Review - Atrocious

While I very well could just let the title speak for itself as to the quality of this film, I thought I might take a few sentences to explain why Fernando Barreda Luna's Atrocious is, well, just that.

Ok, perhaps that's being a little harsh, this wasn't the worst horror film I've seen in the last while, but it certainly doesn't have much going for it either. For starters, I must make clear that I have nothing inherently against the "found footage" genre, made famous by The Blair Witch Project. It seems to get a lot of hate from some people, despite the fact that Paranormal Activity and REC were fairly entertaining. Yes, the camera is going to be shaky. Yes, the camera is going to be on at times when no normal person would be recording. Yes, at some point someone will inevitably use the night vision mode to see in the dark. And of course YES, someone is probably going to point the camera at themselves and sob in a very unattractive closeup. But like slasher films have their tropes, so does this genre. Complaining about any of these aspects is like complaining that the killer used a big kitchen knife or that he's wearing a spooky mask.

So why does Atrocious fail? It starts out well enough, introducing a brother and sister that are film fans and like to make short films about urban legends. Not a bad premise, and it explains why they have nice looking cameras that they carry around with them all the time (Note: I think the version I saw was cropped to 4:3, as the promo materials I've seen show 16:9 images). It then tells us that they're visiting a house that has been empty for ten years (and that they used to visit when they were kids - a fact that has NO relevance to the plot apparently), which supposedly has an urban legend attached to the surrounding area. A spooky legend about a girl who helps lost children find their way out of a spooky hedge maze (that just happens to be on the house property). Could be worse, right? Sure it could. The first part of the film actually does a good job building tension. They interview someone about different versions of the legend, they have some creepy night footage of the dog barking at the chained up gate to the maze and they're forbidden from entering the maze by their father. Then, having set things up effectively enough, it's as if the director suddenly realized he had to fill the remaining 30 minutes of the very short 70 minute runtime with, you know, content.

Wow, this is the exact same gesture I was making for the
last third of this film....

And according to Luna, content is 25 uneventful minutes of running through a hedge maze in night vision, screaming and then crying. What potentially could have been a tight, frightening 10 minute sequence quickly (or should I saw slowly) drags out into a boring, and then frustrating, experience. Building anticipation is one thing, but then failing so incredibly to offer ANY sort of payoff is another. I jest not when I say I resorted to fast-forwarding through a good portion of this section, hoping that something scary might make me want to rewind. Nope. Sure, a few things happen in the maze, but they ultimately seem silly rather than terrifying. The action eventually returns to the house where there is one semi-inspired jolt scare followed by more VERY long, boring and decidedly un-frightening shots.  Things then conclude with an out-of-the-blue "superincrediblecrazywowshockingIcan'tbelieveit" twist ending. I know a twist ending is almost to be expected nowadays, but come on, shouldn't it have SOMETHING to do with the rest of the film? The best twists have either a deep connection to the body of the film, or if not, at least are so incredible that they demand respect (Miike, I'm looking at you and Dead or Alive). The ending to Atrocious can be likened to the ending of The Sixth Sense if some random character introduced in the last 10 seconds of that film was actually the ghost instead of Bruce Willis.

Anyways, don't waste your time should this ever get released in North America. It seems to be getting mostly positive reviews on the festival circuit, and I can't understand why. Standards must have become universally lowered while I wasn't paying attention.

The Troll Hunter

I'm wondering if it's possible to write a review of a horror/fantasy "faux-documentary" without referencing The Blair Witch Project? Since I've already failed to do so, clearly I'm not the man to answer that, but I'd like to see it done. Anyways, on to my thoughts about Andre Øvredal’s The Troll Hunter. Shot in the fake doc style that seems to have maintained its popularity (especially outside North America) post-BWP, it focuses on a group of Norwegian university students who set out to get footage on bear poaching for a class project and inadvertently stumble upon Norway's best kept secret - bloodthirsty, Christian-hating trolls! I won’t go into much detail on the plot (since quite frankly there isn’t much of one) but I will say that some of the film’s biggest question marks and plot holes were also some of my favourite aspects. Were this a bigger budget film from a more established film market such as the United States or the UK, the military would have a much more prominent role. There would be covert strike teams, a shady bureau in charge of covering up the existence of these so-called monsters and, of course, lots of helicopters. In Norway? One bad-ass, trailer-living mountain man, one snively low-level civil servant and a handful of Polish carpenters seem to do the job quite nicely. Although it may be a bit far-fetched, I certainly find it refreshing to see an entry into the monster genre that doesn’t involve carpet-bombing and mass destruction.

I also have to commend the filmmakers on the creature designs. They look like they wandered straight out of a 17th century children’s fairytale book, and it works wonderfully. The film dips its toes ever-so-slightly into the “science” behind the trolls, and frankly I wish they had gone much deeper. Why are there so many different varieties? Why can they smell a Christian? How the hell do some of them grow to the size of office buildings? Nevertheless, it does a satisfactory job of presenting them not simply as creatures that go bump in the night, but as a legitimate species living in the secluded wilderness. And what a wilderness it is. The vistas in Troll Hunter are simply incredible. Sign me up for a trip to scenic Norway, I’m sold.

It’s understandable that many people might be sick of the whole “found footage” genre, and there are elements of The Troll Hunter that won’t do much to change any minds about that (especially the ending). However, that said, I have to absolutely recommend this film for anyone looking for something a little outside the box. If you’re able to forgive some inconsistencies and underdeveloped ideas in the plot, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what the film has to offer. The lead character is wonderfully matter-of-fact about his unusual job, the effects hold up well for a low-budget, non-Hollywood feature, and the premise and mythology is intriguing enough to support the run time. From what I understand Magnet, Magnolia’s sub-division for genre pictures, has purchased world rights to the film so here’s hoping it gets a proper theatrical release in North America, with a corresponding DVD and Blu Ray release. With so many straight-to-video giant creature features flooding the market these days, it’s nice to see one that does things a little differently. Much like Gareth Edward’s Monsters, it’s a breath of fresh air in a genre already in danger of becoming stale so soon after it’s resurgence.