is with a character that possesses special knowledge and skills. These experts, recruited into battle by other characters or colliding with the conflict intentionally, are the savants of the horror world.

Examples of savant characters include David Warner’s bat expert Phillip Payne in Nightwing, Zelda Rubinstein’s spiritual medium Tangina in Poltergeist, Matthew McConaughey’s dragon slayer Denton Van Zan in Reign of Fire, Lin Shaye’s paranormal investigator Elise Rainier in Insidious, and Otto Jespersen’s monster killer Hans in Trollhunter.

This article, divided into three sections based on what type of monstrous force is being fought, focuses on the greatest savant characters the horror genre has to offer.

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Vs. The Supernatural

Peter Cushing as Doctor Van Helsing in Horror of Dracula and The Brides of Dracula: In these two Hammer films,...

Top 10 Aliya Whiteley Feb 8, 2013

From silent classics to the present, here's Aliya's pick of 10 foreign-language fantasy films you have to see...

It’s easier to say what fantasy isn’t, rather than what it is. It’s not the robots or interplanetary adventures of science fiction, and it’s not the inexplicable and the terrifying creations of horror. All we can say for sure about fantasy is that, within the world on the screen, anything can happen.

So here’s an alphabetical list of some of the more interesting foreign-language films in which the rules no longer apply. There may be strange happenings and mythical beasts but they are not out to scare us, or to confirm our suspicions that we need to be afraid of the new and the strange. Instead they challenge us to look with, as Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio would have it in The Abyss, better eyes than that.

★★★★☆ Troll Hunter (2010) is a rare thing - a modern horror film which eschews visceral gore for subtlety and a genuine air of unease. Starring Otto Jespersen, Glenn Erland Tosterud, Johanna Mørck and Tomas Alf Larsen, Norwegian director André Øvredal's debut feature was a smash hit at last year's Film4 Frighfest. Watching it now on DVD, you'll understand why.

Read more »...

This is the Pure Movies review of Troll Hunter (Trolljegeren), directed by André Øvredal and starring Otto Jespersen, Robert Stoltenberg, Knut Nærum and Glenn Erland Tosterud. Written by Richard Parkin for Pure Movies. This year’s boldness award goes to Troll Hunter. The simple fact that a Norwegian film has managed to grab so much attention is justification enough for such an accolade, but when you consider its concept you could almost stand up and give the air a nice congratulatory round of applause. The film has barely hit our screens and word has got out that Chris Columbus has bagged the rights to make yet another Hollywood adaptation à la The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, or Let Me In.

Troll Hunter

Stars: Otto Jespersen, Tomas Alf Larsen, Johanna Mørck, Glenn Erland Tosterud | Written and Directed by André Øvredal

Finally! A film about a person who tracks and kills jerks on internet message boards! It’s every blogger’s dream; at last – vindication! Wait… what’s that you say? Oh…

Finally! A Norwegian found-footage film about a group youths that get embroiled with a professional troll hunter! Posing as recovered documentary footage, Troll Hunter concerns a trio of college students who film their pursuit of what they believe to be a bear poacher. Their dogged persistence in tracking him pays off when it turns out that Hans, the fellow in question, is actually a government sanctioned troll hunter, whose job is to research the beasts and kill them when they stray from their territory.

Of course, the trouble with the found footage genre (see The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, Paranormal Activity,...

To mark the release of Troll Hunter on DVD and Blu-ray 9th January, Momentum Pictures have given us a copy of the movie on Blu-ray, a t-shirt and a poster signed by director Andre Ovredal and star Otto Jespersen to give away! We got to chat with Andre last year about the movie which you can see here. Troll Hunter stars Otto Jespersen, Glenn Erland Tosterud and Johanna Mørck.

This “original and highly assured fusion of B-movie lore and fairytale terror” (The Hollywood Reporter) combines the vision of “Where The Wild Things Are” with the faux-documentary, found-footage stylings of “Cloverfield”, “Rec” and “The Blair Witch Project” to produce an “enormously entertaining” (Variety) and suspense-filled creature feature that the Daily Star rated as ‘one of the finest monster movies ever” and Total Film described as being “like David Attenborough taking a stroll into Roald Dahl’s brain.”

We’re big fans...

Some folks actually are of the opinion that Norway's good-natured entry into the handheld-camera, campy, horror-flick genre is a quality movie. In fact, two members of the critics group I'm in voted for Trollhunter as Best Foreign Film of 2011. Blame it on hot flashes or that the duo hadn't gotten around to viewing A Separation, The Skin I Live In, or any other film with subtitles during the past twelve months.

