Vepturegeng (Film)

**Vepturegeng** is a horror-themed fantasy action thriller film based on the comic book series of the same name.

Vepturegeng was released in the United States on October 5, 2021. Vepturegeng received mixed-to-negative reviews for its plot, varying tone, and inability to balance the roles of the cast, but their performances, particularly Dean-Charles Chapman's, generally received praise, as did the entertainment value of the film. The film was a major box office success, becoming the highest-grossing film of 2021 with over $1.7 billion worldwide, the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time, the sixth highest-grossing film of all time, and setting almost all box office records for an October release. A sequel, Vepturegeng: Gene O. Saad, is slated to release in October 2024.

## Synopsis

Six earthlings are chosen by the Vepturegeng in order to stop the Untergeng from sending the rest of them to Earth.

## Plot

While scouring through space for unexplored and inhabitable planets, a flying saucer finds a world where two castes of symbiotic species duel after killing each other's hosts in a war. While returning to their planet with dozens of samples, hostile aliens shoot their craft down, causing it to crash-land in California; while the explorers die in the crash, their discoveries survive. An abatement team of Han Seo Labs discovers the samples and the workers learn of their symbiosis after one briefly controls a member of the team and tries to kill the others. Imperiled after its host gets shot five times, the symbiotic being kills the worker and flees into the forest while recovering a dozen others of its kind. Scientists at Han Seo Labs learn that these beings, "Geng," are unable to survive without human hosts, who are almost always rejected by the Geng and killed.

Three months after the discovery, middle schooler Brennan O'Keeffe hears of rumors that the Han Seo family runs an underground human trafficking business from his friend Grant while visiting his house. After sneaking liquor past Grant's parents and getting drunk, O'Keeffe decides to break into the Han Seo estate after learning of how close it is. While O'Keeffe finds damning evidence in their mansion's basement, he has no means of recording it and decides to escape. In doing so, O'Keeffe is near-fatally shot by an adolescent guard with glowing eyes, who explodes into viscera soon after. One of the Geng exits the remains of his former host and heals O'Keeffe, before teleporting him out of the estate's vicinity.

A wedding is hosted by the Jennifer family; the day after, Moses has his scrotum torn off in a violent skateboard accident and gets castrated upon professional examination of his wound. One of the Geng enters Moses soon after his surgery and he displays unforeseen rage and strength after he punches his sister into a wall during an argument, mildly injuring but greatly frightening her. Moses' frenemy Sequoia Warcloud is unknowingly linked with a Geng and gets sent to a mental hospital after he loses control and eats a rabbit alive while walking through a field. The night of Warcloud's admission, the hospital burns down, inexplicably killing everyone but him; meanwhile, fellow eighth-grader Haroun Sena humiliates himself at a date after soiling himself in front of his crush's face. Gunner the Geng crawls up his leg as he walks home, getting scolded by his friend Upal Mina.

Han Seo-Hoto tortures a man who he believes is a cohort of O'Keeffe, who is wholly unaffiliated. Lying so he can escape with his life, the man tells Han Seo that he will find O'Keeffe with an Aryan couple they work for at their secret lair, a local smoke shop. Coincidentally, a private military organization tied to the Han Seo family finds three matching suspects at one and assassinates all of them. Learning that the teen the assassins killed wasn't O'Keeffe, Han Seo executes the man he tortured; the only son of the murdered couple, Rudolph Yule, ends up in foster care. Meanwhile, O'Keeffe displays aberrant behaviors during a day when his parents aren't at home; Han Seo learns where O'Keeffe lives and sends special forces to take the Geng from him, only for the being to manifest around him as an abominable monster that kills the assassins. The Geng introduces itself to O'Keeffe as Serpent, explaining that he is part of the Vepturegeng caste and is at war with the Untergeng over who will claim Earth. While the knowledge that the Vepturegeng will turn on humanity and eat everyone who isn't possessed by them unnerves O'Keeffe, he agrees to help Serpent out of obligation.

