Wargghhh! Rooooooaaaaaaaaar! Man, the Cookie Monster growl of black metal can be kind of awesome in small doses. It’s so over-the-top, ridiculous and always fits well in movies (see Harmony Korine’s “Gummo”) because nobody’s about to play out a full, seven-minute death metal epic in a film and it never overstays its welcome.
This is why we’re pretty excited about the Viking film, “Severed Ways… The Norse Discovery of America,” as its set to feature music by rockers like Judas Priest and Queens of The Stone Age, plus pitch-black death metal blasts from Burzum, Morbid Angel, Dimmu Borgir and more.
The synopsis: In the 11th century, Vikings, Indians, and Irish monks collide on the shores of North America in a historical epic adventure of exploration, personal glory, and religious dominance. Abandoned by a Western exploration party and stranded in the New World, two lone Vikings wade through a grand primeval landscape, struggling for survival while still in the grip of their Norse ways.
Written and directed by metal fan Tony Stone, the trailer of the film features “shots of glistening oceans, flying birds, waving wheat fields, grazing farm animals, burning churches, cascading waterfalls and fleeing Vikings overtop a soundtrack of a man chopping wood and breathing heavily,” writes our pals at MTV’s Headbanger’sBlog (a great location for metal music if that’s your bag).
“Severed Ways” comes out March 20, via Magnet/Magnolia Films. Check out the awesome death metal “font” on the poster above. LOL, we love those scrawled messes. Here’s the trailer.
PS: we just heard back from Magnolia and there will be no soundtrack CD to this one, so if you wanna catch the music, you’ll have to get off your ass and see the film in theaters. Sounds well worth it to us.