Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America (2007) User Reviews

Misses the mark

[lovecraft231 · 3/10 · 21 August 2009]

One guy I know of said it was one of the worst movies he's seen this year. I don't think it is, but it's still bad. Basically, two Vikings find themselves stranded in North America in 1007, there's a lot of beautiful scenery, little dialog, a soundtrack that borders of great (Judas Priest! Brian Eno! Popul Vuh! Queens of the Stone Age! Morbid Angel!) and bad (Prison era Burzum), we see one of the characters defaecate in graphic detail, and we get lot's of silence interrupted by Ambient music, particularly Burzum's "Tomhet" (one of his pre-prison works, so it actually works.)

I can see what the director was aiming for (kind of an "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" for Black Metal fans), but it's just so ponderous, dull and uneventful that it becomes a chore to sit through. There are several themes (particularly Pagan Religion vs. the rise of Christianity) that are touched upon, but left mostly unexplored. Plus, the whole thing lacks confidence-again, you get a feeling of what the director is aiming for, but the whole thing is just so boring.

On the plus side, at least it has a first in cinema: A Viking head banging while the music of Dimmu Borgir serves as a soundtrack. Plus, it's better than "Last Days."

Severed Thoughts

[pianys · 5/10 · 29 August 2009]

As a huge fan of viking stories, I watched Severed Ways with hopeful eyes, but it seems that no-one but Hrafn Gunnlaugsson is ever going to get close to capturing anything that is close to what those days might have been like. The basic setup for the story is fine, but the lack of a script becomes a problem right away. Being from Sweden I was very annoyed with the few speaking parts - the director has stolen dialogue/sound from what seems to be an old Bergman film, and put subtitles to it that has nothing to do with what is spoken. That was just weird. I doubt that it is even legal. Chopping down trees right, left and center in the woods seems illegal as well, not to mention the killing of the chicken. This film obviously had no budget, so I doubt that Tony Stone had permits to do that. Burning down a church to the tunes of Burzum was a kick in the nuts to authority as well, as Varg Vikernes is in prison for doing just that. And still I kind of like this film - anybody can go out and capture what they want with a digital video camera, go nuts and produce something that is not that bad. I give kudos for effort - and the poop scene had me gagging for days;)

Accuracy is lacking

[idaho_mtnman · 3/10 · 19 October 2009]

Cinematography was great. Breathtaking locations. Costuming was very good on all characters. However none of the language spoken matched the actors lip movements. Was it filmed in Greek then dubbed in Norse? The plot was weak but very much on the right track. There are several directions this tale could have gone rather than the random rambling direction it went. They could have told a very interesting story; parts were awesome, most was boring. The language used in the subtitles was way off. The Noesemen would not have said the fish was "killer". Nor would they say they would be "toast" if the Indians caught them. Also the "F word" did not come into use, at all, until during the late 1800's. And what was the poop scene all about? That was completely thrown in for shock value as it had no other purpose. The head banging Viking during the chapter change could have been cool, instead it just seemed out of place. The whole movie might have been more believable if the Noesemen had carried surf boards and called each other Bro or Dude.

maybe the worst "visual poem" in recent memory

[Quinoa1984 · 1/10 · 21 April 2009]

You remember the Blair Witch Project, where the three student filmmakers go out into the woods to shoot a movie only to lose their way and document the footage all along the way and then the footage is discovered some time later? Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America is like what might have happened if a crew- far more inept and high-minded with their intentions- went into the woods to shoot a Viking movie... and they got out all fine and somehow got their piece of drek released. It's also an earnest, poetic tome to Odin! Oh, what joy, we don't get many of those in the independent film world. Even if you're a hardcore Odinist this film won't make you wonder much why.

This is a truly horrific spectacle of a first-time director taking the tools of film-making- if only the most grubby and cheap digital ones at his disposal- and using it to masturbate in the woods with his two Viking actors (one of them himself of course) and pretty much no real script. According to the press notes Tony Stone "had a bunch of ideas... definitely picked the most insane one". If this was said by David Lynch or Werner Herzog (the latter cited as an unfortunate influence by Stone) it might sound intriguing. In this case it's revealed in the worst possible ways. Severed Ways is a disaster on fronts of storytelling (or lack thereof), "acting", cinematography, editing, music, and general atmosphere. That it's also boring is heavy-duty icing.

