Blood of Beasts

Blood of Beasts Although ultimately a little silly (a tragic fact even big-budget fantasy like Lord of the Rings can't avoid), I found this film oddly honest. The ending reminded me just a little of Beau Geste, and the acting stood up fairly well, for the most part, under admittedly casual scrutiny.

I loved the crude sets. I think somebody had a little too much fun with the "dead and dying" motif. A few anachronisms, or at least, culture-crossing was visible. I'm not sure what kind of devil Norse mythology contains, but I'm sure it isn't anything like the one mentioned in the script, which brings me to this film's ultimate flaw: the writing.

The lines written here, though earnestly delivered, were complete and utter rubbish. The film didn't even gesture towards the poetic, leaving all that up to camera work and directing. If they had gestured toward the poetic I'm sure I'd just have laughed, but as it is, the writing I just heard mucked about at "banal" and barely raised itself to its elbows in time to gasp out another inanity and then die, choking on vacuousness.

Anyway, the film has too much blood for a sensitive audience, too much cheese for a discriminating one, and too much error for the culture nerd. I'm not sure who comprised their target audience, but I think they painted the little red circles just a little too small. Maybe they're just standing too far away. Anyway, I'm pretty sure they missed, but I'm not near that target audience either, so maybe it's not as bad as I think.

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