This debut feature by Andre Ovredal chronicles the adventures of three university film students who are attempting to make a documentary about a mysterious bear poacher. They learn to their joy and later to their chagrin that this bearded, taciturn gent, Hans (Otto Jespersen), is actually a trollhunter who's working for a secretive arm of the Norwegian government.

Trolls, at least according to Ovredal's screenplay, are gigantic, odorous creatures who devour rocks, have a fetish for charcoal, and are...

Trollhunter

Directed by Andre Ovredal

Starring Otto Jespersen, Glenn Erland Tosterud, Johanna Morck,

Norway, 2010

Saturday morning at Frightfest kicked off with The Troll Hunter. A film many of us had hoped to turn up at the festival the year prior (along with Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil) but that somehow ended up emerging this year instead, when most of us (myself included) had already had the joy of seeing it a few months prior.

Essentially this is The Troll Hunter Project – a classy and humorous hybrid of the found-footage genre and the, well, actually I’m not sure if there’s a genre for troll movies, but perhaps there should be.

It has (like all found-footage movies) a radiantly simple premise that sees three student news reporters / film-makers investigating an infamous illegal bearskin poacher – who turns out to be Norway’s unsung ‘hero’; their last living troll hunter. Unlike many films in this genre,...

It’s July and it’s raining. Welcome to Edinburgh, where the city’s 65th annual International Film Festival is well underway. HeyUGuys is at Teviot House to talk Norwegian folklore with André Øvredal, director of Troll Hunter.

Inspired one day to write a story featuring his native trolls, Øvredal was struck by the narrative possibilities inherent in structuring the film around a disgruntled troll hunter. Having drawn on a range of influences, the result is a masterclass in faux documentary filmmaking; a return to form for the found-footage format that – unusually for the genre – isn’t scared to actually say something new. Not that we’re here to retread our review, which (incidentally) you can find here.

“Of course, what feeds into it is films like Man Bites Dog and Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones and all those things, but Norwegian fairy-tales too - about the trolls which I...

Trolls are creatures of Scandinavian folklore, variously perceived as charmingly mischievous leprechaun-type figures (wooden toys dressed in folk costume are sold in gift shops) or as malevolent giants living in mountain caves (a famous example being the troll king in Ibsen's Peer Gynt). This funny, scary, highly individual horror flick in the "found footage" Blair Witch and Cloverfield style purports to be a documentary shot by a team of students investigating a series of strange killings in the Norwegian countryside. They stumble across a former naval commando, Hans (a brilliant, deadly serious performance by the comedian Otto Jespersen), who allows them to follow him around the country. In the manner of the special federal agents policing extraterrestrials in Barry Sonnenfeld's Men in Black pictures, he works for a secret government department charged with keeping trolls in their native areas and killing those who stray outside.

The troll lore Hans expounds is convincing,...

A bunch of college students fancy themselves investigative journalists -- maybe even Michael Moore! -- and think they’ve stumbled onto a big big story of a wildlife poacher. So they follow him around the remote Norwegian mountains for a while... Turns out Hans (Otto Jespersen) hunts trolls. Yeah: trolls. They’re huge, nasty creatures -- not monsters, just unpleasant and sometimes dangerous animals that come in several mean-tempered species -- and it is Hans’ government-sanctioned job to take them out when they encroach too much on human settlements. There’s tons of delicious suspense of the horror-flick variety to be had in writer-director André Øvredal’s mockumentary, and plenty of Spielbergian shock-awe -- in places Trollhunter gleefully recalls Jaws and Jurassic Park -- but what makes it one of the most satisfying examples of found-footage flicks yet is its observational, journalistic ethos. This is a totally fresh fantasy that...

This enterprising found-footage fantasy yarn from Norway now looks eerily prescient

The grisly case of Norway's extreme-rightwing mass murderer Anders Breivik may have conferred the status of satire or prophecy on this bizarre black-comedy horror. It is a mocu-realist nightmare in the handheld style of Blair Witch or Cloverfield: what we see is supposedly found-footage, shot by a group of film students who were making a documentary about what was officially deemed to be a human-killing bear. But they soon discover that what is lurking in the mountains and forests of Norway is a group of trolls, gigantic creatures that will only attack Christians. The film-makers chance across Hans (Otto Jespersen), a grizzled and battle-scarred troll hunter, who agrees to let them accompany him on his hunt for the trolls, but they have to promise that none of them believes in God or Jesus. One camera operator says she's Muslim – is that Ok?...