Oh and speaking of story it is so loose a term to use that you'll be completely befuddled to find it, or care enough to: it's the 1100 and two Vikings (Stone and Tedesco, don't ask who is who) are the last ones left after a battle on the sea and are washed ashore on the North American continent, and so they go exploring or trying to find possible other Vikings to do Viking things like... chopping down trees, killing animals and sitting and grunting by fires, which is what the two of them do for the most part of the running time. There's also two monks that appear at one point (the senseless killing of two chickens, done as if for a do-it-yourself guide, takes up a lot of the time midway through), a couple of Indians here and there, oh, and the film is broken up into CHAPTERS: Chapter 1: Stranded, Chapter 2: Camp, Chapter 5: Encounters, Chapter 4's introduction isn't even shown but the "END OF CHAPTER 4" title card pops up (!) as if it will make things any clearer.

Fact is, there is no real clear story; compared to this Herzog's Aguirre is Law & Order. But the lack of a solid structure could be forgiven if at least the director gave us some good things to look at or characters to care about. Not only is there neither, but it is almost as though the filmmaker goes out of his way to make things whiplash about with this digital camera (at best, for a couple of scenes, we get a couple of decent shots ala travelogue out of Vermont, where the film was shot) in big chase or action scenes (what few there are), or else Stone becomes entranced by a flickering fire or on lingering on a long shot on the two Vikings for absolutely no artistic reason whatsoever except to have pointless and pretentious lingering punctuated by the occasional random, awkward image of a frog or spider.

That the lighting is also done to wretched extremes (one may be blinded from time to time by the lack of an actual filter to not make the sun as blinding as in real life) is another issue altogether. Compacting these ugly images and usage of the digital lens is the editing by Stone himself which becomes so jittery, or on the flipside nonexistent, that it gives a very strong argument why a director should not sit alone for four months and edit like this case. There is also the issue of acting, which is nil since the cinematography and editing assists in taking away anything these two guys have to offer- not to mention dubbing (that's right, dubbing) of Nordic or Swedish dialog or whatever that sounds ripped off of 1950s newsreels whenever the characters aren't getting their Quest for Fire on. Lastly, there's the music, which ranges from at best tolerable (Queens of the Stone Age) to ear-bleeding (Dimmu Borgir to name one, but they all blend together after a while).

Bottom line, this is a hodge-podge, a low-budget train-wreck that could be fun to mock- maybe someone will be creative and do a well-deserved Mystery Science Theater 3000 on it- if it weren't so mind-numbingly boring. That may be, as Frank Capra once noted, the ultimate crime of the film: if Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America had at least entertained in its demented and awful poetry like Apocaypto it could be laughable. It is, ultimately, a practically unequivocal waste of time right now in movies.

Takes "Awful" to a new level

[virtualstranger · 1/10 · 14 August 2008]

I was invited to a press screening of this film near the end of this summer' LA Film Festival (although it was not part of that event). There really aren't enough to describe how bad it is. Overall it looks and sounds like a low-budget, made-for-television movie from the early 1980's, although even saying that is giving this film too much credit. During the screening several viewers walked out. I would've joined them if sitting through it wasn't part of my job. For the last half hour of the movie I was biting my tongue to keep from hurling Mystery Science Theater-style comments at the screen.

There's barely two pages of story stretched tissue-thin over almost two hours (the synopsis posted here lists about 3/4 of the plot points). The dialogue is minimal, and often translated in subtitles into a slang-filled, modern English. The long,long silences make the film drag even more. The camera work is nothing but constant "artistic" lens flares. The filmmakers have no concept of pacing or screen direction. Tone-wise, the director can't figure out if he's making a historical drama or a rock-and-roll barbarian adventure.

What this film lacked, it seems, was an objective opinion. I would guess no one was willing to tell writer-director-lead actor-producer-editor-production designer Tony Stone that some of his ideas just weren't that good, and it snowballed from there. Alas, as a result the only thing this film is useful for is to show people what not to do when making a movie. For anything else, it's just unwatchable.

