Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America – DVD Review

By Jeff Swindoll Jul 29, 2009, 14:17 GMT

In the 11th century, Vikings, Native Americans, 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 struggle for survival while still in the grip of their Norse ways. eaturing an icy black metal soundtrack including Burzum, Morbid Angel, Judas Priest and Dimmu ...more

“This fish is killer.”

Two Vikings are stranded in American in 1007 and try to survive in the wilderness. This might’ve been a film on par with Herzog, but anachronistic subtitles and heavy metal music tend to make it sillier than it should be.  

A group of Vikings reach America in hopes of finding riches.  Their party is raided by the natives and they flee.  Two of their number, Orn (Tony Stone) and Volnard (Fiore Tedesco) who were off scouting, are left behind when the party takes off after the attack.  The duo must now do all they can to survive in this brave new world.  

Okay, that’s not much of a plot description, but that’s it in a nutshell.  What makes the film lesser is that Old Norse dialogue (like I’d know what Old Norse sounds like to begin with) is given “Bill and Ted” subtitles that just make you sigh and shake your head.

I don’t know how many films writer/director/producer/star Tony Stone has done, but it’s obvious that he needs to have more practice. 

For example: when our Vikings realize that they have to adapt or die, they take their battle axes and chop down a tree for their shelter.  Then they chop down another.  Then they chop down another.  Then they chop down another.  Five trees later (that was five right? ZZZZZZZ) they remove the branches from one of the fallen trees – every branch! An editor was in need of being summoned. 

Since the budget might not have been much they might’ve thought they should use it all, but that only leads to boredom and wondering why they just couldn’t show two trees and let the audience figure out the rest.  We also finally get the answer to “does a Viking shat in the woods?” since Stone defecates on camera.  That was really uncalled for. 

I wondered after all that boring tree chopping if it was some sort of sly jab at the audience.  There are some moments where Tedesco has a flashback to his sister wanting to become a Christian which have the feel of an Ingmar Bergman film, but any hope brought forth by these scenes are soon dashed in tedium. 

What’s worse is the head-banger soundtrack that actually has one of our ancient Norsemen head banging to it (well, I think he was supposed to be drying his hair – though why the hell would a Viking care about personal hygiene so, especially since he just shat in front of us?).  

Severed Ways is presented in anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions.  Special features include 6 minutes of “Severed Scenes” (deleted scenes), 11 minutes of “Scenic ambience” (footage of waterfalls, forest, etc.), a 6 minute “Slow Burn” (a burning scene slowed down as originally intended – not that the film needed any slowing), 2 minutes of footage of L’Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland, 4 minutes of trailers for the film, and some trailers for other Magnet DVDs.  

Severed Ways could’ve had potential (maybe even as an art house film) but is so amateur that even a Viking would go berserk waiting for something to happen.  

Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for this version of the DVD in the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.