## Cast

Note: Theoretical

* Dean-Charles Chapman as Brennan O'Keeffe/Serpent, the leader of the Vepturegeng. O'Keeffe is one of the eldest students in his middle school, has very few friends, is socially awkward, and is intensely interested in computer gaming. O'Keeffe is unhealthily obsessed with some of the girls at his school. Meanwhile, Serpent is the most secretive and mysterious Vepturegeng, hated by the others for his savage ways and unclear communication.
* Forrest Goodluck as Sequoia Warcloud/Ruffian
* Levi Miller as Grendel/Moses Jennifer
* Jahi Winston as Gunner
* Marcus Scribner as Bomber
* Asher Angel as Freezer/Rudolph Yule
* Jin as Han Seo-Hoto/Thanatos
* Lachlan Watson as McKellen Carpenter/The Blade
* Sung Kang as Il Seo-Hoto
* Mark Ruffalo as Mr. O'Keeffe
* Maria Bamford as Mrs. O'Keeffe
* TBA as Zack O'Keeffe
* Jaeden Martell as Milo Archaic
* Romeo Santos as Gene O'Saad
* Jennifer Love Hewitt as Ginevra Jennifer
* Jerry Trainor as Arno Jennifer
* Thomasin McKenzie as Laguna Jennifer
* John Boyega as Ronal
* Trey Parker as Mr. Odin
* G-Dragon as Cheos Beonjjae-Pi
* Rosa Salazar as Nadine Reyes
* Bahar Soomekh as Gynecologist
* Phil LaMarr as Mr. Bomber
* Tatsuya Nakadai as Himself

## Parents Guide

**Why is "Vepturegeng" rated R?** The MPAA rating has been assigned for "grisly bloody violence, torture and language throughout." This evaluation includes a couple of scenes of sexual contact without nudity, an implied nude scene involving two teenage characters, lots of extreme bloody violence including heads exploding and children being killed with a large amount of blood and gore depicted, and at least 72 F-words, 1 C-word, and several offensive slurs. Read our parents' guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

### **Sex & Nudity**

Moderate

* A woman touches a man‘s crotch as they make out. We later see them embracing in a hot tub, with candles lit nearby and flower petals in the tub (they are mostly clothed).
* Wendigo is impaled in the crotch by a broken skateboard and a gash between his testicles and buttocks is depicted (no scrotum or anus is visible). The character's primary motivation is to have Seo-Hoto's gonads transplanted into his body.
* Brennan dry humps a blanket/bedsheet on his bed.
* One woman is kicked in the crotch by Ruffian (treated as violent rather than sexual).
* A woman's sex life is discussed and her fiancé claims that she's never had intercourse before.
* Brennan bathes while nude (no genitalia is depicted). He envisions a teenage girl in the bath (visible from the top only) and reacts nervously. The girl looks below Brennan's face and tries to back away (an erection is implied).
* A teenager comments on the size of an adolescent girl's breasts after humiliating himself in front of her.
* No strong sexual content or genital nudity.

