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Berserker: The Nordic Curse (1987)
Dir: Jefferson Richard
Six teenage chums, Kristi (Shannon Engemann), Josh (Greg Dawson), Mike (Joseph
Alan Johnson), Shelly (Beth Toussaint) and bookworm Larry (Rodney Montague),
head off for a week of fun in the country at Rainbow Valley, an isolated bit
of Utah wilderness originally discovered by Vikings.
On the way they run foul of the local Sheriff (John F. Goff) for littering and drinking (Lite beer! For men!) and on arriving at their camp site they are greeted less than happily by flat cap wearing, gruff beard sporting Norwegian Pappy Nyquist (George ‘Buck’ Flower) who gives them yet another warning about littering!
As the kids get down to some fun (all accompanied by a delightfully dire score of 80’s Rock ballads by some evil person named Chuck Francour) they have little idea of the danger they are in as tourists are being brutally mauled to death by what would seem to be a large bear…maybe. Or is the bear just in the wrong place at the wrong time and could there be another, more horrifying culprit? Of course there is! It’s the bloody Berserker in the title obviously!....
Opening with a jolly old couple (real-life couple Oscar and Beverly Rowland) getting snuffed by a furry claw that squirts blood in their faces, “Berserker” gets off to your typical Slasher start and from the whole set-up and it’s delivery you know what you are in for before any of it happens.
Padding out the already short running time with lots of fog bound walking,
running and screaming Director Jefferson Richard seems determined not to break
a sweat in injecting any energy into the proceedings.
For example, an extended dialogue sequence between the Sheriff and Pappy, chewing
the fat over a couple of beers, stops the film dead in it’s tracks (but
does have a few of the classic ‘things are not right around these parts’
type omens) and Flower’s English garbling Norwegian accent stretches the
patience to breaking point. We also have the essential cliche of the 'legend'
telling via campfire, where Larry informs them about the Viking Berserker's
who ate Human flesh and could never rest in the afterlife. Hmmm....
Away from the boring characters, bad dialogue that’s just not bad enough
to be entertaining, endless walking around in the dark scenes and less than
thrilling character interaction there are some nuggets of fun to be dug out.
There’s a nice joke moment involving the viewers expectation of a bit of
topless action, during a romp in the water, that’s not as cruel as you
think though due to the fact the film delivers a nice bit of full frontal nudity
later on.
The nudity (only one sequence) also brings us to a nicely exploitative sequence
where Beth Toussaint’s Shelly strips for a pretty steamy sex scene which
is edited into a sequence of one of the other girls being slashed up. It’s
a nicely taboo moment of sex and violence as the moans and bucking of pleasure
are intermixed with the screams and throes of violent death. Sadly though the
idea is better than the execution thanks to the rather limp way the slashing
scenes are handled. In fact for most of the film the ‘vicious’ claw
is simply a fluffy paw smearing a bit of jam onto the actors, though these deaths
are at least shown in welcome, in your face, close-up.
Fight! Fight I say! Amazingly this exercise in Slasher normality takes a turn
for the bizarre when ‘Bart’ the bear (for that is his name) partakes
in a bit of one on one smack down action with the dog snout wearing, hairy-chested
Berserker! With a mixture of real bear action and ‘man in a suit’
antics for the close-ups it’s not actually too bad and adds a welcome bit
of weirdness into the proceedings.
Nothing much happens after this though as we slowly plod to the badly handled
‘twist’ finale.
Of most interest here are those involved with the film, rather than the film itself, with ‘Buck’ Flower John F. Goff and Jefferson Richard working in many of each other’s projects over a number of years.
Jefferson Richard is actually very prolific (and varied of task) in the movie business having done some unaccredited directing work on the infamous “Massacre Mafia Style”/”The Executioner”, been a Production Designer on “Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks”, 2nd unit Director on the amazingly under appreciated “Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat” and had various producing duties on (amongst others) ‘Video Nasty‘ “The Witch Who Came from the Sea” and “Maniac Cop”. Sadly though his actual directing here is drab.
Beth Toussaint would become one of the many “Star Trek” babes when
she appeared in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” with a new
boob job and a very tight fitting uniform.
Rodney Montague would go on to work on the Visual Effects in such big league
movies as “Scooby-Doo”, “Almost Famous“ as
well as “The Matrix Reloaded” and “The Matrix Revolutions”.
The sadly late George ‘Buck’ Flower was of course one of the great
heroes of cult cinema having appeared in (amongst so many others, including
) “Escape from New York”, “Ilsa: She
Wolf of the SS” and“They Live”, as well as co-writing
“Drive-In Massacre” and the Kitten Natividad favourite “Takin’
It All Off”.
John F. Goff co-wrote “Drive-In Massacre” with ‘Buck’,
co-wrote the cheesy Sword and Sorcery favourite “Hundra” and
appeared with ‘Buck' in “They Live“ and “The Fog”
(as the ill-fated Al Williams), “The Buddy Holly Story” and
the ever popular “Alligator”.
Even old Oscar Rowland as the film’s first victim appeared in such well-known
fare as “Revenge of the Ninja”,
annual Christmas favourite “Silent Night, Deadly Night” and,
God help us, “Footloose” (with a post “Friday the 13th”
Kevin Bacon, proving the ‘Slasher’ sub-genre has a long reach indeed
and that Kevin Bacon truly is everywhere).
Overall then a very diverse and in some cases very interesting bunch of people come together to make (the odd aforementioned moment aside) a very typical and very uninteresting movie.
It is available on DVD in the UK (uncut for the first time), on the grey market label ‘23rd Century, on a release so cheap (£1!) it’s still worth picking up for completists.