Norway's favourite comedian stars alongside CGI trolls in darkly humorous film with more than a hint of Peter Jackson

Until Friday 22 July this year, Norway was a country of 5 million people that, even if tried, could never make the headlines. It was a land of stunning scenery, tasty cinnamon buns, slightly rubbery cheese, expensive beer, depressing literature and terrible pop music; a place where, once in a while, someone might cause a fuss by stealing Edvard Munch's iconic painting The Scream from Oslo's National Gallery. But when a rightwing fanatic began his murderous rampage, Norway's image lost a lot of that innocence.

As the country struggles to come to terms with its tragedy, an unlikely ambassador for the real heart and soul of Norway is nearing the UK. Entitled Troll Hunter, this lovely, mockumentary-style, comic fantasy brings the area's centuries-old folklore into the modern day, as a team of student film-makers,...

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

When you read that a film’s title is The Troll Hunter, you probably don’t begin to expect very much; bargain bin fodder, or at the very most, a low-fi schlock fest with just enough kitschy appeal to secure a theatrical release. Well, leave your prejudices at the door, because this audacious Norwegian monster pic is actually an exceptionally well-produced and somehow rather grounded take on the oversaturated found footage subgenre.

Amazingly, director André Øvredal dares to tell his story with a completely straight face and miraculously manages to get away with it, an admirable feat given the thorough ridiculousness of the film in both name and concept. The Troll Hunter follows a group of students who are making a documentary about a reviled bear poacher operating in rural Norway named Hans (Otto Jespersen). However, when they finally catch up with him, they discover that...

Rank the week of August 23rd’s Blu-ray and DVD new releases against the best films of all-time: New Releases Blitz

(Blu-ray & DVD | Nr | 2011)

Flickchart Ranking: #9439

Win Percentage: 51%

Times Ranked: 215

Top-20 Rankings: 5

Directed By: Elliott Lester

Starring: Jason Statham • Paddy Considine • Aidan Gillen • Zawe Ashton • David Morrissey

Genres: Crime • Crime Thriller • Police Detective Film • Thriller

Rank This Movie

The Beaver

(Blu-ray & DVD | PG13 | 2011)

Flickchart Ranking: #5199

Win Percentage: 52%

Times Ranked: 858

Top-20 Rankings: 6

Directed By: Jodie Foster

Starring: Mel Gibson • Jodie Foster • Anton Yelchin • Jennifer Lawrence • Zachary Booth

Genres: Comedy Drama • Drama • Psychological Drama

Rank This Movie

Win Win

(Blu-ray & DVD | Nr | 2011)

Flickchart Ranking: #2107

Win Percentage: 61%

Times Ranked: 2455

Top-20 Rankings: 6

Directed By: Thomas McCarthy

Starring: Paul Giamatti • Amy Ryan • Bobby Cannavale • Jeffrey Tambor • Burt Young

Genres: Comedy Drama • Drama • Sports Comedy • Sports Drama

Rank This Movie

The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

(Blu-ray & DVD | PG13 | 2011)

Flickchart Ranking: #5643

Win Percentage: 49%

Times Ranked: 725

Top-20 Rankings:...

Momentum Pictures have just sent us these four new images from their Norwegian mocumentary, ‘Troll Hunter’. Troll Hunter directed by André Øvredal and stars Otto Jespersen, Hans Morten Hansen, Tomas Alf Larsen, Johanna Mørck, Knut Nærum and Robert Stoltenberg.

Synopsis: A group of students investigates a series of mysterious bear killings, but learns that there are much more dangerous things going on. They start to follow a mysterious hunter, learning that he is actually a troll hunter.

If you’ve missed the UK trailer for the movie, you can have a watch here. Troll Hunter had its UK premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival (read our review here) and is released nationwide on September 9th.

You can click the images below to enlarge.

Trollhunter has become a favorite to many horror movie freaks this summer and for good reason. Trollhunter is one of the better found footage films in a long time. The film offers tension, suspense and excitement. Trollhunter also has a brilliant script and excellent performances from the cast. Visually and aurally, Trollhunter is breathtaking both visually and aurally. Norway’s beautiful forests, fjords and mountains almost become secondary stars of the movie. Best-Horror=Movies.com rated the movie 4 out of 5. Trollhunter Review. Trollhunter is directed by André Øvredal (Future Murder) and stars Otto Jespersen, Robert Stoltenberg and Knut Nærum. Trollhunter follows three >>...

