THERE’S A SHOT in The Northman that says everything you need to know about the film.
Alexander Skarsgård, topless and ripped, axe in hand and wearing a wolf ’s head for a helmet, squats down with similar Viking berserkers, about to pillage a village. From up high, a spear hurtles towards them; Skarsgård springs up, grabs it in mid-air, spins around and throws it right back, killing the sap who sent it. This is a huge, violent, bonkers movie. And, because it’s a Robert Eggers joint, heavily steeped in research.
That “fight move”, Eggers tells Empire, comes directly from one of the Old Icelandic sagas, hulking historical opuses from around the 12th century. Those Vikings, they loved set-pieces.