Anya Taylor-Joy’s R-Rated Fantasy Epic Officially Rises From the Dead on Streaming
Shrishty is a decade-old journalist covering a variety of beats between politics to pop culture, but movies are her first love, which led her to study Film and TV Development at UCLAx. She lives and breathes cinema and sometimes wakes up with the close-up shot of Ryan Gosling's hands playing piano in La La Land, in her head.
She has worked with numerous media outlets, including Burda Media (MSN News), DKODING Media, The Voice of Fashion, Hindustan Times, and more. Throughout her career, she has interviewed an array of people, from CEOs and politicians to filmmakers and farmers.
Sign in to your Collider account
Fans are always eager to succumb to darkness when it’s a Robert Eggers movie. The fan-favorite director is known and loved for delivering incredible period pieces with his frequent on-screen collaborators, which often feature a lot of blood and an emotional core. He always manages to transport his audience to a world that embodies fear and all things horror. From The Witch to Nosferatu, each story benefits from his eerie and atmospheric point of view.
Among such stories is The Northman, a dark Viking Vengeance saga based on an Old Norse folktale, Vita Amlethi. Passed down through word of mouth, the tale was officially recorded circa the year 1200 as part of Saxo Grammaticus' extensive history of Danish rulers and their history. It serves as the inspiration for the Alexander Skarsgård-led feature. Co-written by Eggers with frequent collaborator Sjón, The Northman follows Amleth, a Viking prince, whose father is killed by his power-hungry uncle Fjolnir. With his father dead and his mother captured by his uncle, he flees his home. Two decades later, still running from his past, he grows up to be a berserker Viking warrior who raids Slavic villages. In the course of his life, he meets a seeress who reminds him of his vow to avenge his father, save his mother, and kill Fjolnir. However, the task seems to be more difficult than he had assumed.
The audience related to the themes of the futility of the cycle of revenge. It further leans heavily into authentic Norse mythology, elaborating on fate and spirituality along with a depiction of nihilistic brutality. Loved by critics and audiences, the movie, however, was deemed a box office disappointment, earning $75.8 million worldwide, but in time it has gained cult status among fans. The movie features an ensemble cast including Skarsgård as Amleth, along with Anya Taylor-Joy as Olga of the Birch Forest, Nicole Kidman plays Queen Gudrun, and Ethan Hawke plays King Aurvandill War-Raven. Willem Dafoe plays Heimir the Fool, and Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk is the seeress.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Is Your Biggest Horror Nightmare? Elm Street · Chucky · Scream · The Conjuring
Four horror franchises. Four completely different ways of scaring you. One waits until you fall asleep. One makes sure nobody believes you. One is already in your group of friends. And one is in the house with your family. Answer eight quick questions about how you actually watch horror, and find out which nightmare was built for you.
😴Elm Street(Freddy Krueger)
🧸Chucky(Child's Play)
📞Scream(Ghostface)
🕯️The Conjuring(The Warren Files)
01
Which horror scene makes you cover your eyes? Four classic images. One of them is worse than the others for you.
02
You are home alone and you hear a noise. First thought? Everybody has one. It arrives before you have decided anything.
03
Which horror movie rule would you break first? Everybody thinks they would survive. Almost nobody actually does.
04
Something genuinely frightening happens. What do you do? Not in a film. In your actual living room, tonight.
05
How do you actually watch a horror film? Be honest about this one. Nobody is checking.
06
Somebody offers you serious money. Which do you still refuse? The amount does not matter. There is one on this list you are not doing.
07
Which feeling stays with you a week after the film? Good horror does not stop when the credits do.
08
Something wakes you at 3am. What is the worst possibility? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your nightmare.
The Lights Just Went Out Your Nightmare Is…
Four franchises, four completely different ways of getting underneath your skin. This is the one built out of your particular fear, why it works so well on you, and what it would leave behind.
Elm Street
Your nightmare does not wait outside the door. It waits for you to close your eyes, which you are going to have to do eventually, because nobody has ever won that particular argument.
- Freddy is horror's cruellest idea: a threat that lives in the one place you cannot guard, cannot lock, and cannot avoid forever.
- You are the one who is fine during the film and wide awake at two in the morning. Your own head is where this does its damage.
- These films understood exhaustion as a horror engine. The kids on Elm Street do not lose because they are weak. They lose because they are tired.
- You can lock every door in the house. You still have to sleep.
Chucky
Your nightmare is not really the doll. It is the face of the person you tell, and the way they decide, very kindly, that you have imagined all of it.
- Chucky works precisely because he is absurd. That is the trap: the more accurately you describe him, the less anybody is going to believe you.
- You are the one shouting at the screen because the characters are not listening. You know that feeling from real life too.
- The franchise is at its best when the adults in the room are the real obstacle, and you have met those adults.
- By the time somebody finally believes you, you will have handled most of it on your own.
Scream
Your nightmare has your number, knows your name, and has almost certainly been inside your house before. The worst part is that you already know them.
- Scream is the only one of these where the killer takes the mask off and turns out to be somebody who was at the party.
- You are the person who calls the twist out loud before it lands. You watch people the same way you watch films.
- The franchise made the rules of horror part of the plot, which means the survivors are the ones paying attention. You would be paying attention.
- Everybody is a suspect, including the person who just offered to walk you home.
The Conjuring
Your nightmare is not really about you. It is about the people asleep down the hall, and the feeling that whatever is here is not interested in leaving.
- The Conjuring films are domestic horror. The house, the family, the perfectly ordinary room that quietly stops feeling ordinary.
- Your instinct is to get everybody into one room. Your fear is protective rather than personal, which is rarer than it sounds.
- This is the one franchise where belief is the weapon. The people who come through it are the ones who are not alone and refuse to be.
- Whatever is here did not come for you. It came for the household, and you are the one standing in the hallway.
'The Northman' Resurrects on Streaming
Fans' love is now catapulting the movie to new heights. Four years after its initial debut, The Northman is in third spot on Paramount’s global top 10 list, as per FlixPatrol. It’s standing behind Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender in a list also including titles like World War Z, Night Hunter, Scream 7, and more.
Check out The Northman on Paramount+ and stay tuned to Collider for more such updates.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.