The Northman -

Have you seen The Northman ? Did you think it was a masterpiece or an over-indulgent mess? Let me know in the comments below. Just don’t mention the horned helmets.

Prince Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård) watches his father, King Aurvandill (Ethan Hawke), get butchered by his uncle, Fjölnir (Claes Bang). He flees, vowing to avenge his father, save his mother (Nicole Kidman), and kill his uncle. Standard stuff, right?

4.5 out of 5 axes to the chest.

This is not a movie you simply watch . This is a movie you survive .

Eggers shoots this thing like a horror film. The long, unbroken takes make you feel every single mud-soaked, blood-spattered step. The Viking rituals—the chanting, the body contortions, the barking like dogs—aren't just weird for the sake of being weird. They feel real . You genuinely believe these people lived in a world where spirits lived in trees and a man could turn into a bear. The Northman

The Northman Isn’t Just a Viking Movie. It’s a 9th-Century Heavy Metal Album You Can Watch.

If you hated the slow-burn ambiguity of The Lighthouse , run away. If you thought Braveheart was too polite, buy a ticket. Have you seen The Northman

(Imagine a moody, fire-lit shot of Alexander Skarsgård covered in mud, holding a sword.)

Robert Eggers, the madman who brought us the suffocating dread of The Witch and the hallucinatory madness of The Lighthouse , has done the unthinkable. He has taken a $90 million budget, a cast full of A-listers, and a story as old as time (literally Hamlet , which borrowed from the same Norse legend), and turned it into a brutal, psychedelic, howling-at-the-moon revenge saga. Just don’t mention the horned helmets