The following contains spoilers for The Northman, now playing in theaters.
In Robert Eggers' The Northman, Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård) endured a journey filled with tragedy, rage and redemption as he sought to avenge his father, King Aurvandil. The boy fled his kingdom after seeing his uncle, Fjölnir, murder the man, and over the years, Amleth grew into a savage who lost his way. He eventually disguised himself to get revenge -- spurred on by supernatural elements and a prophecy. However, as Eggers continued to play up the mysticism of the movie, The Northman wasted one zombie scene while totally elevating another.
The wasted sequence came when Amleth got to the Icelandic island his uncle got exiled to after losing the kingdom to rivals. He was waiting for the right moment to strike, roving the hills and caves of the land. But along the way, he found a male witch who presented the skull of the jester from Aurvandil's court -- Willem Dafoe's Heimir the Fool. It turns out that Fjölnir killed Heimir after the coup before flaying his face. However, the witch was able to harness Heimir's soul and revealed insight about the Night Blade, a weapon the Viking warrior would need to finish the job.
The moment ended up being disappointing, however, because, based on how the camera kept zooming in and the eerie music, it felt like the skull was going to start talking in a petrifying zombie moment. And seeing as the Fool knew Amleth as a kid, it would've made sense for him to share information and reconnect Amleth to how much his dad loved him, filling him with more rage. That never came to pass, though, with Eggers trolling the audience like he did when fans expected the goat, Black Phillip, to talk in The Witch.
However, in a stunning turn, the zombie factor was elevated moments later after the witch tossed Amleth a snake that turned into a rope. He quickly descended into a crypt with it and found a giant Viking soldier dead on a throne. When he tried to take the blade, the skeleton rose and fought him in a thrilling action sequence similar to something from Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings that ended with Amleth luring him into the moonlight and lopping his head off. And at that point, he was finally deemed worthy of owning the Night Blade.
The camera then subtly panned back to the throne, showing Amleth and the corpse in their initial positions, meaning Amleth had never left its side, and the fight actually happened on the psychic plane. It was a brilliant way of giving fans a supernatural brawl and muddying the waters on what was real and what wasn't. Of course, that has always been Eggers' style, and it left the audience guessing for the rest of the movie if Amleth's journey was magical or if he ended up lost due to his anger.
See both zombie moments in The Northman, now playing in theaters.