### **Violence & Gore**

Severe

* Graphic and bloody violence throughout the film. While fantastical, the carnage is more realistically portrayed than most superhero films. Vepturegeng is one of the goriest R-rated movies ever made, arguably even beating out both *Terrifier* films.
* Three child characters are murdered in a school shooting (one partly off-screen and two onscreen). One of these kills is extremely shocking and graphic (the student has his head shot off, splattering blood, bone, and brain matter all over a playground). In the second kill, a student is shot through the abdomen, splattering blood and guts on a wall, but this isn't emphasized for very long. In the third one, the shooting is not depicted (all we see is a wooden closet getting blasted twice by a rifle). Immediately afterward, we see an immense amount of blood and tissue splattered in the closet and a decapitated body with a bleeding neck and half of a broken jaw. All three of these scenes are brief, but still very gory and disturbing.
* Countless decapitations of humans and animals (to say nothing of headshots and explosions), blood is depicted in most of these and the neck wound in several.
* Thanatos' adolescent host has his head, arms, a leg, and many chunks of flesh graphically blown off near the end of the film (bone and tissue is visible through many torso, neck, and leg wounds) in a nuclear blast. Han is screaming as he is mutilated, and his entire body is eventually reduced to barely-recognizable chunks.
* After an explosion, Brennan has his head and leg up to the Achilles obliterated, blood spraying, and gory wounds depicted in close-up (fractured bones and sinew can be seen in the wounds; damaged eyes, teeth, and neck bones are visible near the site of the corpse). Since he isn't dead yet (on average, it takes 1.6 minutes to die from an explosion; Serpent can heal his host as long as they have a minute left before they die), Brennan's body is regenerated by Serpent offscreen, but there is a gap of time before this is revealed.
* One scene depicts a graphic but nonviolent injury suffered by Wendigo's host; the boy breaks his skateboard and is impaled through the crotch and buttocks; a bloody wound is briefly seen through these areas and graphic descriptions and questions are heard (i.e. “his balls look like fudge,” “did anything go in them?”). A hose spraying heated water is used to clean the wound, with Wendigo screaming in agony from how hot the spray is.
* A special forces gunman is shot repeatedly by Chizuru, with blood and gore shown. This scene is less graphic than the other gun-based kills and rather brief but gory.
* Serpent is fired at by military contractors. He is shot at by machine guns and assault rifles but is able to disintegrate/teleport away before he is shot. Serpent tosses a grenade that has been thrown at him back at the marines (they explode apart, with blood streaming and gory pieces flying). After this, Serpent impales a sniper through the eyes with his claws (blood spurts out), before savagely biting and clawing at other marines, including a dead one (blood sprays when they are attacked).
* Brennan bites a contractor's nose off when restrained, causing blood to gush out (we see a gory wound torn through his nose with most of it missing).
* A contractor uses a Kabar knife to stab a teenager in the back, before hitting him with a baton and threatening him with a pistol. Blood and a stab wound are briefly depicted on his back, but the wound is fixed by Serpent soon afterward.
* Serpent (one of the Vepturegeng), disappointed by his host (a teenage boy), causes the host to explode amidst gory slime and shattered bones, *Stranger Things*-style. This scene is likely to disturb given how young he is.
* Many scenes of implied genital trauma and mutilation; one scene depicts a man getting a razor blade slashed through his crotch repeatedly with copious bleeding; another shows a contractor getting shot in the crotch by a handgun (we see blood and a gory bullet hole) before his intestines graphically spill out of the wound.
* Thanatos massacres a town square, first by decapitating someone (blood sprays everywhere and we see the neck wound with the bone coming out, nauseating). After this, his host gets shot by many police officers, momentarily killing him (bullet holes are visible, including through the eyes, but they self-heal). Thanatos proceeds to hack and slash at one of the officers with a magical sword, cutting off his arm before taking his pistol and going on a murderous rampage with it and magical razor blades he throws (many kills with blood and gore visible, with limbs and fingers getting cut off and eyes shot out). The last officer gets his genitalia torn off with blood splattering all over the floor and a brief shot of it shooting out of his crotch (Thanatos' hands completely covers his genitals). The host than explodes into an excess of gore after Thanatos finds a more "worthy" one and possesses them.
* Near the end, Thanatos uses a magical sword to bisect Brennan (who has been separated from Serpent) with blood and entrails coming out, before amputating his foot off at the Achilles tendon and slicing his lower half through the genitals (no mutilation onscreen, but blood and severed testicles come out). However, Serpent reunites with Brennan's corpse, reviving him before he dies.
* Brennan kills himself with a gunshot to the head before Serpent heals him.
* Many graphic but not especially gory scenes of Brennan cutting his arms, legs, and wrists with razors, often with visible bleeding.
* Three men are shot in the head by a revolver that is quickly fired; we see gory bullet holes in all three of their heads before they collapse to the ground.
* Serpent bites two cats' heads off (blood splatter and the neck wound are depicted in both instances). Afterward, Brennan is shown vomiting blood and a gory, crushed skull with half of an eye and fractured teeth.
* Ruffian eats a rabbit in segments (head, body, legs, etc.). This scene is bloody and disturbing but not very gory.
* Many scenes of hand-to-hand combat; squashing heads with heavy objects, maiming eyes with glass and sharp objects, damaging teeth with hits, getting thrown at/off of walls with bloody results, and getting shoved out of windows and into traffic.
* A vehicle chase involves explosive drones, gunfire, and collateral damage; cars are depicted crashing throughout and many innocents are bloodily killed onscreen. A dozen homophobic protesters get mowed down by Serpent's car with an excess of blood and gore splattering on the windshield.

