The Northman

MOM AND DAD ONLY watched this after seeing an interesting trailer. No children saw any part or even heard this movie playing in the other room. This movie is incredibly graphic with intense battle and wound scenes. There are also several depictions or allusions to rape. One scene children are placed in a building to be burned alive. Another what appears to be group sex by the enslaved dancing in the woods. Lots of Viking religious scenes surrounding sacrifice, death, visions, and blood. Several bare butts. I don’t remember any bare breasts but other reviews mentioned them. I don’t think the nudity was the shocking part. There is one graphic scene a slave girl wipes her menstrual blood on a man’s face to deter rape. Another has chopped bodies hung on a house. Several scenes of disembowelment injuries. If you are a lover of historically based movies this is watchable but I felt sick during several scenes and turned away from the screen. The movie will definitely give a better understanding of ancient cultures and how brutal life was for many people. But much artistic license has been taken with the religious aspects and gore overkill. I found parts boring, other parts way way too much, other parts grotesque and finally other parts beautiful. I would keep children and even young budding adults from this movie. Trust me these images will stay in your head. Watch cautiously. I gave two stars because I enjoyed the romance between the main couple and aspects of historical depiction, but I don’t think the gore was justified. Some yes. The Vikings and many groups throughout history were brutal. But this was a lot.

I understand that giving this film 5 stars is a controversial move, but hear me out - I agree with all the other reviews that I have read (a total of one adult review and two kids reviews) on the grotesque nature of this film. It is extraordinarily extreme! 5tar violence, 3star sex, and 2 star drugs and language. The impression I don't want to give is that this makes it a bad film, because it doesn't. The story is solidly set (based on the old legend - Saxo Grammaticus Vita Amlethi - upon which Shakespeare was inspired to write Hamlet) and the violence is convincingly realistic and appropriate to the film. There is no unrealistic and awkward political correctness being forced into the film, and the acting is phenomenal. The incest that has been brought up does not go far (a mother kisses her son on the lips) and no sexual organs (with the exception of the menstrual blood scene) are given clear or up-close detail; Eggers is beautifully careful in a certain post-sex scene to not let any more than a woman's bare bottom and back and a man's bare chest and legs be visible. The men are extremely masculine (interpret that as you will) and women are given appropriate power which, again, doesn't feel forced or unrealistic. Yes, it is a savage revenge story, but it emphasizes a certain need to regain honor, as well as a love and protection of family, something which this culture is forgetting. I will fully admit that you have to be prepared for the extreme content of this movie, but this is one of the most classical and religious films I have seen. I hope this helps.