Viking movies!

March 11, 2005 9:23 PM

Are there any good Viking movies? Total cheese OK.
posted by argybarg to media & arts (22 comments total)

The Vikings, with Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis and the eternally great Ernest Borgnine is pretty great. It's sort of ground zero for Viking movies, so far as I'm concerned. There's a nice-looking, cheap MGM DVD of it.
posted by Dr. Wu at 9:39 PM on March 11, 2005

The Vikings:

Viking half-brothers [Kirk] Douglas and [Tony] Curtis fight it out for the throne of Northumbria. Plenty of pillaging, axe-throwing, hearty quaffing of ale, storming of castles, heroic jumping into wolf pits, and manly talk about the glories of entering Valhalla with sword in hand.

Plus, there's a castle at one end of England, and the Vikings cut down a giant tree at the other end of England to use as a battering ram, and they carry it the length of England. Oh, and Tony Curtis gets his hand bitten of when they throw him to the wolves. And Ernest Borgnine plays Kirk Douglas's father.

There's also The 13th Warrior and The Long Ships.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:44 PM on March 11, 2005

On the lighter side, there's Erik the Viking.
posted by blm at 10:02 PM on March 11, 2005

List
posted by peacay at 10:06 PM on March 11, 2005

It's probably hard to find, but Killian's Chronicle is a Viking movie of sorts (well... Vikings and Native Americans). A film teacher of mine directed it shortly after I was in her class. I had done all sorts of research on authentic clothing and boats... very clever of her to assign us her preproduction as homework.
posted by xo at 10:37 PM on March 11, 2005

IMDB keyword search might pull up something special. Who knows?
posted by nitsuj at 10:37 PM on March 11, 2005

The Mystery Science Theater crew (with my pal Mike as grip!) did "Viking Women vs. the Sea Serpent." It's less Vikingy than campy, but you'll laugh till your sides ache.
posted by GaelFC at 11:36 PM on March 11, 2005

My nephew repeatedly returns to The Littlest Viking, but that's geared toward juveniles, obviously. The Viking kid in it reminds me of the mute wolf-boy in The Road Warrior.
posted by dhartung at 11:41 PM on March 11, 2005

Perhaps also worth throwing out there if you like 13th Warrior, is the fact that it is a poor man’s Seven Samurai. I’ve never read the novel/novella Eaters of the Dead that The 13th Warrior was based on, but the film couldn't have tried harder if they had one of the Vikings carry around a No Dachi and give an all knowing wink to the camera. Peace.
posted by Neosamurai85 at 11:46 PM on March 11, 2005

Coming soon.

Aside: The sources for 13th Warrior are more this and this than Seven Samurai. But I won't deny there's more than a whiff of that, too.
posted by bricoleur at 3:08 AM on March 12, 2005

I tried looking for movies with/about Thor, but couldn't find anything worth mentioning.

Aside: (and sorry for taking this off topic argybarg) Totally agree with you bricoleur. I was referring more to the characters, the series of events that take place, and structure in both, than the overall story origin. Another example of this are the films Broken Vessels and Bringing out the Dead... although it’s quite debatable which one you would want to
call "poor." Peace.
posted by Neosamurai85 at 8:02 AM on March 12, 2005

There's The Day The Earth Froze, based on the Kalevala (the Finnish national epic) and parodied on MST3K.
posted by jtron at 9:38 AM on March 12, 2005

Maybe this comes under your definition of "cheese", but I feel I must warn you, The Vikings is a truly dreadful movie, Hollywood schlock of the deepest retread. Imagine a 70-year-old spinster placed in charge of a 12-year-old boy, flailing about trying to guess what he might consider "fun", falling back on the cheesiest standbys in sheer desperation. (All right, we have come to cheese.) Now you can picture this writer and director's idea of what constitutes "entertainment". Life's too short!
posted by Aknaton at 9:51 AM on March 12, 2005

Hrafn Gunnlaugsson's "When the Raven Flies" (sometimes Revenge of the Barbarians) and "Shadow of the Raven" are the most amazing viking films ever made. Very hard-boiled stuff with a lot of Sergio Leone feel to them. The dialogue is terse "Heavy knife!" "Grunt!" That sort of stuff. Lots of revenge drama, blood, and grim bleakness. They put films like the 13th Warrior to shame.
posted by Panfilo at 10:04 AM on March 12, 2005

Here's one movie that has a "Thor" in it - Adventures in Babysitting.

Please, forgive me.
posted by deborah at 11:24 AM on March 12, 2005

Beowulf & Grendel preview. The tagline: Heads will Roll (you asked for cheesy).
posted by kirkaracha at 2:22 PM on March 12, 2005

Another vote for Shadow of the Raven. One of my all time favorite bits of film dialogue:

"Forgive me"

"I will forgive you... when you are dead!"

I cannot for the life of me figure out why this great film remains unavailable on DVD.
posted by Scoo at 6:44 AM on March 13, 2005

Just to add my 2 cents, the Viking Sagas is one of my personal favourites. Nice Icelandic scenery, a sex scene in a natural hot spring (steamy!). It's loosely based on some actual viking sagas, which makes it fun if you know the references.
posted by nomis at 3:18 PM on March 13, 2005

Also, Alfred the Great has some good viking action in it. Marvel as England's greatest king wins back the Danelaw!
posted by nomis at 3:24 PM on March 13, 2005

The Vikings is so bad, it is funny.

My all time favourite Viking flick is Utlangin (The Outlaw), an Icelandic film based on Gisli's Saga. It is very accurate. I have trouble telling the men apart, but a friend of mine swears that beard length is the key.
posted by QIbHom at 10:14 AM on March 14, 2005

For the ultimate in Viking cheese (better even than The Vikings), there is a Veggie Tales Viking thingie. It is hideously inaccurate and has a most annoying theme song. You'll be singing it for days.
posted by QIbHom at 10:18 AM on March 14, 2005

Hrafn also made The White Viking, which isn't as good as the Raven films, but certainly better than The 13th Warrior.
posted by mr.marx at 11:49 AM on March 14, 2005