EIFF Day 9: Strippers and trolls

The 65th Edinburgh International Film Festival heads into its final days this weekend, and the debates will start about whether this total revamping was a success and what should be done for next year. Meanwhile, I'm following everything here in London. And yesterday I got the chance to meet Kim Cattrall, who gives a superb image-shattering performance as a has-been stripper in EIFF film Meet Monica Velour (below). I'll have that interview up at the website in the next week or so. Meanwhile, here are a couple of highlights from the festival today...

Meet Monica Velour
dir Keith Bearden; with Dustin Ingram, Kim Cattrall 10/US ***
There's a scruffy, honest charm to this film that keeps us involved, even though the rough edges are ultimately worn down by what seems like an over-developed script. But a strong central performance wins us over... FULL REVIEW >>  

TrollHunter
dir Andre Ovredal; with Otto Jespersen, Glenn Erland Tosterud 10/Nor ****
With its found-footage premise, this film feels like a cross between The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield, but it's actually far more original than either as it playfully delves into Norwegian mythology for a riotous romp into troll territory. The superb camerawork is presented as a team of students chasing down a notorious poacher (Jespersen), who turns out to be part of a top secret government agency that's maintaining the country's troll population and covering up their existence. Extremely inventive special effects and a combination of humour and exhilarating terror combine to keep us thoroughly entertained. And the way it reinterprets everyday events and settings in terms of the troll population is hilariously clever. The only complaint is the set-up: surely it would have been much more effective to present this as an underground student film about a government conspiracy rather than use a tired "this anonymous video footage was discovered" disclaimer.