The Northman (2022) - a horror fantasy adventure?

Robert Eggers is a household name in the horror community with his hit films The VVitch (2015) and Nosferatu (2024) but his two other films are the less popular ones with modern audiences. The Lighthouse (2019) is well-known and is a psychological horror film but the odd one out of the director's filmography is The Northman (2022). This viking adventure movie is very different from the others Egger's has crafted in his masterful brain but, I think it fits rather well into the grand scheme of Egger's horror mastery.

Robert Egger's work is masterful and astonishing to say the least so once I was hooked on Nosferatu and The VVitch I was going down the rabbit hole of his work and its just incredible! When I saw the Northman, the vibe of the poster and the summary of the film felt very much like the rest of his films. Robert Eggers typically casts similar or the same folks in his films like Ralph Ineson who is absolutely amazing is everything he does is in all of Robert Egger's films to date and Willem Dafoe who's in 3 out of 4 of Egger's films. The Northman is no different with both actors playing small roles in the cast as well as Anya Taylor-Joy who previously starred in The VVitch. This film stars Alexander Skarsgard (Father is Stellan and brother is Bill Skarsgard) and he's a force in this film. The Skarsgard family are all incredible actors so I wasn't expecting different from Alexander but holy crap this guy is a menace in this film about a Viking prince taking back his throne and saving his mother from his uncle's grasp. This story is very loosely based on Hamlet by Shakespeare and Hamlet is my favorite Shakespeare piece so I'm a sucker for a Hamlet story.

The reason why I think this story should be more widely considered a horror/fantasy/adventure film is because this is a revenge film. This film tackles ideas of death, revenge, generational trauma and pressure, slavery and unjust behavior towards fellow man, and way more. The dark visuals and gore also add to that horror feeling as we often see open wounds and blood. The violence is also quite alarming for the typical run of the mill fantasy adventure story. There's a point where Prince Almeth (Alexander skarsgard) is fighting his uncle on an active volcano and its pretty sick but we see open wounds, tribal markings, we hear ancient chants calling on Almeth's ancestors and its a very overwhelming but powerful fight to watch with lava spewing in the background behind the action. One of the first scenes is actually a bit unsettling for me to watch as it just feels very intense and I can feel the intensity that a young Almeth feels when partaking in a ritual with his father and Willem Dafoe ( I can't recall his characters name unfortunately) and it's a really intense scene to watch and with the cultural context and what comes after it, this scene is also probably the most important part of the film too as this is when Almeth feels like he has to become a man. His mother's then "kidnapped" and forced to marry Almeth's uncle seemingly against her will (Even though SPOILER: We know she conspired against Almeth's father)

I want to talk about Almeth's mother Gudrun played by Nicole Kidman. First, I want to say that I'm not a big Nicole Kidman fan and I think she often plays the same character in different films but that's my own opinion. Seeing her in the first 10 seconds of this film took me out of it as she has what's known as iPhone face which takes me out of the time period almost instantly. She's fine in this film but not a big fan of her's period. Her character though, is insanely interesting to me. It's revealed later on in the film that she conspired against Almeth's father, the king at the time, and hated him thusly hating Almeth. She was a former slave and she shows us her brand on her chest that's the mark of a slave and she talks about how she was forced to marry the king and forced to have a child that she didn't want which is Almeth and so she begged the king's brother to kill the king as well as her own child to free her from that trauma. So all of the events and deaths in this film are because of Gudrun and her past. This is a really heavy topic if you think about it and basically describes in brief the horrors of not having bodily autonomy, no say in your marriage, being a slave and not having feelings validated healthily. This character alone, made the story so much more interesting but I wish they cast someone else instead of Nicole Kidman.

Another character I want to talk about is Anya Taylor-Joy's Olga of the Birchpost. She's an interesting character but not really necessary to the story. I love her but I also feel like the story didn't need her in order to be the story it is. She's kind of like your typical spiritual/Crystal girl that you'd know around town where she's always chanting spells and hymns to comfort other slaves or herself, she works with earth magic and prays to someone other than Odin and that's kind of her in a nutshell. She also is mistaken for a Slavic native because of her hair. Otherwise she kind of bonds with Almeth quickly and kind of randomly to where it doesn't make too much sense in all honesty. I love this character and she lit up the screen but nothing crazy important happens for her until her last scene where she reveals she's carrying Almeth's children and then he decides to go back to Iceland to kill his uncle instead of going with Olga and caring for their future children. She screams, chants something and the wind starts to whip around her and then she's gone from the story until we see a weird flash forward with Olga holding the kids but its also simultaneous with the fight that's going on so I'm not sure when or how that works but it does.

This film is really great but really long. I'll admit, I tend to enjoy the longer films but this one often feels slow and you can really feel that 2 hrs and 17 min runtime. It's not a bad watch and I really recommend this film, but it does require a bit of a crazy attention span and dedication. This film visually, is gorgeous and the costumes, the cultural elements, the details are all so incredibly presented in a horrific story of revenge and dehumanization. This is the horror film about mankind and how revenge can be incredibly deadly.