as regular readers shall be aware - their regularity presumably driven by some futile hope that i may, even by accident, write something that meets the criteria of consequence or interest - i quite like this one shop where they sell DVDs off ever so cheap every now and then. a load of boxes of them, they have, look you see. by cheap i mean, as the title here says, 49p. why so cheap? because they just come in them plastic envelope things, the boxes somehow or other missing.
for all the classic films i find there - and i speak of The Lost Boys, as well as the whole series (season, dear American readers) of South Park what has ManBearPig in it, i do find some gems of rubbish. it is, and this shall be no surprise, the rubbish that i tend to watch rather than the classics.
which is how i came to watch Berserker The Nordic Curse.
the disc, as you can see, promises much. yes, that is the hint of an 18 certificate there, which should promise violence and nudity. that's a bear, right there, growling at a lady in distress. this film should be awesome.
i should probably do one of them scrolling "spoiler warning" things here, but the film is just not worth the effort. consider, if you must, anything after this spoiler-ish. as for a short review, i refer you to the learned gentry of IMDB, where the collective wisdom of viewers give it a 3.9 out of 10 rating. that is about 0.6 higher than the average Steven Seagal or Wesley Snipes straight-to-bargain-bin-DVD film gets, and is just about right.
i am not desecrating my PC by putting this DVD in it to get screen grabs; you can all just made do with pictures what i have taken as i watched it.
it starts off sort of interesting, with what i think was supposed to be a viking ship landing in the land that came to be known as America. in the 10th century, no less, according to the credits. it was probably around then that they said what the curse was, but i wasn't paying attention.
anyway, skips ahead to modern day, blah blah blah, some kids go camping at a lake thing, which is apparently what all American kids do all the time, going on the films.
yes, i agree, the above scene was perfect for some potential nudie dudie rudie stuff, but none happened. a major disappointment that. this scene being as dull as it seems - except watching it gives you the pleasure of some nonedescript 80s hair metal band doing some music - had me suspecting that the 18 certificate was highly misleading.
i decided to push ahead with the film, and the film pushed right ahead with being dull. a scene that could have been tense and erupted in violence came along, but instead the camp manager and the copper just sat and had a beer and played chess.
it was around this point in the film that i noticed a 128MB memory stick was shoved in a computer. i remember when these memory sticks came along and how awesome it was to have a 128MB one. that was like 100 stiffy discs, man.
do they even make memory sticks with such a low down memory space anymore? for all i know this one is quite the collectors item, should there be some sort of market for old memory sticks.
the film was about to get switched off, but then it all got interesting. from the camp site - they were all staying in one of them wooden cabin things - one girl went missing. a rather amorous (sp), saucy couple decided to go and have a bit of a look around for her.
they found her, and decided to celebrate by entering a state of sexual congress.
no, not showing the saucy bits here. the director used this sequence to do some of that clever, "artsy" stuff, where he spliced scenes of sex with the one woman getting knacked off the bear thing that seems to be killing people in this movie.
as for the nudie dudie rudie stuff, most pleasant. one brief full on nudity scene, a stack of topless stuff. in respect of the violence, dire - some sort of fake blood sauce is smeared on people by the bear thing killing people. tame and dull.
anyway, away from this dreadful film for a moment. nice things, sort of.
i had reason to go past the one (and thus far only) shop that i discovered sells the Winston Red-White brand of cigarettes that i really rather like. so i bought some.
yes, that's the most recent of John Connolly novels there, The Wolf Of Winter. i do not think i would enjoy one of them Charlie Parker novels on the bus, so the ebook version did just fine. a brilliant novel, assuming one has read the eleven previous Charlie Parker novels. if not, don't get this, far too many references to other novels in it.
but anyway, back to Berserker.
no further nudity, a little more of blood being smeared on the people by the bear thing, and then the "twist". there is a bear roaming around, but there is also some man-bear thing, presumably a victim of all that whole nordic curse thing the title was so keen on.
they have a fight, and it is crap.
who wins? don't care really. that copper turns up in a massive wagon and rescues what kids have not had fake blood smeared on them up to the point of death, and then he shoots either the bear or the man-bear. i think the man-bear turned out to be someone or other that was in the film. perhaps he was a 1000 year old viking or something.
this film probably would have been brilliant and amazing, right, some 25 years ago, and watched on one of these.
the odd dynamics of the world. we now have so much stuff on tap, accessed via the internets or with all them channels on tv, that we have a skewered vision of what is and what is not value in respect of entertainment. this as a 49p DVD was a waste of time; in 1987 or so the £1 or £2 overnight rental fee would have seemed well worth it, compared to what the four (!) TV channels had on, and this film would have been discussed at length at school, college or whatever.
anyhow, Kasabian are on my TV at the moment, and Serge looks wired. off to watch and listen, so bye.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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