Outlandish!

During the reign of the Vikings, a man from another planet crash lands on Earth and unfortunately brings with him a giant alien beast known as the Moorwen. Not only that, but once assimilating himself with this particular Viking faction, he finds that he is now part of a war they are engaged in with another Viking race.

Yep, it's predator in the Viking age, berserker sci-fi played purely for entertainment and cheese sandwiches. Jesus Jimmy Caviezel brings the broody macho posturing, John Hurt the ham, while Ron Perlman picks up an easy pay check for growling a lot. It's still a lot of fun, though, the mixture of TV movie type production values mixing with a cheeky idea that sees the creation of a genuinely cool monster (effects not half bad at all). Good genre action for the undemanding genre faithful. 6/10

In truth I had my doubts, but having seen it a few times now, it's really rather a well put together movie, written and directed by Howard McCain (though I can't find much on this director, I know he co-wrote the screenplay for Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, which I really enjoyed after the let down which was Underworld Evolution). Moving on, this is actually a very good Sci-Fi fantasy creature feature, granted the story itself and characters aren't that interesting, but for me the real draw isn't the OTT and somewhat gruesome scenes of violence, it's the creature design itself, that keeps me re-watching time and time again, the subtle glimpses of the Moorwen, the way it moves, behaves. Now, I grew up watching movies with visual and make-up effects by the great Stan Winston (John Carpenters The Thing, Aliens, Terminator, Batman Returns and Jurassic Park, to name just a few) and to me the Moorwen is so similar to the look and feel to the creature design of the Kothoga (again Stan Winston) featured in the Peter Hyams 1997 movie 'The Relic' which to be honest is no bad thing as sadly Stan Winston died in June 2008. So to me personally this is a nod to the effects wizard which was Stan Winston. Should you watch it? If you like, good Sci-Fi, gore, poor dialogue (lol), then yes. It's a fun, none thought provoking creature feature and it also stars Ron Perlman, so YES you have to watch it, Enjoy the beauty which is the Moorwen