I cannot believe a real studio is distributing this.

[rick-463 · 2/10 · 24 January 2009]

EDIT/ADDITION - My review has been up for a couple of months, and 0 out of 4 people found it helpful, and the other negative reviews of this film are rated similarly. I don't know if it's the filmmakers, their friends and family, or staff at Magnet/Magnolia, but seriously - get a life. Whether a review is helpful or not should be based on how well it's written or what criteria the writer used to judge a film - not whether or not your brother made the movie and/or you disagree with the reviewers opinion. If the reasons why I judged the film were bad, sure, say it's unhelpful, but this movie was poorly made, and that's not the fault of either myself or the other people who gave this amateurish dreck bad reviews. I read and appreciate reviews that disagree with my taste all the time, but I would only rate opinions as unhelpful if they were based on bad judgment (like giving "A Trip To The Moon" a bad review because the 100 year old special effects weren't as cool as "Transformers"; which totally takes the film out of its context and is just plain retarded), not if they were simply expressing a different taste than mine.

You can rate our reviews as being unhelpful, but it won't get your film judged any better once people actually see it.

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ORIGINAL REVIEW

I had to see this for work at a film market and I almost died when I heard that Magnolia picked this up to release through their "Magnet" sub-label. You went from THE HOST and GONZO to this? Seriously?

This was like watching videos about vikings made for youtube or public access TV that some friends did over a weekend using a low quality home video camera, $100 and the kind of stuff only MacGyver could make something useful from (e.g. twigs, string, tape, etc). Now if that description sounds good to you, especially if you are into super cheesy "so bad it's good" films - let me tell you, it would sound good to me too but this is not in that category. It is not cheesy or fun, I think it is supposed to be serious and it is just so bad that it is, well, bad. This isn't crazy or super talented people make a cheap film, this is boring as hell people make a cheap film.

***SPOILER ALERT*** But not that much of a spoiler because that would imply something of merit actually happens during the film.

POV/Blair Witch-style cameras follow two vikings as they trudge through the woods. Every once in a while, something happens - first, after walking for awhile, a guy stops to take a dump in the bushes. The beauty of this "groundbreaking" scene is that in this movie you actually see it come out. I am not kidding - full backside shot of the poop chute in action, YUCK! There is a reason other films don't do that, mainly because most sane people don't want to see it. This is followed by another boring ten minutes of walking, then they kill and eat a chicken. Then another boring 10 minutes, they beat up a Christian missionary (as any good Viking should) and burn his stuff while Black Metal plays, which was the only sort of amusing thing I saw. Or maybe they burned up the monks stuff first and then ate the chicken, I can't recall. Does it matter? No, not really. And so on and so forth.

***END NOT MUCH OF A SPOILER ALERT***

I don't know if the people on here who are rating this a 10 saw a new cut where they added in a bunch of super awesome stuff, because what we all saw was boring and bad. Most of the viewers at the screening walked out, except for me and these super rowdy German guys I ended up getting drunk with. And I am stunned by the few good reviews from credible sources (LA Weekly, Variety) I have seen for this film, comparing it to Herzog and Dreyer, because I seriously saw very little of redeeming value, let alone film making of that sort of caliber.

Listen, I am not one of these armchair Internet critics who just like ripping stuff apart, I am very even handed review-wise. Also, I watch tons of film and my tastes range from super highbrow to super low budget schlock, so it's not that I am "above" this type of film due to budget or turned off by it's non-existent pace. But really, this is just terrible. Unless you really just want to see something so off the wall in it's badness that you will forgive that fact that it has no redeeming value whatsoever other than just being as horrible as a film can be - skip this film. It really is this bad.

If you want to see micro budget done right, try any film from The Stunt People (e.g. CONTOUR or UNDERCUT) or the twisted horror film POP SKULL. If you want to see an awesome viking movie, try OUTLANDER, one of the BEOWULF films, a dozen Scandanavian films or even the spam sketch from MONTY PYTHON. Even PATHFINDER was 10 times better than this.

I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 because of the Black Metal Viking destruction moment was pretty amusing.

do not watch this

[nitrem · 1/10 · 15 October 2008]

This has to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen!