This is the Pure Movies trailer of Troll Hunter (Trolljegeren), directed by André Øvredal and starring Otto Jespersen, Robert Stoltenberg, Knut Nærum, Glenn Erland Tosterud. Truly original and wildly entertaining, Troll Hunter is an epic monster chiller that will make you question your grip on reality. Filmmaker André Øvredal weaves a thrilling and hilarious tale of a group of unlikely heroes who uncover the world of beasts known only to them in stories from their childhood. Find more movie trailers at www.puremovies.co.uk/trailers...

Troll Hunter

Stars: Otto Jespersen, Tomas Alf Larsen, Johanna Mørck, Glenn Erland Tosterud | Written and Directed by André Øvredal

Finally! A film about a person who tracks and kills jerks on internet message boards! It’s every blogger’s dream; at last – vindication! Wait… what’s that you say? Oh…

Finally! A Norwegian found-footage film about a group youths that get embroiled with a professional troll hunter! Posing as recovered documentary footage, Troll Hunter concerns a trio of college students who film their pursuit of what they believe to be a bear poacher. Their dogged persistence in tracking him pays off when it turns out that Hans, the fellow in question, is actually a government sanctioned troll hunter, whose job is to research the beasts and kill them when they stray from their territory.

Of course, the trouble with the found footage genre (see The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, Paranormal Activity,...

Norwegian mountain Trolls are dumb. And they smell bad. And they have a low red blood cell count that causes them to either explode or turn to stone when exposed to light. Just when the ‘Found Footage’ genre was getting stale, it gets a much-needed shot in the arm with Trollhunter, a new mock-documentary from Norway about a dude who hunts trolls that deftly straddles satire and thrills. It’s not without its flaws but Trollhunter is one of the best times I’ve had at the movies so far this year.

A trio of Norwegian college students (Glenn Erland Tosterud, Tomas Alf Larsen, and Johanna Morch) is filming a documentary about illegal bear poachers when they meet and interview a gruff, curious recluse named Hans (Otto Jespersen) who turns out to be an ace troll hunter who works for a secret Norwegian government agency known as the Troll Security Service.

TrollHunter (Trolljegeren) is a genre that I don’t often see done well: self-aware horror-comedy. André Øvredal directs this mockumentary with Otto Jespersen as the Troll Hunter himself, Glenn Erland Tosterud, Tomas Alf Larsen, and Johanna Mørck. And if you can’t already tell, the film comes from Norway.

A group of young journalists are on a mission to investigate some bear attacks, but in the process discover a plot to cover up masses of trolls living in the forests. They are kept at bay from civilization by Jespersen, who decides to enlighten the crew to the ways of the troll, due to his increasing resentment of the government directing him.

When I was first shown the creatures, I felt a mixture of confusion and a little joy. These were actually very well-created CG monsters which looked like something out of Where the Wild Things Are. It perfectly describes the...

Reviewed by Bryan Buss

(June 2011)

Directed/Written by: André Øvredal

Starring: Otto Jespersen, Glenn Erland Tosterud, Johanna Mørck, Tomas Alf Larsen and Hans Morten Hansen.

Norwegian import “Trollhunter” had the potential to be a surprise scarefest or a campy hoot. As it is, it falls somewhere in the middle, so it never quite achieves the screams or the giggles it should. Another “found footage” documentary-style thriller, the film focuses on a trio of college kids who tag along with a legendary bear killer because they sense something is amiss.

They’re right.

Writer-director André Øvredal’s debut feature is refreshing (while trolls may not be as sexy as vampires, or werewolves, or, hell, even zombies for that matter, at least they haven’t been done to death yet), and there are some amusing bits between the action sequences. (Turns out trolls can smell Christians. Why? Who knows?) But it’s just not thrilling enough,...

Reviewed by Bryan Buss

(June 2011)

Directed/Written by: André Øvredal

Starring: Otto Jespersen, Glenn Erland Tosterud, Johanna Mørck, Tomas Alf Larsen and Hans Morten Hansen.

Norwegian import “Trollhunter” had the potential to be a surprise scarefest or a campy hoot. As it is, it falls somewhere in the middle, so it never quite achieves the screams or the giggles it should. Another “found footage” documentary-style thriller, the film focuses on a trio of college kids who tag along with a legendary bear killer because they sense something is amiss.

They’re right.

Writer-director André Øvredal’s debut feature is refreshing (while trolls may not be as sexy as vampires, or werewolves, or, hell, even zombies for that matter, at least they haven’t been done to death yet), and there are some amusing bits between the action sequences. (Turns out trolls can smell Christians. Why? Who knows?) But it’s just not thrilling enough,...

