Blood of Beasts (2005) – Review

This film was released under three different titles: Beauty and the Beast, Blood of Beasts, and Blood of Vikings. That’s either a bold marketing strategy or some kind of tax dodge. Whatever the intent, the end result feels less like a rebrand and more like a warning label that nobody read.

In a Viking kingdom that looks like it raided the costume bin behind a Renaissance fair, Princess Freya (Jane March) is being lined up to marry Sven (William Gregory Lee), a man whose personality ranges from “smug” to “extra smug.” King Thorsson (Greg Melvill-Smith), who appears to be dying of a vague medieval illness called Plot Necessity, decides his last great idea is to sail to the cursed island of Gungnir. Freya, thinking several steps ahead of everyone else in this script, tells Sven she’ll only marry him if her father comes back alive. Sven agrees, because clearly nothing has ever gone wrong on a cursed island before.

“I double dog dare you.”

On Gungnir, the king’s army immediately gets wrecked by a “beast,” which turns out to be a berserker in a bear pelt with anger issues. Sven, displaying the leadership qualities of a soggy boot, decides to abandon Thorsson and head home so he can grab the throne early. Back home, he declares himself king because apparently, Viking succession law is just whoever speaks loudest in the room. Freya is understandably unimpressed, which is the film’s one rational emotional response.

“Is it too late to declare myself a lesbian?”

Freya, along with Ingrid (Candice Hillebrand), heads to the island to rescue her father, because no one else is going to bother. She finds Thorsson imprisoned and challenges the Beast (David Dukas) to a duel, which is already more initiative than anyone else has shown. Mid-fight, the Beast hesitates after spotting a pendant linked to Agnar, Freya’s presumed-dead childhood love. Freya then decides to stay behind with the Beast so Ingrid and her father can escape, because nothing says “good plan” like voluntarily living with a violent stranger in a bear rug.

“Would you care for a waltz in my ballroom?”

Back home, Eric (Justin Whalin) tries to shame the Vikings into action, which works about as well as expected until Sven’s ego gets involved. Meanwhile, Freya and the Beast bond because captivity is always a great foundation for romance. Sven eventually returns with an army, ignores Freya’s pleas that the Beast isn’t a monster, and has him shot and burned anyway. The Beast survives, of course, crashes Freya’s wedding like a very hairy RSVP, reveals he’s Agnar, and challenges Sven to a duel. Freya sacrifices herself mid-fight, Sven dies, the curse lifts, and Agnar gets his humanity back just in time to cradle Freya as she dies.

Nothing says “happy ending” like a funeral pyre.

Stray Observations:

• Sven abandons his king on a cursed island and is still shocked when people question his leadership.
• Freya’s big strategy is repeatedly “walk directly into danger and hope for emotional clarity.”
• The Beast’s whole deal hinges on a pendant that nobody thought to mention earlier.
• Viking warriors apparently take orders from whoever finished speaking last.
• The island is “enchanted,” which in this case means “has fog and one guy in a bear skin rug.”
• Burning the Beast’s body without checking if he’s actually dead feels like a rookie mistake.
• Odin’s curse operates on rules that seem to be made up mid-scene, and exposited in the least convincing way possible.

“Even he who is pure of heart can be cursed by a dick Norse god.”

Screenwriter Paul Anthony at least tried something. Setting Beauty and the Beast in the Viking era is the kind of idea that makes you pause and think, “Okay, that could be interesting.” New mythology, harsher world, less ballroom dancing and more axes. Then the film actually starts, and that promise collapses faster than Sven’s loyalty. The Viking setting doesn’t deepen the story or reshape the themes. It just swaps out gowns for furs and calls it a day. You’re left with the same old beats, only now everyone looks vaguely uncomfortable and historically confused.

Was wearing a dead muskrat on your head a Viking tradition?

David Lister directs this like he’s allergic to anything resembling cinematic flair. There’s no sense of scale, no atmosphere, no tension. Scenes just… happen. Characters move from one location to another like they’re ticking boxes on a to-do list titled “Finish Movie.” The pacing lurches, the emotional beats land with a thud, and any potentially interesting moment is flattened into something that feels like a rehearsal take that nobody bothered to improve.

Frat Bros of the Viking Age.

The visual effects deserve their own special mention, mostly because they’re barely there. The “Beast” is less a creature and more a guy who lost a fight with a thrift store rug, which makes the marketing’s attempt to pass this off as something in the orbit of The Lord of the Rings feel less like ambition and more like either staggering hubris or outright delusion. There’s no transformation worth noting, no magical presence, no sense that anything supernatural is happening beyond the script insisting it is. For a story built around a curse, the film treats magic like an optional add-on it couldn’t afford. The result is a fantasy that feels aggressively mundane.

“Which way is it to Mordor?”

The cast looks like they were assembled from the waiting room of a Xena: Warrior Princess audition and told to just go with it. Jane March does what she can as Freya, which mostly involves looking serious while the movie falls apart around her. William Gregory Lee leans hard into Sven’s villainy, though “hard” here translates to “loud and obvious.” Justin Whalin, of The Adventures of Lois and Clark fame, is the least convincing Viking in cinema history. He’s less a fearsome Norse warrior and more a guy who wandered in from a community theatre rehearsal and refused to leave. Greg Melvill-Smith shows up, lends a bit of gravitas, and then exits before the film can drag him down too much. David Dukas’s Beast/Agnar has the unenviable task of selling both feral menace and tragic romance while wearing what appears to be a shed carpet.

Could you love this Beast?

Among the endless parade of Beauty and the Beast adaptations, this one sits comfortably near the bottom, waving up at anything with a budget, a vision, or basic competence. Even the more misguided versions usually commit to a tone or aesthetic. This one feels like it’s constantly second-guessing itself, unsure whether it’s a gritty Viking tale or a bargain-bin fairy tale. It ends up being neither, which is impressive in the worst possible way.

Set fire to this one and sail away as fast as possible.

In conclusion, Blood of Beasts is what happens when a mildly interesting idea gets filtered through a script that doesn’t know how to use it and a production that can’t support it. The Viking setting should have added texture and danger, but instead, it highlights how thin everything else is. Between the non-existent effects, the questionable performances, and a story that stumbles through its own mythology, the film plays like a low-effort D&D campaign where nobody read the rulebook. It’s not bold, it’s not imaginative, and it’s definitely not the epic its marketing tried to suggest. It’s just another Beauty and the Beast retelling, dressed in furs and bad wigs, hoping you won’t notice how little is actually going on.