The Teen Wolf for adults is here, and the Viking Wolf review will tell you whether or not it lives up to that hype. This film is a Nordic mythological focusing on werewolves. It stars Liv Mjönes, Elli Rhiannon Müller Osborne, Arthur Hakalahti, Vidar Magnussen, and Sjur Vatne Brean, alongside other cast members. Also known as Vikingulven, the film is directed by Stig Svendsen, who also joins the crew as a screenplay writer along with Espen Aukan.
Netflix’s synopsis of the film reads:
After witnessing a grotesque murder at a party in her new town, a teenager starts having strange visions and bizarre desires.
-Vikingulven Review Does Not Contain Spoilers-
Werewolves have come out to play, and things have been getting tense in Nybo, the town our protagonist lives in. Starting from the beginning, there is a historical sequence shot entirely in silence except for the music. This pays a good homage to the silent film era with the text cards in the middle and only music in the background. While the general execution of this sequence was fantastic, it does not have any impact on the rest of the storyline. If it wasn’t included in the movie, it would not make any difference.
Similarly, the extensive use of establishing shots in this film makes events hard to follow and ruins pacing significantly for audiences. There is too much time spent in giving audiences context instead of weaving them in during dialogues or giving audiences subtle cues about the same. Even after half of the film is over, we are yet to make any actual connection with the lore or werewolves in general.
There is a cheeky reference to the Fenris wolf in one of the classrooms the protagonist was in, but it was conspicuous and also didn’t do much to pay off later in the film. While most of the initial rules of conventional lycanthropy are followed, there are some that they haven’t followed. For example, there is no pack mentality shown in this film because, unlike the American television show that glorifies being a werewolf, this film takes a strictly-against policy when it comes to this mythological creature.
Additionally, there are character inconsistencies and conflicts that haven’t been fleshed out well for a 90-minute film. Since most of the time was spent in the background following a case, there wasn’t enough bandwidth for creators to make something out of the information they had about the wolf. Furthermore, there are instances in the film where the guardians of the child do not care about their whereabouts even when didn’t come home for two days.
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The protagonist literally tries to take a bus out of town (which is a bad idea but can be chalked up to teenage insensibility), and no one in the family either knows or cares about this information. Unsurprisingly, bad things happen to the people on the bus on a full moon day (which was two nights in a row, in this movie). That is when the gears are set in motion in this film. While it starts off with a bang, it fizzles out pretty quickly.
Pacing-wise, this film is a mess, it starts strong, takes a long break in the middle to absolutely reveal no new piece of information except werewolves are killing people, and finally ends with another bang with more people being killed and a difficult choice in the mix. The filmmakers even take away the opportunity for a good interpretive ending when they decide to add an unnecessary epilogue at the end of the film.
Viking Wolf: Final Thoughts
There are many films that focus on the werewolf genre, some that hate and some that root for the creatures. Those would be better options than this film. While it does introduce an interesting visual feature that makes the attacks look oddly realistic, the lack of a better story and plot overshadows the dip in the uncanny valley.
This writer does not recommend this film for people to watch, there are more productive ways to spend 90 minutes watching a film than one that spends too much time building something but not enough time for it to pay off. There may be strong female characters in this movie and completely level the playing field in terms of binary gender representation, but it definitely does not make up for the mediocre storyline and plot.
Vikingulven (Viking Wolf) is available to stream on Netflix. What is your favourite werewolf genre film? Let us know in the comments below.
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