It’s no secret that The Troll Hunter, André Øvredal’s Norwegian found-footage mockumentary, was the film from this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival that I was most anticipating. Following Finland’s excellent Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale and off the back of King of Devil’s Island (review coming shortly), I hoped that these two Scandinavian successes might have rubbed off on Øvredal’s film. With critics already deeming it ”amazing”, I was positively rabid with curiosity.

Anyone under the impression that the found footage method had peaked with Rec and Cloverfield, or even earlier with The Blair Witch Project, will soon be eating their words with The Troll Hunter, which is a thrilling revival of the format that strikes a delightfully successful balance between ultra-low budget subtlety and Hollywood frills. Director André Øvredal has triumphed with a movie that delivers on just about every level.

Opening...

The Night Crew returns from hiatus, with a double whammy of guests Jason Eisener and Andre Ovredal, whose films Hobo With A Shotgun and Trollhunter are quite well regarded 'round these parts. Plus the usual columns, news, and basic mayhemic behavior that is par for course. Also, we are proud to run a special extra nugget of goodness with the following teaser article for this episodes extended interview with Mr. Ovredal, courtesy of The Night Crew's NYC contributor, Heather Buckley...read on!Click the link below the text to listen to the entire show.Troll Hunter is a faux-cinema-verite monster movie that centers around a group of students that are filming the Trolljegeren (Otto Jespersen) as he tracks down creatures that were merely the stuff of legend--until...

We don't normally get a chance to write about Norwegian cinema here at empireonline.com - everyone's favourite Nazi-zombie flick Dead Snow apart - but today we're happy to buck that trend with an exclusive UK Quad poster of the Scandinavian horror-thriller mock-doc Troll Hunter.Brought to life by writer/director Andre Ovredal, Troll Hunter has been in the news recently because of its Us remake rights being snapped up by Chris Columbus and his1492 Pictures production company.The plot of the Blair Witch/Cloverfield-style pseudo-documentary, as you might have guessed, revolves around a Troll Hunter, who, um, hunts trolls. Played by Otto Jespersen, a controversial Norwegian comedian, this hunter of trolls is followed by a team of documentary makers initially interested in bears before uncovering a much bigger problem... humongous trolls.You see, what they didn't realise is that trolls aren't fairy tale creatures – they actually exist, kept in...

In the Margin is a column where Ignatiy Vishnevetsky tries to make sense of the what's going on in cinema lately.

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The best running gag in The Troll Hunter—a pretty good adventure movie just a few gory shots away from being a children's film, spruced up by a found-footage mockumentary device—involves the ease with which the film's slapdash central conspiracy is maintained. Mythic giants run amok in the Norwegian countryside, their population controlled by a handful of bored functionaries (essentially two game wardens and a veterinarian), and throughout the film the cameras of a fictional documentary crew capture a wide variety of people nonchalantly accepting the contrived explanations of the conspirators, the most common one of which is "bears" (Norway's actual bear population is almost non-existent, leading to one of the film's best bits: the conspirators buy a dead bear from a group of Poles who assure them...

Each week within this column we strive to pair the latest in theatrical releases to the worthwhile titles currently available on Netflix Instant Watch.

This week there’s something strange lurking out there in the dark. While aliens and trolls cause havoc here and abroad, a band of British and Middle Eastern comedians take to the road to crack jokes and break down barriers. And if you’re eager to take these kinds of thrills and chuckles home, we’ve got a slew of suggestions for your viewing pleasure.

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Super 8

Sci-fi icon Steven Spielberg and Star Trek director J.J. Abrams team up to bring this much-anticipated tale of childhood adventure and alien mystery to theaters. Super 8 centers on a tight-knit group of adolescent filmmakers who witness a horrifying train crash — and later spot something far more frightening emerge from the wreckage. But who will believe them? Joel Courtney,...

Momentum Pictures have unveiled the official UK trailer for Norwegian horror-thriller Troll Hunter.

Written and directed by André Øvredal (Future Murder), Troll Hunter stars Otto Jespersen, Hans Morten Hansen, Tomas Alf Larsen, Johanna Mørck, Knut Nærum, Robert Stoltenberg and Glenn Erland Tosterud.

A group of students investigate a series of mysterious bear killings, but learns that there are much more dangerous things going on. as they start to follow a mysterious hunter, they realise that it is a troll, rather than the bears, that is his prey.

Troll Hunter will receive its UK premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on June 22, before being released nationwide on September 9.

Head over to Orange to watch the trailer.

One of the surprise films this year has been a Norwegian “found footage” film called The Troll Hunter (reviews here and here). Released on VOD by Magnet Releasing a month ago, the film is gearing up for a limited theatrical release starting on June 10th, and Killer Film caught up with the director, André Øvredal, on a late night in Oslo, Norway to talk about his The Troll Hunter. Read on!

