Cannibal Troll

But a hopelessly unimpressive made horror movie of used up tricks and ideas that levaes you on the trail of damnation without guessing., sooo lets all see it come enbodied by 6 english lasses on a fieldtrip rural british countryside, the cannibal monster unveils itself already from the intro so no secret card held to the chest.

Technically its pure average, though with mike shadows here and there and some blown away sound recordings. The acting aint strong, and the dry lips syndrome is highly vindictive and unfolds an actors incomprehensiveness and skill trough all that liplicking and wrinckled foreheads.

So its a try and a bye from the grumpy old man. Not a recommend.

Sadly let down by poor script and very low budget. The troll seems to live outside human society but in a shed made from machined timber and fitted with windows and mortise locks. The internal walls are even dry lined.

Actors deliver their lines as if reading them for the first time, with no idea of context. Much is made in the opening scenes of compass directions - "Don't go north", "We will head south", yet nobody has a compass and their map reading skills are such that they do not initially notice that they are standing beside a 12th century church that is not on the map.

Not that it matters anyway, since they never venture more than a few metres from their campsite, and are never away from waymarked paths, cultivated fields, tended grass.

A sub-plot involves a cleric who dresses in full ecclesiastical garb to tend an unused church, while other sub-plots involve a husband-to-be who sounds like a caricature, a gay relationship, a pregnant woman who cannot find a man, the bride's mother turning up for the hen party without the bride's knowledge, captives who escape repeatedly from the troll but never go to the town that is visible from the viewpoint where much of the action takes place.

The actor playing the mother appears in another film by the same director. The impression is one of a group of friends working together, making for a happy atmosphere and an enjoyable experience for participants, but scenes are padded out with meaningful pauses, silences, stares and huge overacting.

The potential is there but the product is tiring to watch.

This film has some characteristics that I like: the budget is very low, some actresses are quite good which indicates that the casting was not so bad and it shows a decent production design for the few dollars they had. Leaving this aside, there are a thousand things that did not go well: the idea of avoiding gore content, the total absence of intelligence of the film's characters, the lack of nudity and the fact that the villain had no previous history. I accept the good intentions of the producers but the end result is terrible with some positive caveats.

I can't post the review until I type up at least 150 characters, so I will do the work that should've been done when naming the movie...

Can·ni·bal noun

• an animal that feeds on flesh of its own species.

I deduct one star retroactively, since you can't give 0 stars.

Cannibal Troll is not the best of horror films, that's definitely certain. The acting is average, but admittedly better than the usual Scott Chambers's ultra low budget horror flick. The troll isn't actually a cannibal as it neither eats human flesh or troll flesh.

The plot was terrible and involves several friends going on a sort of hen-do type trip before the main character gets married (cue unusual and out of place lesbian side plot!) her husband to be is apparently not thought of too well by the girls who outright call him boring within the first ten minutes to the weak defense of the main character. The actual troll's mask is quite silly, but again, I've seen worse. There are a couple of somewhat effective tense moments, but they're quickly destroyed when we actually come face to face with the troll in the second half. There's a ridiculous sub plot involving a Priest and, what I think, was a holy handgun.

3/10: Cinematography and acting are average, but it's brought down in every other department. At least it wasn't as boring as some other ultra low budget films.