Its about 2 northmen scouts, who are left behind by their fellows and try to make their way through the country to find a ship.

In no way I can leave any positive comments, because from the beginning on the camera made my eyes go blind. Probably the idea was the film to look like "Blairwitch Project" or "Cloverfield", but not even that was achieved! As already posted above, the viewer will go blind sometimes, because of absolutely useless playing around with lens-flares. The script will have about 2-3 pages and thats what you really notice, while watching this piece of crap.

Only watch this movie, if you like to see how one of the northmen leaves his fudge in the forest (you actually see it coming out!!!) or how a chicken is beheaded and the guts are torn out.

The only point this "movie" gets is because of the nice landscape you might see, if the camera isn't shaking or out of focus!

A total waste of time!

no guns, no germs, only steel

[harryhairwire · 2 March 2009]

There obviously were some major exploratory discoveries unrecorded in history that no human being alive today knows about. This movie depicts one of them and the subtitle gives it its significance. The two lost Vikings represent two elements that have created the American character, the heathen and the Christian, both so western in character. Here we see the first dude on our soil. We graphically see the most important defecation in the history of North America, the first human waste to touch and fertilize its soil and perhaps ultimately to make it toxic. The defecation becomes a ritual act. If guns, germs and steel conquered the North American wilderness, here we have only steel and no long term conquest; The sound of steel on wood is an underlying rhythm in the film. And it is very prescient that some of the chopping is mindless. The sound of the axes is woven into the incredible sound track. The film is very much about music. It is the exquisite lyrical blending of music and image that make this movie totally mesmerizing. Very little dialogue is needed and very little is supplied. This movie is not for film illiterates who think that the best of the best of the Dogma films is just unsteady camera work. This film will polarize the audience and separate the mindful from the mindless. The mindful being those who will love this genre creating movie.

Uninspiring waste of time...

[berencamlost · 1/10 · 8 August 2009]

I just saw this movie... It appears to be dubbed (to Swedish) and the subtitles did not match anything they said. Also, the acting isn't that good - and the story progresses rather slowly. The highlight of the entire movie was watching one of the vikings defecate. If you can call that a highlight...

Steer clear of this film. It's nothing more than a waste of your time. No historic facts what so ever..

I didn't hear any Greenlandic or old Norse, only Swedish. Don't know if the version I saw was deliberately destroyed by evil saboteurs, or if it was intended to be this flawed.

The movie also contained a lot of Norwegian Black Metal (Dimmu Borgir, Burzum, etc.) - that in itself is cool, but combined with headbanging vikings it's just annoying.

daffy but strangely compelling work

[Buddy-51 · 6/10 · 15 August 2009]

As I was saying just the other day, you simply don't see enough good, old-fashioned Viking dramas these days, do you? Then, lo and behold, what should appear but "Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America" to help fill the void and make us all wiser as to just how brutal and savage life could be at the turn of the last millennium (the movie is set in 1007 A.D.). However, let it be noted for the action fans in the audience that "Severed Ways" is, if anything, an "art" Nordic drama, a documentary-style, largely wordless cross between "Quest for Fire" and "The New World" - with even a bit of "The Blair Witch Project" thrown in for good measure (the palsied camera-work is what reminds us most of that film).

Orn and Volnard (don't ask me which is which) are two young Norsemen who have embarked on an expedition to North America with other members of their tribe. When their compatriots are killed in a battle with some natives called Skraelings, the two strapping lads flee to the forest where they hide out, search for food, build a makeshift shelter and fight off packs of ravenous animals. They also encounter a couple of Christian monks and more of those dreaded Skraelings. Heck, there's even a doe-eyed squaw named Abenaki who drugs and kidnaps one of the boys and makes passionate love to him in her thatched wigwam.

I must admit I kind of admire the sheer lunacy of producer/writer/director/editor Tony Stone's vision (he also plays Ork, which makes him pretty much a one-man show on this film). After all, it isn't often one comes across a movie set in the 11th Century that also features a highly eclectic and utterly anachronistic musical soundtrack ranging in style from pseudo-headbanger to ersatz-Rachmaninoff to quasi-Enya to flat-out monster truck rally commercial. Just for the record, however, the actual recording artists include Popul Vuh, Dimmu Borger, Judas Priest, and Burzum, among others. Actually, the score is probably the single most intriguing aspect of the movie.