Jon: I read early on that you’ve always planned for Trollhunter to be in the mockumentary format. How did this style help the film over say, what a narrative format would?

André Øvredal: Well, it certainly made it sellable, especially on our Norwegian budget (laughs). When you have a movie with a big silly creature, shooting it as it’s real helps the humor and the horror. You can create a great deal of tension. You can...

We all love robots, superhero tights, mutants, sequels, 3D, and overblown CGI, right? Well, this summer seems to have an excess of each with each passing weekend. To breath a little life (and brains) into the summer line-up, we’ve highlighted the best limited releases to check out. It may look like your standard Sundance Film Festival line-up (and most of the titles are coming from that fest), but rest assured, there is something special to be found with each one of these picks. Check out the list below in chronological release date order and let us know what you are looking forward to.

Everything Must Go (Dan Rush; May 13th) (trailer)

Synopsis: When an alcoholic relapses, causing him to lose his wife and his job, he holds a yard sale on his front lawn in an attempt to start over. A new neighbor might be the key to his return to form.

When you think of a fake documentary (or mockumentary) on people who are hunting for some sort of supernatural creature, the last thing you’d imagine it would be is trolls. However, Norwegian filmmaker Andre Ovredal thought he would take a dive into this particular style of filmmaking with his second feature-length film “Troll Hunter.” In “Troll Hunter” we follow three filmmaking students Finn (Hans Morten Hansen), Johanna (Johanna M0rck) and Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) who are trying to following and make a small film out of bear hunter Hans (Otto Jespersen). However, the three students realize that they’re in something much bigger, figuratively and physically, than they could have imagined...

The Troll Hunter

Directed by André Øvredal

Norway, 2010

The Troll Hunter takes on such an exhaustive list of pre-existing horror/mockumentary tropes that its technique becomes as much a joke as its content: shaky-camera, night-vision, impossibly huge antagonists, long-lost footage. At least The Troll Hunter is very self-aware, making it more Big Man Japan than Blair Witch Project.

A group of film students investigate a series of suspicious bear killings. Their inquiry is sidetracked when they happen upon The Troll Hunter (Otto Jespersen) – a quietly cantankerous man whom they soon find out works for the Norwegian government in hunting and killing trolls that have escaped from their predetermined territory.

The trolls are largely unseen for the first 20 minutes of the film, and the director plays it well, keeping the audience in genre-suspense. Is this a comedy or horror film? The first appearance of a troll, which looks like a gigantic Muppet,...

Magnet Releasing is quickly becoming this writer’s favorite distribution house. In the last year, they’ve put out some of the most compelling genre films including Monsters, Black Death, I Saw the Devil, Rubber, and Hobo with a Shotgun. Their latest release, Troll Hunter, is just as remarkable a film as the company it’s keeping. The film is set to premiere today on VOD and in honor of its debut, Dread Central recently had the opportunity to sit down and talk with writer/director André Øvredal to find out more about the world of the Troll Hunter, his influences while making the film, and what’s next for him.

For Øvredal, when he was coming up with the concept for this film, he looked no further than the stories he heard as a youngster for his source material. “The classic fairy tales about trolls are essentially children’s...

Directed by: André Øvredal

Written by: André Øvredal

Cast: Otto Jespersen, Hans Morten Hansen, Tomas Alf Larsen, Johanna Mørck, Knut Nærum, Robert Stoltenberg, Glenn Erland Tosterud

All governments of the world have secrets.

Such secrets will vary strongly from the fabulously dull to the fantastically strange. How strange? Well, it might be a fancy new organic-based spaceship that's powered on human brains, an ancient arcane device that can be used to summon the great hoary lord of the infernal abyss, or it just may be something like, I don't know, maybe…

Troooooooooooooll!

A small group of students venture out into Western Norway, intent on creating a student film documentary on reported occurrences of bear poaching in the region. The team manages to get on the trail of Hans (Otto Jespersen), who's strange comings and goings has put him under suspicion by the locals of being involved in a recent string of illegal bear killings.

Title: The Troll Hunter Director: Andre Ovredal Starring: Otto Jespersen, Hans Morten Hansen, Tomas Alf Larsen, Johanna Morck, Glenn Erland Tosterud, Robert Stoltenberg, Knut Naerum Simply put, the 90 minute documentary styled “The Troll Hunter,” is easily the best in the genre since “The Blair Witch Project” popularized this concept. In some instances, it may actually be better than the innovative horror flick that has inspired this genre of fake documentaries; including the current “Paranormal Activity” franchise. By cutting out the all the pondering and ancillary footage, that really doesn’t have any entertainment value for the viewer – something that “Paranormal Activity” failed to do – this presentation requires one’s...

