Occasionally you find a film that very few people have heard
of, and you find, that not only is the movie well made, has decent production
values, good dialog, an effective musical score, and is well acted. That is exactly the case with "A Viking Saga: Darkest Day." While the film is not epic in any sense of the term, it is a solid period piece. Welsh director, Chris Crow does so much with
so little. The film is rated R for the violence and runs just under an hour and a half.
Drawn from a rich history of England and Wales, writers
Graham Davidson and Crow put together an adventure story that not only give
homage to the hero's journey, but also makes an interesting, but not epic
story. A price of historical fiction, it
sets the framework for the story of a small group of adventurer's trek across
England in order to deliver the book of the White Christ to monastery in
Northern Scotland. After a Viking raid
on the monastery Holy Isle of Lindisfarne, two monks escape the carnage to
deliver the illuminated book now known as the Lindisfarne Gospels. The book is a beautifully leather bound, jeweled
encrusted, illustrated copy of the four Gospels of the Christian Bible.
The Vikings are portrayed as ruthless pirates whose goal has
switched from gold and other traditional plunder, to the search of the holy
book. Hadrada (Joshua Richards) King of
Ekero (in Sweden) has raided the Abbey, tortured the monks, demanding the whereabouts
of the holy book of the white Christ. He
is a pagan searching for power over the Anglo-Saxons in Briton. "A
Viking Saga: Darkest Day" becomes a commentary on a man twisting of
religion for his own gain. Hadrada
believes that with the book he can control the people, and make his son king of this land.
The date is Jan 8, 793 and an elder Abbot Athelstan
(Christopher Godwin), and the young, inexperienced monk Hereward (Marc Pickering) flee through
the cold, and misty, woods north to Iona, Scotland. Along the way, they meet the warrior Aethelwulf,
then later, the Scot- Pictish girl Eara (Helen Rhys). Hamal (Michael Jibson), an usurper to
Hadrada's throne, vies for power, and Yngvar (Peter Jibson), the king's son
falls in battle with Aethelwulf. As I
said before the acting is solid, the sword fights look realistic, and the
photography is very well done. The fight
scenes are violent in that the goal was to depict the world of that time was
brutal and life was cheap.
As their journey progresses, the young and frightened
Hereward, learns lesson of belief, and grows in faith, endurance, and what it
takes to serve Christ and his people. This
is one of the films that appeals to fans of historical fiction, or to those who
are into the History channel's "Viking" series, or into HBO's "Game of Thrones." The film is enjoyable, and interesting to watch.
Movie Data
Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller
Year: 2013
Staring: Marc Pickering, Christopher Godwin, Mark Lewis Jones, Elen Rhys, Joshua Richards, Michael Jibson
Director: Chris Crow
Producer(s): Graham Davidson, Antony Smith
Writer: Graham Davidson, Chris Crow
Rating: R
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