The gamble of purchasing 97p DVD’s continued to pay off with this Grimm little fairytale which sees a family move into a house only to discover that the life size doll house at the bottom of the garden is inhabited by evil little trolls called The Huldre.
The family’s daughter Gina begins to act strangely as the storyline plods along the well worn path of ‘relax, she’s just playing with her imaginary friends’ before disturbing events (things turning up in the laundry, and moving location) turn to disgusting (dead pets) events.
You’ve seen it all before, but it’s a little bit different and even kind of fresh. Opening nicely with a fairytale montage, the film quickly disappoints with the most redundant cat in the box scare ever, and the rest of the boo scares are like that too.
The familiar cast all do decent jobs, and I liked that they tried to modernize it by having the teenage son listen to cool dance and rock tunes and have Linkin Park posters up.
The little critters have quite obviously been inserted into shots, but the fast cuts make it harder to spot for the casual viewer.
This has every genre cliché present and correct, from a creepy old handyman to strange household accidents, but it was the perfect tonic for Wednesday afternoon boredom brought on by the flu.
OVERALL SUMMARY
If I had to compare it to other films I’d say it’s ‘Cat’s Eye’ meets ‘Cubbyhouse’ but it’s fun. A good movie to make the brats watch when you’re babysitting.