We have added the new domestic trailer the Norwegian action adventure documentary style movie "The Troll Hunter." The André Øvredal directed film was a hit when released in Norway and is now set for an international release.Watch the trailer below;"The Troll Hunter" is released on demand from May 6th, and on limited Us screens from June 10th.The films Scandanavian cast includes Otto Jespersen, Hans Morten Hansen, Tomas Alf Larsen, Johanna Mørck, Knut Nærum, Robert Stoltenberg and Glenn Erland Tosterud.A group of students investigate a series of mysterious bear killings, but learns that there are much more dangerous things going on. They start to follow a mysterious hunter, learning that he is actually a troll hunter.

The verite style, Norwegian folklore movie Trollhunter will be available through Magnolia On-Demand starting May 6th and will stomp into theaters beginning June 10th.

That's right folks, found footage monster movies have found their way to Norway and we have the official trailer below for you to see. Enjoy.

About Trollhunter

"Trollhunter" is the story of a group of Norwegian film students that set out to capture real-life trolls on camera after learning their existence has been covered up for years by a government conspiracy. A thrilling and wildly entertaining film, Trollhunter delivers truly fantastic images of giant trolls wreaking havoc on the countryside, with darkly funny adherence to the original Norwegian folklore.

Official website: www.trollhunterfilm.com/

Official facebook: www.facebook.com/thetrollhuntermovie

Starring: Otto Jespersen, Hans Morten Hansen, Tomas Alf Larsen

Writen and Directed by Andre Ovredal...

We've seen films about vampires, zombies and werewolves, but trolls? When considering the fairy tale beasts the first movies that come to mind are Troll 2 (which doesn't actually have trolls in it) and Ernest Scared Stupid, so clearly there's room for improvement and writer-director Andre Overdal seizes that opportunity with his second feature film, Trollhunter. After a series of strange occurrences in the forest, a Norway Wildlife Board official (Hans Morten Hansen) swoops in to put local hunters at ease, blaming the incidents on bears. However, a group of students know better and, armed with a video camera, take it upon themselves to investigate the situation. The local hunters point the kids in the direction of a supposed poacher named Hans (Otto Jespersen). When Hans refuses to give them a warm welcome, Thomas, Johanna and Kalle (Glenn Erland Tosterud, Johanna Morck and Tomas Alf Larsen) are left with no choice,...

Before The Blair Witch Project came out in 1999 there were already “found footage” movies being made. The Blair Witch Project, however popularized it and made that genre a box office hit. Since then, there have been many other films made in that form, some just as successful, some not. The most recent found footage movie comes by way of Norway and is one of the more original films to come out. Troll Hunter is an entertaining, fun and suspenseful ride.

Troll Hunter tells the story of three college students, Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen), Johanna (Johanna Mørck) and Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud) who are trying to find and interview a local poacher. In Norway, it is illegal to go bear hunting without a license. During the hunting season, bears start showing up dead, but none of the hunters killed them. The three students find the poacher and intend to interview him...

Director: André Øvredal Writer: André Øvredal Starring: Glenn Erland Tosterud, Tomas Alf Larsen, Johanna Mørck, Otto Jespersen Writer-director André Øvredal provides us with the set-up: 283 hours of mysterious footage has been found. After extensive investigation, the footage is concluded to be authentic. (Cue rolling of eyes, it is one of those films...) Said footage was shot by a group of Norwegian university students who were working on a documentary story about bear poaching but stumbled upon something significantly larger...and smellier. When we first meet the three co-eds -- Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) and Johanna (Johanna Mørck) -- they are tracking the movements of a suspicious woodsman named Hans (Otto Jespersen). They suspect that Hans is an evil bear poacher, but after following him into the woods one night they discover that Hans' game is way bigger than an average bear. Hans, exhausted from decades of troll hunting,...

Troll Hunter

Written and directed by André Øvredal

Norway, 2010

Troll Hunter is a slyly subversive little horror comedy from Norway that is destined to find a cult following on DVD. Unlike the rest of the films showing here at True/False, this is not a documentary but rather another entry in the “found-footage genre.” Andre Øvredal gives us a fresh take on the genre by opting to go with humor over real scares. There is nothing genuinely scary about this film – but its pronounced lack of scares allows Øvredal to get at some really biting social and political satire that wouldn’t have been possible had the film been a straight-up horror film.

