The Seventh Seal (1957)

After ten years away fighting in The Crusades, Templar knight Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) and his squire Jöns (Gunnar Björnstrand) return to their homeland, only to find it in the grip of the bubonic plague.

Block is approached by Death (Bengt Ekerot) who tells the knight his time is up, but Block challenges him to a game of chess first, as way of postponing - and possibly escaping - his inevitable fate.

As the chess game unfolds, Block and Jöns slowly make their way towards Block's castle, passing through villages ravaged by disease, and drawing to them a growing caravan of refugees looking to outrun the plague, including a family of actors, Jof (Nils Poppe), his wife, Mia (Bibi Andersson), and their infant son, Mikael (Tommy Karlsson).

Jof has the gift of seeing visions, soon after we first meet his troupe he sees the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus walking through a field, and - eventually - is the first person to see Death playing chess with Block.

And it is the joy his young son brings to Block that persuades the knight to change his tactics in the game of chess, to save the young boy instead of himself.

I'm surprised it's taken me this long to get around to watching Ingmar Bergman's legendary meditation on death.

Perhaps because so many of its visuals have become iconic over the years and oft imitated (for instance, of course, the whole 'playing chess with Death' is probably better known to the general public for its central role in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey!), I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

While there are a couple of minor Medieval scuffles, The Seventh Seal is by no means an action film, instead concentrating on the growing ensemble of characters whose lives interact with Block and Jöns. And while Block may be the main protagonist, as it is he who draws Death into the chess game, Jöns is the more proactive character 'in the real world'.

It's Jöns who rescues the silent girl (Gunnel Lindblom) from a would-be rapist and brings her along on their travels. He also rescues Jof from drunken villagers who blame him for Blacksmith Plog's (Åke Fridell) wife, Lisa (Inga Gill), running off with another actor, Jonas Skat (Erik Strandmark).

Beautifully shot and framed by Bergman, The Seventh Seal is wholly absorbing and Max Von Sydow is a striking figure as the taciturn knight who draws the eye in every scene he's in.

However, after years of facing existential threats, fighting in the Holy Land and now the plague at home, agnostic Block wants concrete answers about the meaning of life and God before he dies.

He feels that by engaging Death he may find them, but he's also willing to treat with the Devil through a witch (Maud Hansson) who is about to be burned alive.

Unfortunately, again, he finds no answers because the supposed witch - proclaimed to be in league with the Devil by priests and soldiers - is just an innocent woman, facing her own death.

While the film does have an upbeat ending, it's main focus, I believe, is getting the viewer to contemplate their own mortality, which, for me, is why I count this as a "horror film" - even though I would expect I'd be in the minority who say so.

The Seventh Seal tells us that everyone has a different way of coping with inevitable final curtain: for example, some create art (music, paintings, performances etc), some just want to "have fun", and others resort to fundamentalist religious flagellation.

The film poses questions it cannot possibly answer, which I suppose is the whole point: not to dwell on what's to come, but what we can do while we're here.

READING REPORT: New Additions

Latest acquisitions for the "to be read" pile

I am currently about halfway through the magnificent Draugr, the thrilling novelisation of the low-budget Swedish historical horror Draug.

It's a swords-and-sorcery yarn, set in the 11th Century, with a definite Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now bent to its narrative, as a rough-and-ready rescue party ventures into a 'never-ending' ancient Swedish forest to hunt for a lost missionary expedition.

Tense, atmospheric and graphically violent (it is certainly no glorification of Viking era hand-to-hand combat), Draugr is shaping up to be my favourite book of the year so far.

Along similar 'creature feature' lines I've also picked up a copy of Ghosts, Trolls and The Hidden People: An Anthology of Icelandic Folk Legends.

I heard the book's editor, Dagrún Ósk Jónsdóttir, on an episode of the Gone Medieval podcast the other day and just knew immediately that this was the sort of book I needed to read.

Via eBay I acquired another vintage Michael Moorcock book, The Singing Citadel, for my collection of his work. It contains four supplementary stories for the Saga of Elric, although I believe he only appears in the first, the title story.

And, finally, Rachel, Alice, and I were in town the other day and popped into one of Tonbridge's two great second-hand (charity) bookshops: Teppa Books.

It's very dog-friendly - which is always a big plus in my mind - and Alice not only got a couple of treats but also a lot of cuddles and attention from other customers.

