With The Witch and The Lighthouse, writer-director Robert Eggers emerged as a distinctive voice in American independent film. They are surrealistic nightmares set in America of centuries past, in which small groups try surviving encroaching supernatural threats that may well be hallucinations encouraged by harsh surroundings. Their environments are brought to life with an exquisite sense of historical detail and period-accurate language.
In light of this, that Eggers’ third feature, The Northman, is a big studio-backed, sprawling Europe-set epic that can plausibly, and not inaccurately, be marketed as an action movie might raise red flags for those concerned his voice could be lost – budget-wise, it’s closer to a Morbius than The Witch. But praise the Norse gods, for not only is The Northman an exhilarating revenge saga that outdoes most modern blockbusters when it comes to action sequence staging and immersive sound design, but Eggers’ penchant for the strange remains fully intact…
Full review for SciFiNow
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