Like most found-footage films, the plot centers on film students trying to make a documentary and footage that has resulted from it. The three film students include the over-enthusiastic nerd Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), the boom-mic operator...

“Fairy tales don’t match reality,” warns the cryptic troll hunter at the heart of this inventive adventure, and it’s true. What lies in wait in the isolated regions of Norway is not the clothing-wearing funny-haired scamps of children’s stories, but something dangerous and wild.

The first feature from Norwegian writer/director André Øvredal, best known as a prolific director of commercials, Troll Hunter is an exciting adventure in the vein of Jurassic Park that transforms snarky incredulity into re-ignited childlike wonder. Centered on a group of college students looking to make a documentary on the bear problem plaguing rural Norway, their investigation leads them to follow an elusive poacher. One night deep in the woods, they see bright flashes of light before this gruff stranger comes barreling through the trees hollering, “Troll!” The frightened co-eds flee, running from something they’d long-thought a myth: a troll, huge,...

The Troll Hunter review. Sundance 2011: Sharp wit, explosive action and great humor make Troll Hunter too good for just the genre boys. (5 out of 5 Stars) "The Troll Hunter" combines action, humor and towering monsters for a rollicking thrill ride. Three college filmmakers (Glenn Erland Tosterud, Johanna Morch and Tomas Alf Larsen) attempt to interview a trailer park loner named Hans (Otto Jespersen) for a documentary about illegal bear poaching in the Norwegian backcountry. The true nature of Han's visits to remote forests turns out to be unbelievably fantastic. Hans is a troll hunter on the payroll for the secret agency known as the Troll Security Service operated by the Norwegian government. It's Hans' job to go and clean...

The Troll Hunter review. Sundance 2011: Sharp wit, explosive action and great humor make Troll Hunter too good for just the genre boys. (5 out of 5 Stars) "The Troll Hunter" combines action, humor and towering monsters for a rollicking thrill ride. Three college filmmakers (Glenn Erland Tosterud, Johanna Morch and Tomas Alf Larsen) attempt to interview a trailer park loner named Hans (Otto Jespersen) for a documentary about illegal bear poaching in the Norwegian backcountry. The true nature of Han's visits to remote forests turns out to be unbelievably fantastic. Hans is a troll hunter on the payroll for the secret agency known as the Troll Security Service operated by the Norwegian government. It's Hans' job to go and clean...

When I first saw this trailer, I couldn’t help but think of District 9 in the way that it looks like it could be a huge hit coming out of nowhere. The Troll Hunter is a Norwegian film which is directed by André Øvredal and stars Otto Jespersen, Hans Morten Hansen, Tomas Alf Larsen, Johanna Mørck, Knut Nærum and Robert Stoltenberg. I guess if it does well, it’ll be coming to an English speaking re-make near you any time soon!

Synopsis: A group of students investigates a series of mysterious bear killings, but learns that there are much more dangerous things going on. They start to follow a mysterious hunter, learning that he is actually a troll hunter.

Thanks to @Chrixoffer for sending it our way.

No idea if /when it’s released in the UK but we’ll keep you informed.

After announcing the 58 films in four categories that would be eligible for awards at Sundance, the film fest has now announced the next 57 movies to be screened this coming January. These 57 films are of course out of competition and will be included in Premieres, Next, Spotlight, New Frontiers and Midnight categories. Most are big name projects from already established filmmakers and some have already made their way around film festival in 2010. The list includes Kevin Smith’s Red State, Tom McCarthy’s Win Win, Morgan Spurlock’s documentary The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, Submarine, I Saw the Devil (which had plenty of buzz at Tiff) and my most anticipated film of 2011, Hobo With a Shotgun.

Here is the full list:

Premieres

To showcase the diversity of contemporary independent cinema, the Sundance Film Festival Premieres section offers the latest work from American and international directors as well as world premieres of highly anticipated films.

Festival Adds New Native Showcase

As Previously Announced, Slacker to Screen From the Collection

Park City, Ut – Sundance Institute announced today the lineup of films selected to screen in the 2011 Sundance Film Festival out-of-competition sections Next (<=>), Spotlight, New Frontier, Park City at Midnight, as well as a new Native Showcase. The 2011 Sundance Film Festival runs January 20-30 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah. The complete list of films is available at http://www.sundance.org/festival/.

Trevor Groth, Director of Programming said, “The Sundance Film Festival is uniquely a festival of discovery and we are once again privileged to showcase the work of talented new artists, including a special section devoted to Native filmmakers. But it’s also exciting to see returning directors honing their skills and emerging with dazzling new films. And the Next section highlights visionary work that shows aesthetic creativity is not limited by budget.