Childhood fears that spawned a monster hit

Everyone loves a good monster. And everyone loves a good monster movie.

For André Øvredal, the 38-year-old commercials director from Norway, making a bona fide monster mash meant regressing to childhood and recalling the things – and I mean things – that scared him as a child. In Norway that means trolls.

It was an ambitious idea on a modest budget and a 28-day shooting schedule in tricky terrain and always at the mercy of the weather. Yet Øvredal pulled it off, lensing one of the most original fright flicks in recent years and, what’s more, taking the mountainous troll out of Norway and introducing him to a global audience.

Let’s be clear: world audiences are going crazy for Øvredal and his mighty, 50ft-high trolls. Remake rights have been sold to Chris Columbus, director of the first two Harry Potter movies (one of which featured, yes, a troll) and the movie is set to go into production in 2012.

“I’m hoping they will do it in Norway,” says Øvredal. “That’s kind of what they’re indicating. That would be quite fun for everybody, I think.”

At 38, Øvredal has embarked on an incredible journey. The Troll Hunter experience has taken him utterly by surprise.

The reaction to his movie mirrors that which greeted The Blair Witch Project in 1999. There are similarities. Both films are mock documentaries based around the concept of “found” footage that tells an amazing story. In Blair Witch it’s entirely about horror. Troll Hunter balances the shocks with humour although, as the director points out, none of it was played for laughs.

“We all decided we had to take it dead serious,” says Øvredal. “Everything in the movie had to be taken completely seriously. The producer was in on it, I was, and we wanted to make it as frightening as possible. We didn’t want to make anti-family scenes with gruelling attacks. We wanted to hit broadly but to make them as frightening and, in a way, as fun as possible.”

The story of Hans, a taciturn government-sponsored troll wrangler masquerading as a bear hunter, draws in traditional Norwegian folklore as well as an attack on state paranoia and secrecy. Øvredal was keen to make his monsters identifiable as well as bringing them out into the open. That’s ultimately Hans’s mission – to embarrass the Norwegian government by blowing its cover. It’s like selling tickets for Hanger 18.

“My model would basically be Jurassic Park where you’re building anticipation for the creature,” he observes. “And you have to deliver fairly early because you want to play with it, you want to show how it behaves, you want to tell the story of the monster, in our case a troll. Instead of keeping it hidden, I wanted to build a mythology. I wanted to talk about the troll instead of keeping it in the shadows.

“I was making a film for the Norwegian audience initially with the knowledge that if it becomes a nice film hopefully other countries will want to show it as well. It seems like at least that it’s doing a little bit of that, so that’s fantastic.”

Aside from the trolls, the star of the film is Otto Jesperson, actually one of Norway’s top comedians, playing a disgruntled civil servant who’s fed up with being treated shabbily by his employers, hates the hours and wants a pay rise.

Recalls Øvredal: “There was a question about whether or not trolls would be an interesting movie. We were quite confident but some other people were questioning it so we added the idea of a star to the lead role.”

He adds: “Otto was one of the first names we thought of because he had the right sense of humour. He can play both low-key and he has this kind of comedy to him.

“He’s really good at doing this kind of rant in his stand-up routines – something in society that annoys him. He can really do these negative attitude rants and they’re really funny.

“Also I wanted to get away from the American superhero image as much as possible.

“He still has this courage but I definitely didn’t want to make a big American superhero movie. His job is just so crazy.”

Øvredal is planning several new projects before inevitably returning to trolls. A sequel is on the cards – “we have tons of stuff” – but he is also wary of becoming too associated with one genre.

“I decided I wanted to do something else so I don’t get pigeonholed with trolls for the rest of my life!” he laughs.

“I’m very proud of the whole movie. I really think it achieves everything I wanted it to achieve.”

Troll Hunter (15) is released today.