I'm not sure of the wisdom of having these ancient warriors speaking in subtitled modern slang ("This fish is killer," "We're toast if we stay here," etc.), since it encourages us to giggle right at the moments when we should be taking the story most seriously.

Nevertheless, the movie does earn itself some points for its complete lack of sentimentality as well as for its refusal to shy away from depicting the harsh, brutal realities of life at that time (one does wonder, though, just how many trees and animals may have been hurt in the making of this film). Yet, even here Stone goes too far at points. Stark realism is one thing, but watching an actor literally emptying his bowels in full view of the camera is quite another. Still, I guess that's one way of ensuring for yourself and your work a permanent place of record in the annals of motion picture history.

"Severed Ways" may be easy to poke fun at, but it's so utterly out-there and loopy - and so doggedly sincere in that loopiness - that you simply can't help but be drawn into it. In all honesty, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about "Severed Ways," but I am sure that I will never forget it.

horribly bad

[csae8060 · 1/10 · 26 October 2008]

It is really hard to put it like this, because I think literally EVERY movie has at least some aspects that make it watchable in a way. As I am really into films, I normally just need to watch about 20 minutes of any crap, and my curiosity makes me want to watch the whole thing (trust me I have seen a considerable amount of serious bulls***). It amazed me all the more however, that the rule did not apply this time. Apart from the ridiculous, awkward and most of all pathetic attempt of creating a mixture between a disturbingly bad "pseudo-historic adventure" and even worse "viking hack-and-slay" film, the movie is simply unbelievingly boring. And let me tell you: You can't even imagine HOW boring - I am being serious...! In order to twist the knife, the movie also attempts to create a melancholic atmosphere, that should maybe leave you in a pensive mood - it fails again however - which only contributes to the viewers (already great) contempt and anger for the movie. The first 30 minutes you just can't believe it - after that you continually just get more and more fed up. PLEASE: LEAVE IT WHERE IT IS!

Something different

[nilito212 · 8/10 · 15 August 2009]

I saw Severed Ways in theater a couple of weeks ago and haven't been able to get it out of my mind since. Of course it has it's flaws but keep in mind this was the director's (Stone) first feature and an extremely ambitious one at that.

I'm so sick of seeing the same old independent garbage. Boy loves girl. Girl doesn't love boy but she loves Belle and Sebastion. Somebody makes a phone call on the hamburger phone to someone else who is a dying and pregnant and its official everyone loves Zooey Deschanel. Severed Ways is a Viking period piece made by a crew of about 8 people. How's that even possible. The soundtrack has Norwegian Black Metal and Judas Priest. Amazing!

I thought the use of low def digital video wouldn't work for a period piece but the way it allowed the film to be shot with little to no lighting made it feel more authentic. The cinematography was beautiful even though sometimes the high shutter speed made it a little hard on the eyes.

All in all Severed Ways is a step in the right direction for independent cinema. It's something new and different and I appreciate that. I know people will have trouble with pacing of the film but it's obvious that its deliberate and an attempt to show how two men would try to live off of a land they are not accustomed to. Sometimes the film took a comedic turn which took me out of the film a bit but it would eventually pull me back in.

I'm excited to see what's next for these extremely independent young filmmakers.

haunting tale

[nekengren-2 · 7/10 · 23 October 2011]

Well I wouldn't be nearly as brutal as some of the reviewers. I actually ended up liking this movie quite a bit. I didn't bail out on the initial shaky cam beach scene once I started recognizing this as an art statement more than anything. The movie is quite haunting if you allow yourself to feel what these poor lost vikings might have really felt in such a distant forlorn place. The sense of desolation is something I empathize with (I'm a big Alaska tourist fan) and the medieval history is also something I'm quite fond of. So yes, maybe your average movie goer is probably going to quickly bail out on the viewing. For me, the movie is quite a different experience, shows brutally honest depictions of some natural acts, and ends on a complete note of frustration as it should. I felt the writer/director had a complete sense of the psychology of this historical experience that I enjoyed watching.