Rachel treated herself to her first Jackie Collins novel, Deadly Embrace, and got me A Quest-Lover's Treasury of The Fantastic.

This is an anthology, edited and introduced by Margaret Weis of Dragonlance fame, and features an Elric story by Michael Moorcock. Other pieces in the book include tales from Karl Edward Wagner, Poul Anderson, Mercedes Lackey and C.J. Cherryh.

The "to be read" list is getting ever longer, but I think once I've finished - if I survive - Draugr, I'll probably plump for something shorter next, such as The Corpse Priest or Warriors of The Boundless, which have been on the list for a while.

The Draugr Has Arrived!

You didn't think I'd get all excited about the novelisation of the great horror movie, Draug, without wanting to pick up my own copy?

Well, here it is in all its glory. 

I can't wait to see how writer/director Klas Persson has brought his terrifying and atmospheric tale to the written page as Draugr: A Viking Folk-Horror Saga.

As happens, this 350-page paperback has leapt into second place on my "to be read" list, meaning once I've finished the brain-scrambling, cosmic horrors of Jean Ray's Cruise of Shadows then I'll be picking up Draugr and plunging into the dark creepy, Swedish forests of a thousand years ago.

For those wondering about the change in spelling: as far as I can figure it, Draugr is Old Norse whereas Draug is more modern, but both words mean 'stinking, superhumanly strong, vengeful, reanimated corpses'.

Anyway, I've got one final tale to go in the Cruise of Shadows anthology, The Mainz Psalter, the yarn covered on the Strange Studies of Strange Stories podcast several weeks ago that lured me in to the writings of Jean Ray.

As long as my sanity holds up, I hope to finish it this weekend. 

As well as the rulebook for Dragonbane, I also have some comics and magazines that 'need' reading, but I'm so delighted with this current spell of actually reading novels and anthologies that I want to keep it up. It feels like so long since I've had such a burst of reading.

And that makes me feel very positive (for a change).

TBR: My immediate "to be read" selection

PROJECT 60: Off The Rails!!!

Photo by Pixabay

Some of you may recall in the past I've talked about my PROJECT 60, an ambitious desire to get both a skirmish wargame and a roleplaying campaign all set up and ready to run by the time I turn 60 towards the end of this year.

You might also have noticed that I haven't actually mentioned it since February - when Nick and I went to our local wargames show and I picked up some suitable 3D printed buildings.

I'd like to blame the hot weather and my general ill-health, but honestly it's my fickle nature and life-long inability to stay focused on any one particular aspect my hobbies for long.

PROJECT 60 was, therefore, rather ambitious - but that was the point.

On the skirmish wargame side, I'm still sticking firmly to my plans to build a tabletop Wild West town for games of Dead Man's Hand.

I just haven't sent off any Western figures for painting this year and have actually done nothing concrete towards assembling and painting the buildings, which was always a goal for this Summer.

Everything has simply remained in a clutter in the gamesroom.

I really need to get sorting that before things go missing as I move books, Blu Rays, and bits & bobs around looking for other things.

And this isn't to say my wargaming thoughts haven't gone round the houses from Bronze Age Greece to Fantasy Medieval and 17th/18th Century pirates and highwaymen!

They've just circled back (for the moment) to the American West.

On the roleplaying game front, my initial passion for Twilight Sword has rather dampened (even before the printed materials show up), and been replaced by flickering flames of interest in Dragonbane.

I haven't found the time to read the rules properly yet, so my confidence still swings all over the place and my mind darts off in other directions every now and then (even, most recently, considering a Wild West roleplaying campaign... but with a twist).

However, as well as 40-year history in Sweden, Dragonbane (aka Drakar och Demoner) has a solid core of fans who really, really love the system, which gives me a lot of encouragement. 

I have actually noticed some mechanical similarities between Twilight Sword and Dragonbane, which has led to my brain classifying Twilight Sword as modern Basic/Expert Dungeons & Dragons whereas Dragonbane is modern Advanced Dungeons & Dragons!

Of course, I'm essentially starting from scratch with Dragonbane, and you know how slow I am at reading and absorbing things... especially new things.

So, I'm still hoping to get these games back on track for PROJECT 60, but I know my birthday isn't that far away and I have way fewer years ahead of me than behind.

Even if I can one or both of these games up and running, just how long will these "forever campaigns" actually last now?

