Berserker
Berserker
R | 04 July 1987 (USA)
Berserker Trailers

Six young adults in the woods run afoul of a berserker, a viking warrior who dons the fur and snout of a bear, and are slain in turn by him.

Reviews
Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies
Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
Cissy Évelyne It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.
Scarecrow-88 A group of friends are on a camping trip where they encounter a "nordic beast" which assaults(more like mauls them)with bear claws. Out in the darkness of the wilderness somewhere near their cabin(or another's cabin they "borrow"), this group is lost, hoping to find their way back, but this will be a dangerous quest as the "berserker" is somewhere in the midst, ready to strike.Based on legend, the berserker is said to be a descendant of the Vikings, savage humans, in bear skins(wearing their heads and arms equipped with claws), cannibalistic even, who eat their prey. It was said, as part of the legend, that the souls of the berserkers were not allowed into heaven, and so they continue on, invading the bodies of their ancestors. Could this be who is after the group of college youths just out of the city for some fun? Most of the attacks are claws to the victims' faces and bodies. Some nudity and sex between boyfriend/girlfriend, Mike and Shelly(Joseph Alan Johnson and Beth Toussaint)before the berserker goes on a rampage. It all started with Josh's girlfriend, Kristi(Shannon Engemann)having to urinate, with Mike and Shelly going to see what was taking her so long. While the lovebirds were engaged in sex, Kristi was being attacked. Soon the entire company is in the woods, searching for an exit. Josh(Greg Dawson)used to come to the cabins all the time with his father..he's the one of the group who who can be a pain in the ass, and is a bit of a mischief maker. He tosses out a beer can and is pulled over by police officer, Hill(John Goff), not the right start to their vacation. Hill warns of littering and sends them on their way. George Buck Flower is Pappy Nyquist, who runs the campgrounds and cabins where our gang wish to crash. Pappy is from "the old country", his w's sounding like v's. Hill and Pappy are life long friends and discuss, vaguely, the Norse legend. We get the impression that those outside the city, aren't very fond of the outsiders who show up to leave garbage for them to clean up. The area where the cabins are located had descendants of the Vikings/berserkers, which might explain who is behind the murders which soon transpire. Or, as the filmmakers point out, a bear shown wandering about in the woods could be the culprit. When Larry(Rodney Montague) breaks a leg stumbling over a log, Josh will remain with him as Larry's girlfriend Kathy(Valerie Sheldon)and Mike go for help. A constant in this movie is the discovery of past victims, buried in bushes or hidden underneath tree branches, which obviously shock and frighten the cast not expecting corpses in the general area. Basically carries the structure of the wilderness slasher movie, with a "berserker" and claws replacing a knife-wielding maniac. Buck Flower completists might want to check this out. The ending I found pretty silly and more than a bit bewildering, the way the berserker responds to sunlight and how the image of "it" changes as the film closes.
HumanoidOfFlesh A group of teenagers head out for an adventure into the woods,trying to spook each other with stories of fabled Viking warriors who used to wear the skins and snouts of bears and go berserk in order to frighten their enemies.Soon,the teens are disappearing,being dragged away to gory deaths by a hairy,half-seen being."Berserker" by Jefferson Richard is an average slasher flick.It offers some bloody deaths and lots of boring bumbling in the woods.The funniest thing is that whenever there's a kill scene,we see the bear.The pace is slow,the editing is bad and the final fifteen minutes are completely laughable.There is a pretty steamy sex scene in the woods but it is inter-cut with a death scene to make both scenes look tacky.There is very little gore,so I was slightly disappointed.Overall,"Berserker" is one to avoid unless you want to see every 80s slasher film.4 out of 10 and that's being kind.
Maciste_Brother BERSERKER is not the worst backwoods slasher ever made. Films like DON'T GO IN THE WOODS make BERSERKER look like a work of genius. The script is really terrible though and whatever they tried to do was, in the end, completely nullified by the badly written story. The idea of having a Viking mythical being behind the killings is original BUT when the killer wrestles with a bear during the end of the film, and the bear wins, well, how scary does the Viking monster look like? (the Viking killer looks like a WWE wrestler, btw).The folks behind BERSERKER tried to do something slightly different and that part is commendable. For example, the ending happens in daytime, which is different than the 99.9% of slashers made up to now. And the best part of the movie happens when the killing starts, which is intercut with sex scenes. That whole moment, until the two girls are found dead, is pretty good and creepy. It's the film's best moment. But like I've said before, all attempts by the filmmakers of trying to do something different were rendered useless because the conclusion of the story is a howler, the acting is sometimes poor (even if the cast is game), and some scenes just don't make any sense, like when the girl leaves the cabin (it's night time) to take a pee and she seemingly walks miles away from the cabin to do this and can't find her way back. How stupid! As a fan of slashers, I had to see BERSERKER. But those who aren't die-hard fans of slashers should stay away from it.
BillyBC (* out of *****) Here's a bad idea for a slasher movie: Get the audience all stoked and build their expectations by setting up a terrifying, Viking warrior killer called a `berserker' who tears apart and cannibalizes his victims, but then don't even reveal him until the last fifteen minutes. Instead, have half the cast (and the best-looking half on top of that) get killed off by a stupid, boring bear. Seriously, this frustrating movie doesn't know whether it wants to be "Friday the 13th" or "Grizzly 2," and the bear attacks are drawn out and laughably fake looking. Even though it clocks in well under an hour and a half, much of this turkey is still padded with long, tedious scenes of old men playing chess and making fun of each other's hearing and frightened doofuses walking through the woods or limping and falling through creek beds. When the berserker is killed, his mask disappears off of his face for some reason, as if he's a werewolf. Curiously, of the six main characters, only two of them are killed (and the violence is minimal), so I'm wondering just to whom the heck this supposed `slasher' film is targeted. B-movie veteran George `Buck' Flower is the only actor of note in this mess, but I'm sure even he would like to forget it. The Blockbuster Video Guide gave this movie three stars -- I seriously want to meet the person who sat down, watched this entire movie, and said to him/herself, `Now that's three-star entertainment!'Lowlight: The `climactic' fight between the berserker and the bear. Most of the time, it looks like they're just hugging each other.