Blood of Beasts

The ambition was there but not carried out well. Wigs, modern dresses, and bad acting keep this from being an endearing tale though it doesn't prevent it from being watchable. What really weighs it down is the highly overdone trope of spirited princess being more courageous and brave than warriors, even calling them cowardly in righteous indignation. Many comments are made about not being a son, not being able to do what men do, but even in her dying breath, she will obey the laws of their people when Agnar challenges Sven for her hand. Historically, such gender expectancy was rare when seemingly pushed by men, as patriarchal systems put structure and roles on men, not women, and women of royalty pushed feminine culture with such expectancies for the women of their societies, more than men did, even having girls yearning to be able to marry up and be honored above others. This actually hasn't changed. The choice of Jane March as Freya, to world a sword and battle a beast, also made this less believable because she can barely lift a sword in real life with her frailty.

I happened upon this rare piece of cinematic art whilst looking for Batman Begins at Blockbuster. Batman was out and this was there. Which was unfortunate. From the opening scene where viking teenagers are swimming and we see that apparently the producers forgot ITS COLD in Norse lands. Also every one is young and pretty. It felt very much like watching an episode of Xena. I mean lets be honest this is a straight to video release for a reason. The acting is very bad. Of course the material wasn't any help at all. I will say that the production design team did a very good job. I am sure this was a very low budget film but they did a good job. The story line works to a certain degree. I mean it is beauty and the Beast retold. If your looking for Vicking movies I would stick with the 13th Warrior.

We rented this movie for fun, and what a blast it was! The cover looks like Lord of the Rings, which is why it was rented. The acting was alright, some were worse than others. But that's to be expected in a movie like this. The sets were good, for the budget they were on. Costumes were not completely historically accurate, but they were alright. Sven's fringe braid thing was fugly, and I wanted to cut it off. The wigs though...the best damn thing in this movie. Who designed them I don't know, but damn, they were hideous. Fugly, fugly, fugly! Overall it's an okay movie, um maybe play a drinking game while you're watching so that it seems better than it really is? Though if you have a rule where you take a drink every time a bad wig is on the screen, you may die.

A Viking-era retelling of the Beauty and the Beast storyline, with the pretty Jane March (STALKER) playing a character about 20 years younger than the actress is. This was retitled BLOOD OF THE VIKINGS in a bid to draw in a new audience, and I'm glad I wasn't misled by that new title.

In any case, this is rubbish. It's pantomime-level stuff with production values weaker than an average episode of XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS. The story sees a group of loyal Vikings taking a voyage abroad, where the king is killed and a woman's lover lost. Later they travel again, where they find a brutal monster capable of killing the most seasoned warriors. Could it be the woman's lover, trapped in a sinister curse?

Needless to say this is all complete nonsense, loaded with anachronisms and an almost entire lack of understanding of the era in which the story is set. It works best as a fantasy, but even then it's poor stuff indeed, with some of the most horrid action choreography you'll see. The hair extensions have to be seen to be believed. March, the most experienced actress in it, gives a poor performance equalled by the miscast Justin Whalin, who once starred in THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN but now has no career.

Okay...truthfully, I knew this movie would not be a cinematic masterpiece. I knew it would be some low-budget, straight-to-video Lord of the Rings knock off. It was low-budget and it was straight-to-video. However, it wasn't a LOTR knockoff...which is unfortunate. The story was Beauty and the Beast all over again...only it was set it the days of the Vikings. This is a problem because the characters didn't act like Vikings, nor did they dress like Vikings. For God's sake they wear all wearing chain mail...CHAIN MAIL!!! Vikings were only a couple of centuries BEFORE chain mail. If this story had taken place on an imaginary world with imaginary tribes and people and such, it would have been much better. However, setting it in Viking era did nothing but fill the movie with historical inaccuracies.

Inaccuracies aside, let's talk hair. Most of the actor were wearing wigs and it was obvious. There was one in particular...I remember him vividly. He was only in the movie for a couple of seconds. You say him in the background on the boat. He had no lines and no name that was mentioned. He was obviously just an extra. His job was to just blend in. Unfortunately, he didn't. Why?? Because he was wearing this ridiculous 1980's Britney Fox wig. This thing was WAY too big for the actor's head. It was just so terrible. All of the actors had bad wigs, but this one was the worst. Also, William Gregory Lee had hair extensions, but, apparently, the budget wasn't big enough for him to get a full head of them, so the producers just gave him a few. You could see where they were attached to his head and...it was awful. Also, what the heck was up with that little twig over his forehead. That thing got on my nerves.

The acting was, by no means, great. It was like watching a high school play or an after school special (for those of you old enough to actually remember after school specials). Anything with Justin Whalin is destined to be crap...let me present Exhibit A: Dungeons & Dragons, Child's Play 3, Lois and Clark...you get the idea. However, he wasn't the worst actor...in fact, he did well. William Gregory Lee got on my nerves. Obviously, he wasn't really all that tough, because he seemed to be having trouble acting tough. Jane March was okay, but not great. David Dukas, who played the Beast/Agnar, was probably the best, but only whilst playing the Beast. He struggled through the three minutes that he played Agnar. Very strange. The other actors were nothing short of mildly mediocre.

The SFX in this movie were...well...almost completely absent. The Beast was a guy in a prosthetic suit. And though it was a pretty cool idea, it really just looked like a guy in a bear skin rug. Also, the fires never looked real. Apparently, it was cheaper to make fake fire rather than actually set stuff on fire for real. The flames looked like those TV fireplace things and the smoke...well...there are no words to describe how bad the smoke looked. In the film's defense, though, this was a low-budget movie. That is something that must be taken into consideration. The weapons were obviously fake. They looked like wooden weapons that were spray-painted to look like metal only the producers hired some one-eyed imbreed from a Mississippi body shop to paint them.

In the end. This film was low-budget and watching it gave constant reminders of this fact. However, the low budget wasn't the real problem. The real problem was that the producers tried to pass it off as a Viking tale. They should have just gone ahead and made it a cheap knock-off of LOTR. It would have actually been a better film. 3/10.