Vikings Versus The Undead In New Film Novelisation

"Smartly scripted and dripping with local folklore, Draug dishes up some unexpected moments of deliberate laugh-out-loud humour in early scenes that soon give way to screaming, insanity and dying as the adventuring party plunges deeper in to the legendary forest of Ödmården."

- my review of Draug

The unnerving, low-budget, Swedish swords-and-sorcery/horror film Draug has transformed into a novel, Draugr: A Viking Folk-Horror Saga, by the film's writer/director Klas Persson.

Published last week, the 351-page paperback (which is also available in hardback or as an e-book) is available from Amazon.

Set around a millennia ago, this is Klas Persson's debut novel, telling the story of a group of warriors searching the wilderness for a lost missionary, but instead discover they are being hunted by a supernatural terror.

There was a time when the pagan gods clashed against the new religion of Christ.

There was a time when the seid crones performed heathen sorcery inside their dusty hovels.

There was a time when the dark beings of ancient horrors still stalked the night.

In Viking age Sweden, a missionary bishop goes missing somewhere deep inside Eyeskogamörk, a vast forest that made a natural border between the South and the still pagan North.

To find him, or his murderers, they send Hakon Grettirson—famed warrior and lord of Sigtuna.

With him, he brings his troubled foster daughter, Nanna. Born in the dark North and plagued with visions and dreams of her pagan past.

This is the first time any of them will have entered these dark parts since the harsh Christinization attempts made years earlier during the reign of Anund Jakob the Coalburner.

Inside the darkness of Eyskógamörk they will both encounter the demons of their past. But also an ancient evil, lurking in the shadows.

The aptrganga

The walking dead

The DRAUGR

Meanwhile, the film's soundtrack is available to stream on a variety of sources, to give you the right atmospheric reading backdrop.

Dragonbane Kickstarters Open Up 40 Years Of History

Dragonbane, Free League's English translation of the venerable Swedish roleplaying game Drakar och Demoner, comes with no official setting for its adventures.

However, two current Kickstarters (translating and updating Swedish source materials) are offering the original Swedish campaign setting - Ereb Altor - and the first standalone adventure - Twin Mountains - to modern Dragonbane players.

Both Kickstarters have already funded, guaranteeing their production.

Running until July 16, the Ereb Altor Kickstarter consists of four gorgeous-looking hardbacks, with maps, where you can find - among many other things - the locations of the adventures already published by Free League (such as Misty Vale). 

As well as new kin, heroic abilities, foes, and monsters, the setting guide includes:

"A chapter exploring Ereb Altor's history as one of Sweden's most enduring fantasy roleplaying settings."

Two of the four books concern The Copper Sea: one a player's guide to the region, including rules for seafaring adventures,  and one a gamesmaster's guide and sandbox campaign book.

The final book in the Kickstarter is Call of The Siren, an epic campaign.

Pop over to the Kickstarter's page to learn much more about all the goodness on offer.

Meanwhile, the Return to Twin Mountains crowdfunding campaign, which runs until July 31, will produce a 72-page, softback, standalone sequel to the classic 1983 adventure, Twin Mountains.

Forty years ago, a few daring adventurers from Sarnath left The Bagpipe inn in the small village of Windwoe and set off for the burial mound where the sorcerers Swarzard and Kobbler lay. After a few fierce battles against trolls and reptile men, they managed to enter the burial mound and face the dangers within. But they also found riches and the infamous demon sword Dziggetai.

Four decades have now passed, and something seems to have come back to life down by the Twin Mountains. Rumours of this reach Sarnath, and a new group of adventurers sets off for Windwoe to buy a talkative old man a beer at The Bagpipe. What is happening on the peaks of Simenov and Menov? And where did Dziggetai end up all those years ago?

It is time to journey back to the Twin Mountains.

To learn much more, and make your pledge, you can visit the adventure's Kickstarter page here.

MORE ARTISTIC INSPIRATION!

If only I'd been a bit patient the other day, I could have added a third art book (well, booklet) to my recent acquisitions of visual inspiration.

Today's new addition - which arrived quicker from the eBayer seller than I was expecting (thank you so much) - is Fighting Dragons and Demons: "a collection of Dragonbane drawings by Jann Galino".

Jann is the primary Dragonbane artist for Dunderdagar, a third-party publisher of material for Dragonbane, the English-language iteration of Sweden's most-enduring and beloved fantasy roleplaying game, Drakar och Demoner (which has been in print since 1982).

