TROLL HUNTER

Dir: Andre Ovredal. Starring: Otto Jespersen, Robert Stoltenberg, Knut Nærum

There's something very appealing about eccentrically grand follies (and I'm not using that word in a pejorative sense): a unique idea, absolutely pointless, but carried out with great style. That's pretty much where Trollhunter sits. It's a small silly film with one central joke, but it turns its tricks with such style and enthusiasm that it's hard not to like it.

It's a Norwegian film, yet another purporting to be ‘lost footage' (see Blair Witch, Cloverfield et al), in which three student filmmakers stumble across a grizzled old hunter who slowly reveals himself to be the eponymous hero.

He is tasked by the government to keep the troll population under control, in secret of course, which would seem a little tricky since some of these trolls are very large indeed. And impressive.

As in last year's Monsters, the trolls are strictly rationed, but much better realised than one expects.

It's cool, it's fun, it's kinda silly. I liked it a lot. Would someone in New Zealand have a similarly good idea – we certainly don't seem to be lacking in F/X guys…

You can't really call it a series because there's no developing story. Instead this is the fourth identikit remake, Final Destination 5, now in unsubtle throw-stuff-at-the-camera 3D. If only the three-dimensionality extended to the characters, a bunch of young stereotypes who escape death (this time in an – admittedly spectacular – suspension bridge collapse) only to be picked off in elaborately-staged, red herring-filled death scenes. It's all about, and only about, how 'good” the deaths are. Surely there are better things to do?

Replete with ‘70s music and design, Hobo With A Shotgun proudly nails its supersaturated colours to the mast and sails forth on the current wave of grindhouse revival flicks. Rutger Hauer is the titular drifter, minding his own business on the ultra-violent streets of a surreal urban hell ruled by the monstrous white-suited Duke and his two psycho sons. After suffering mucho humiliation, it's time for him to clean up the mean streets, with only a gold-hearted hooker for help.

Oh, and a shotgun. There are no socially redeeming featured here whatsoever, but the extremes of bad taste are frequently jaw-dropping.

More found-footage shenanigans comprise Apollo 18, a film claiming to show a secret 1974 mission (the Apollo programme was cancelled after 17) for the Department of Defence.

The pitch was no doubt something like ‘Paranormal Activity on the moon!' and that's the general vibe as the two astronauts in their little capsule realise that they are not alone on the moon's surface.

The problem with films of this sort is that they all end basically the same way…

A family and friends returning to the US from a wedding in Canada are stopped by two border patrol officers in Territories.

But said officers are merely variations on the killer hillbillies so beloved of exploitation flicks, and in less than half an hour the survivors are in orange Guantanamo jumpsuits being tortured in cages in the woods.

There are several eccentricities – the captors are an unusual pair – and a political subtext, however, an abrupt third act shift of focus dilutes the tension and leads to a frustratingly nihilistic ending.

Bunraku opens with some imaginative animation, explaining how a post-apocalyptic world ended up outlawing guns in favour of swords. And that's about as good as it gets. Made in the style of Sin City – extravagant fights in a totally CGI environment – this sadly cleaves more closely to The Shadow and sees mysterious strangers Josh Hartnett and Gackt (yes, really) team with Woody Harrelson's bartender to take on the evil boss of this cartoon metropolis, Ron Perlman. The result is a garish frenzy of colour, design and stylised fighting that goes on for way too long.