The Film that Takes a Crap on the Independent Scene

[patrick-boggs · 1/10 · 3 August 2009]

I have to say that I can't believe that this film received the positive reviews. I would never trust anyone about a movie again who would give this more than two stars. I believe that the good reviews must have come from those who had some stake in the film.

This movie wasn't even bad enough to be good. The look of the film seemed to be created by lining up the worst DV cameras in the world and shooting every scene with a different one, while not worrying about setting them up. The entire visual experience is ruined by this. Nothing flows. Every type of camera effect looks like an afterthought.

Things need to happen in a movie to make a viewer want to watch. And the characters should be at least remotely interesting. This was like watching some "Day in the life" cam show-only interesting to those who have no life themselves, and/or have a scatological perversion. Seriously, how did showing a person evacuating their bowels further the story or give us insight into the character? Yeah, I know that happens. I read about it in the toddler book, "Everybody Poops."

I think the thing that makes me so angry about this film is that it really stinks up the independent movie scene. I have defended the indy movie scene to many people that believe true indy movies are synonymous with crap. This one won't help.

I gave this movie one star because I couldn't select 0. The director of this film seriously needs to think about finding a different line of work. I do wonder who actually finances junk like this. In closing, if you didn't get this from the review, I feel this movie had no redeeming value and wish I didn't have to look upon the box at the video store. I don't mean for this review to sound spiteful or hateful but I feel truly feel it is a slap in the face to all those people who are struggling to get out a genuine, thought provoking piece of entertainment.

What the f?

[bkrudwig · 1/10 · 25 August 2009]

I've seen better home videos that parents took of their children singing off key. For the love of Pete, why do I need to see someone take a poo? Really!!!! Each scene seemed to drag on endlessly without giving the viewers anything to look forward to. I get it they were chopping down trees. If someone would just give them a chainsaw... I hope the actors didn't plan on moving on with their careers. After shooting something like this they will never be able to be apart of anything big. How this ever made its way into movie stores is beyond me. Well I can honestly say if I ever had the chance to produce a movie Tony Stone is NOT going to be the person I choose to direct or write it. Awful quality, terrible story.

Planet Viking 9 From outer space.

[bergelmer-bergqvist · 1/10 · 14 August 2009]

First of all, some really good points have been made about the directing and whatnot. The movie stinks as bad as his poop did in the pointless shitting scene. Yes, vikings made poopie like everyone else.

Did you ever stop to think about the Swedish "dialogue" in the movie?. First of all it is directly taken from Det Sjunde Inseglet by Ingmar Bergman (lawsuit?) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050976/ and it is no way connected to the story nor the subtitles (which are also not connected t the "story"). For example after he sees the Indian woman for the first time he comes back screaming "Skraeling" but in Swedish he is screaming "HÅLL KÄFTEN" which means "shut the f**k up!". The other man replies "Where are they?" but in Swedish he is asking his friend simply "Har du ont i magen?" which means "Do you have a tummy ache?". Does this make any sense? Many scenes filmed through the eye of the Indian woman (Atleast it could have been her, it is all so confusing) is filmed through what appears to be binoculars. This looks as stupid as it sounds, especially when you can see the damn binoculars moving infront of the camera.

Someone said that it was good that the movie did not have a lot of dialogue. Both yes and no. The advantages of having dialogue is that people actually get a chance to understand what is going on with the characters and the story. For example, did Volnard turn Christian? Did he like the foot massage? Why was he sad, confused, angry, constipated, jealous, bored, tired, wondering why he did the movie or any other emotion that his ONE facial expression tried to express.

What really amazed me about this movie is that it is so frustrating and funny to watch that you have to see it all. Just to see if it will make sense in the end (don't worry, it doesn't. Not in the least).

Whether you like it or not, it is a great conversation piece. Watch it with a friend who has some knowledge (unlike the director) of movies and how to make them. Diss it like in Mystery Science Theater 3000, you will have the time of your life.

And NO the soundtrack was NOT amazing, it was stupid and made no sense whatsoever. However the nature shots were beautiful but almost always pointless.

This is a rape of viking culture and an affront to movie making. It simply leaves you confused and outraged. You want to talk to Tony Stone and ask just two questions; HOW? and WHY?.