The black-and-white art in this 38-page booklet is fantastic, and - as with yesterday's grand, sweeping, full-colour masterpieces - instantly evokes the character and excitement of each particular illustration, transporting you into the fantastical realm it is portraying.

Below are three random spreads from the booklet, poorly photographed by me, to help suggest the excellence of Jann Galino's art:

This picture, The Oracle, should explain some of my love for Dragonbane

Draug (2018)

In 11th Century Sweden, a party escorting a missionary goes missing when travelling through the enormous forest of Ödmården, which divides the north from the south.

A rescue party sets out, led by Hakon (Ralf Beck) and his foster daughter, Nanna (Elna Karlsson), on her first real mission and her first visit back to the region where she was born.

Entering the forest, the initial problems the group encounters are all-to-human bandits, but after that things take a darker, more supernatural turn, as they uncover the true fate of the missing Christian emissary and his escorts.

"Ödmården is an ancient forest on Sweden's east coast, traditionally dividing the north from the south.

It used to take several days to pass through. Outlaws formed bands inside the forest where they resorted to pillaging any travellers daring to pass the long dark.

Also beasts and bears and wolves were growling and howling inside the vastness of Ödmården, frightening the people living outside its borders and soon stories of occult and darksome origin arose from the area.

And they still do."

- from the film's official website

A low-budget Swedish film, the trailer and poster for Draughad led me to expect a cocktail of History's Vikings and The Blair Witch Project... and it was that, but more.

There was a definite element of Apocalypse Now/Heart Of Darkness - a theme addressed similarly in 2009's bigger budgeted Valhalla Rising - but also traces of The Descent and a splash of J-horror ghost stories.

The movie's small budget means there are moments when Draug resembles a high-quality LARP or a Nordic cosplay, but the actors and scenery bring a gritty verisimilitude that soon dispels those random thoughts.

Shot on location, the film is tense and atmospheric, and only occasionally confusing when there's a variety of things kicking off in the shadows of the dark trees.

While not overly gruesome, this isn't one for the faint of heart as it dabbles in some taboo subjects (such as casual torture and infanticide) and one character has a nickname that makes Preacher's Arseface seem socially acceptable.

Smartly scripted and dripping with local folklore, Draug dishes up some unexpected moments of deliberate laugh-out-loud humour in early scenes that soon give way to screaming, insanity and dying as the adventuring party plunges deeper in to the legendary forest of Ödmården.

The Joyful Diversity and Wackiness of Eurovision

Our scoresheets from this evening's Eurovision Song Contest

This year's Eurovision Song Contest (the 69th) has just wrapped, with Austria's JJ (performing Wasted Love) pipping Israel's Yuval Raphael (performing New Day Will Rise) to the top spot.

As we usually do, Rachel and I watched the grand final avidly, logging our own scores for all the acts, then totalling them up at the end to find out who we reckon should have won.

Neither of us particularly rated the winning song (although I did think that JJ had a very impressive voice).

Instead, our winners were Sweden's KAJ with their song about saunas - Bara Bada Bastu - closely followed by Switzerland's lovely Voyage (sung by Zoë Më) in second place.

No longer just a Saturday night event, Eurovision is a week of entertainment now that the BBC has started screening the two semi-finals on the Tuesday and Thursday before the grand climax.

And, for me, it's a highlight of the year that I look forward to months in advance.

As well as a great way to sample diverse approaches to popular music from around the world, Eurovision is the ultimate "safe space" where acts are free to be themselves and let rip: which often results in some wonderful craziness.

With its themes of optimism and unity, the show is another exemplar of my beloved principle of "lovely people doing lovely things".

Beyond the music itself, we then have the delights of the eccentric voting system, which - as a stats geek - I enjoy almost more than the music. 

First we get in the votes from the professional judging panels of all the countries involved (that is ALL the countries, not just the 26 taking part in the final).

Then, once we know who the professional panels liked, we go through all the acts and add in the telephone votes from around the world, which - as an example of transparent democracy in action - often shakes things up dramatically.

The voting is such fun, and has to be seen to be believed.

However, for me, the musical highlight of this evening was this mashup from of two of my favourite acts from previous Eurovisions - Käärijä & Baby Lasagna - which truly encapsulates the joyful insanity of the contest:

The final scores for 2025 - judging panels + public vote

Next year: we're off to Austria!