31 Days of Halloween: Viking Wolf

2022, Stig Svendson (Elevator) -- Netflix

So, was it called Viking Wolf because it was set in Norway, where everyone is descended from Vikings (/s as they on Reddit) or because they tagged on a tenuous historical preamble about Vikings bringing a werewolf cub (puppy!!) back to Norway?

Either way, grooooan.

In a lot of ways, this movie is presenting itself like one of those 80s American schlock creature features where monsters eat teenagers, but without the gratuitous nudity, and with slightly better acting. It never feels schlocky, except when the barely passable CGI werewolf appears on screen. But by the end, the movie plot seems to have escaped the writer & director and we are left with the werewolf example of the same bad parenting we just watched in the last movie, which was vampires. 

Post pre-amble, we are in modern day, small town Nybo, Norway. Thale (Elli Rhiannon Müller Osborne, Royalteen) and her family have been moved there by cop mom Liv (Liv Mjönes, Midsommar), from Oslo, after the death of Thale's father. The relationship was over before his death, and Nice Guy Arthur (Vidar Magnussen, Norsemen), Liv's new beau, is doing his best, but angry teens be angry teens. Thale sneaks out with a 6-pack to meet a boy at The Bay, the name of the local bay where kids gather to drink beer, flirt and pick on the new kids. Pretty Girl Elin (Silje Øksland Krohne, The Painting) is upset Jonas (Sjur Vatne Brean, Three Wishes for Cinderella) invited Thale and while she is yelling at him, they are attacked by a werewolf. Thale tries to intervene, but is knocked down before Elin is dragged into the brush.

Yes, I am naming all the named characters, more to bring light to the idea that other than Thale, all the characters have names palatable to the anglo tongue while their real Norwegian names are ENTIRELY fascinating ... to an anglo.

Despite saying she wasn't hurt, she must have been bitten or scratch or something, or the rest of the movie wouldn't have happened. Also, was she always exhibiting heterochromia, or was it just after the attack? If she just suddenly developed it, why isn't anyone mentioning it? 

The town brings in hunters to help find Elin, and the animal that killed her. The find her horribly mutilated body, and invite a university veterinarian to consult, a weird guy who looks barely out of high school himself and comments that it all does look like wolf, but very big wolf. And the claw they found stuck in a should high tree wound is a wolf claw but longer than normal. What exactly was the werewolf doing to lose its claw in a tree? And also, OUCH ! Pulling it out entirely would hurt. Also, the requisite weird werewolf hunter shows up in town, in his ratty camper van and offers the police advice and silver bullets. He's been hunting this werewolf his entire adult life -- he must be a terrible werewolf hunter.

In the usual way of werewolf movies, we wonder is it only a few nights later, or is it actually a month later because there are a lot of full moons, and Thale is really showing signs of being affected/infected. This will not be an unfortunate lunar based cycle -- Thale is going to convert to wolfie nature. Meanwhile the cops and the hunters actually track the beast down, get a bunch of people killed, but Liv shoots it dead with a single silver bullet. It does not turn back into a man.

Meanwhile, Thale and Jonas are dealing with their healing trauma via very chaste kissing, when the moon comes out and... well, bye bye Jonas. Thale realizes she has to leave town and catches a bus the next night. The cops are now confused about there being more than one beast. But Liv is starting to have a theory. On the bus, the movie shows its inspiration, recreating the best in werewolf change scenes from American Werewolf in London and Wolfen and now full wolf Thale eats a bunch of passengers before running home. Arthur fends her off with a lamp as she hesitates in eating her deaf little sister -- sisterhood above all, even bestial transformations!

Thale runs into town and begins eating people. The world's worst werewolf hunter shows up, smashes his ratty camper van into her and... well, I am surprised he lived this long. Maybe the original Viking Wolf was leaving him alive for fun; Thale does not. But hipster veterinarian guy shoots Thale with some tranq darts and ends the savage terrorizing of town. But will she end her daughter with a single shot from a silver bullet? Or will she leave room for a sequel? 

Fade to black.

OK, it was not terrible. But neither was it very good. There are some fun practical effects and some fun with reinventing the mythos, but it doesn't even attempt to have any internal logic and just bounds from one familiar trope to the next, as if their entire purpose was to shout, "Look! We made a werewolf movie in Norway!" The thing is, they could have actually had fun with Norse mythos and added in references to Fenrir, the hound freed at Ragnarok but they didn't even attempt to do anything about the Viking bit beyond the ludicrous preamble.