The chapters in this book need not every be repeated!

[hghstick · 1/10 · 8 September 2009]

I had high hopes for this film. I love indie, off the wall, quirky movies...but this was terrible. After 10 minutes I thought I was watching a film made by first year students. I had to turn it off half way through it was so bad.

I'm not sure how watching a guy taking a crap in the woods (yes, you see feces being expelled from his anus), or setting a dog on fire (the dog's coat is ablaze when Dork throws the torch at the pack of wolves), or cutting the heads off chickens, or smashing a fish's head against a rock moved this film ahead or told us anything we couldn't easily imagine ourselves. We get it! They were stranded and they had to do gritty things to survive...there was no need to keep reminding us of this fact scene after scene after scene! Thank goodness there was very little dialog. The musical score was atrocious, poorly cut, and edited. I'm glad I don't get motion sick because the jiggling cinematography was enough to make a fighter pilot vomit. The repeated close-up shots were unnecessary and very distracting.

Please burn this book and all the terrible chapters! This story never needs to be told again.

Boring and Stupid; both for the Price of One.

[vitaleralphlouis · 1/10 · 13 September 2009]

If you believe the empty-heads who scored this awful movie a "10" you're setting yourself up for a waste of your time. This movie is awful, as it is willfully annoying.

Begin with the idiotic camera-work. Today's talent-free filmmakers think they can make an awful mess better by using a hand-held camera and shaking it like Jello, AS IF that substitutes for telling a narrative with intelligence and skill. Beyond that, there are many extreme close-ups, so close the viewer has no clue what's going on. All we see is random vegetation and men's long blonde hair bobbing all over creation. (No sexual appeal there, so says my girl friend -- who was snoozing soon after).

Not to give the plot away, but what happens in the initial 30 minutes is: we see these two guys chopping down a dozen small trees, stripping off the branches, then pounding them together and making a crude raft. This is intense as the story goes; and I think you get the idea.

Give them a break

[william_fold2002 · 15 August 2009]

...and where are YOUR cinematic masterpieces? How many Oscar winning films have you made, Jack? Severed Ways may have sucked, but at least they went out and actually tried to make a movie. I really hate all the would-be "Critics" here who do nothing but complain about how bad every movie is, but yet, haven't made anything worthwhile themselves. Jealousy isn't a very flattering thing, which most "Critics" seem to be.

As far as the soundtrack is concerned, the music(although not really fitting into the movie very well), is at least different than the cookie-cutter music of almost every other "period" piece.

Do Vikings sh*t in the woods?

[francoguarasci · 1/10 · 6 May 2015]

Yes they do. 10 minutes of guys with beards and no shirts chopping wood - really? The dialogue is close to non-existent, the sound quality appalling and the 'story line' completely absent. I might have to make it my personal mission in life to destroy every copy of this ever made and thus prevent other people from feeling the same sense of pain as I did after viewing this total garbage. One scene in particular is irrevocably burned into my memory, despite 6 months of therapy - please see title of this review and be warned! Myself and the friends that watched this together still talk about how bad it is, several years later. Utter and complete drivel.

Keep your eye on Tony Stone

[lilysveins · 7/10 · 18 July 2021]

Maybe I liked this film so much because it had a great soundtrack filled with Brian Eno, Old Mans Child, Popol Vu and Dimmu Borgir.

Maybe I liked it cause it dared to use bold Helvetic type to announce the chapters. Now other film makers use this style in advertising, music videos and cinema.

Perhaps I enjoyed watching a first time director boldly evolve while making a film.

Or maybe it was the deification scene that reminded me of my camping trips after eating too much dehydrated Chili.

Either way, I see promise from this film maker and will keep and eye on his next music videos and films in the same way people must have kept an eye on David Lynch after he made "Eraserhead". Not a perfect movie but you never forgot it and you knew this was a true artist to watch.

Don't give up (or in) Tony Stone.

Adventure film plus experimental arty style with no restraint = yuck

[talverri · 1/10 · 14 August 2012]

Sorry for the 'spoiler'. Excessive camera work, editing tricks and pushing the envelope of film taboos do not work with what is a period adventure drama. My spoiler - I stopped watching when we got an up close and personal shot of one of the vikings naked bum while he was evacuating. Meaning a graphic filming of voiding his intestinal tract.... I hope you don't get the picture, if you know what I mean. To bring an experimental style to a period piece requires careful consideration and a less is more approach. I do give points to the author for using an actual historical person, Thorfinn Karlsefni. His story is found in Eric the Red's Saga and Saga of Olaf Tryggvason... This story had and maybe has a lot of promise. Maybe somehow it can be resurrected.

Great Epic Saga

[pgdavis2000 · 10/10 · 26 February 2009]

This is really an excellent film-nothing else like it out right now. The reasons to like Severed Ways are pretty much the same reasons that some of its critics don't get it. Yes, it is a Viking flick that is neither a swashbuckling/love story nor a Monty Python skit. That is a GOOD THING! It picks up on a footnote from a Viking saga and imagines two young Vikings left behind and lost in America. They struggle to survive. They work. They attempt to WALK home and into Viking lore! Its shot in Newfoundland and it's retardedly beautiful. Even some critics were saying it's worth it for that alone…others got bored by this which is totally lazy… Also, this film is a breathe of fresh air. A lot of new films have a huge script about a cool dude crying about his girlfriend in a bar and there are a bunch of telephone calls and then in the end everybody breaks out their guns and heroine. BIG FREAKING DEAL--seen it all before! Rest assured there is none of that garbage in this movie and finally there is a film breaking the mold. You actually get a singular film experience, something to talk about- maybe even argue about. The depiction of natural beauty is not SW's only epic aspect. It also shows the clash of civilizations in a thoughtful way. There are several carefully scripted vignettes in which these vikings talk about, remember and confront both the rise of Christianity in Europe, and their fears of the skraelings(Native Americans) These confrontations become very real when strange monks and skraelings cross their path. You will be caught off guard by the alternately brutal and tenderhearted ways all of these characters behave with each other. Won't spoil it, but it's not what you expect.

Soundtrack: also epic.

It's a meditation on the impossible.

MAKE MORE MOVIES LIKE THIS

Daring Independent film that pushes the envelope a little too far

[jimclarke-02163 · 6/10 · 9 November 2023]

This is the first film of Indie Director Tony Stone. I think Tony has a bright future if he can find a better balance between his desire to deliver historic authenticity as well as to exploit popular culture. He tries to have it both ways in this film, and it falls short from an artistic standpoint. On the one hand, he works hard to deliver from a historical standpoint. He sets the story in Newfoundland and films there as well as areas not too far away. That's was a wise choice and the setting of the film is spectacular. Stone did a good job with the Viking costumes and props. The helmets were particularly striking in appearance and they made the two main characters look otherworldly in North America. I also liked the use minimal dialogue because I think it captures the behavior of people on an extended camping/hiking trip. Stone also puts effort into dealing with the conflict between paganism and Christianity as well as connecting the survival adventure to Leif Erickson. He also adds to the authenticity by having the characters speak old Norse. I love all of this effort to take the viewer back in time, but then Stone makes questionable artistic choices. One example involves the modern Scandinavian Death Metal music. Why bother? I think it was just an artistic mistake. The other key mistake was the occasional use of modern American slang even though the characters were speaking in old Norse. So much for the suspension of disbelief. There is also the issue story writing. Stone doesn't create any particularly likable characters. There is no hero involved. The Viking characters are more villainous then not even though one of them attempts to experience a personal redemption. Lastly, Stone pushes the realism too far by having the camera focus on one of the characters dropping a deuce in the woods. I think Stone was attempting to deliver a bombastic artistic expression by sensationalizing the crude elements of long hiking trips. He creates visual and audible shock, throughout the film, but it lacks meaning or purpose. So to does the survival journey itself. Lack any meaning. The two main protagonists die by the movie's end. So what? As Stone matures as a film maker, my hope is that he will develop a more holistic approach to storytelling. I wish him well.

Low Budget Garbage!

[Moviereeeels12 · 1/10 · 3 October 2018]

Unlike other reviews i wasn't part of the production crew ... good for the bin, don't believe me watch it , you'll found out, waste of time and money.