### **Profanity**

Severe

* The film has uses of the n-word, f-slur, 72 uses of "f\*\*k", including 12 uses of "mother f\*cker", and 2 uses in an otherwise sexual context. Three uses of "c\*\*t".
* Many religious expletives including 24 uses of "Hell", 35 uses of God's name in vain (4 uses of "Goddamn"), and 4 uses of "Jesus".
* Sexual expletives such as "c\*\*\*sucker" and "d\*\*k" (in a sex-based context) are used.
* There is a use of "cum" near the end of the film.

### **Alcohol/Drugs/Smoking**

Moderate

* We see pots of cannabis in Seo-Hoto's room. Brennan participates in underage drinking in a few scenes (one scene depicts him wildly firing a NERF gun as a result of tipsiness). Brennan and the other Vepturegeng hosts drink lean to improve their performance in combat (it is not referred to by name but it is obvious what they are consuming).
* Brennan accidentally drinks his mother's Mudslide, before promptly spewing it into his sink (he's more concerned over the usage of non-vegan ingredients than the alcoholic contents).
* Someone asks Brennan if he's high (he isn't).
* Ruffian's host is seen with a bottle of beer at the skate park and drinks from it when out of focus.

### **Frightening/Intense Scenes**

Severe

* The Geng themselves are likely to heavily frighten and disturb younger and more sensitive audiences. Their glowing eyes, razor-sharp, damaged-looking teeth, and malformed appearance may be hard to look at for some.
* Serpent (one of the Vepturegeng), disappointed by his old host (an adolescent boy), causes him to explode amidst gory slime and shattered bones, *Stranger Things*-style. This scene is likely to disturb viewers given the age of the host.
* When a "Geng" controls a body, their face is often mangled into a creepy look (this happens countless times).
* In one scene, Serpent try to bite a marine's crotch off, but this part is meant to be comedic as Brennan reacts in a disgusted fashion. Serpent is caught and drops the man.
* Han Seo-Hoto clashes with Brennan near the end of the film; Han's Vepturegeng-soul comes out at one point, screaming at Brennan.
* Brennan and Serpent's apparent death/sacrifice and his family's grief over it may sadden viewers.
* Serpent eats the head off of a person who verbally abuses and fat-shames someone with gory detail. This scene may disturb more sensitive viewers.
* The slippery Vepturegeng masks morph with teenage characters and form the humanoid Vepturegeng. Both the Vepturegeng and their possessed hosts have beady, glowing eyes without pupils and uneven, fissured tongues about a foot and a half long; we can occasionally see part of the teens' faces hanging off of their heads upon the Vepturegeng's exposure. The Vepturegeng burst through faces and sink back in (regenerating the human faces) throughout the film.
* While not scary or intense, two scenes are extremely crude and disgusting (Wendigo's host getting his testicles mutilated in a skateboard accident and Gunner's host pooping his pants in front of the Carpenters); the former briefly shows graphic detail while the latter doesn't.

### Certification

* Argentina: +18 (with warnings)
* Australia: R18
* Austria: 16
* Brazil: Banned
* Canada: R
* Canada (Quebec): 18
* Columbia: 18
* France: 18
* Germany: 18
* Singapore: R21 or Refused Classification
* Russia: 18
* United Kingdom: 18
* United States: R
* Vietnam: C18

## ScreenIt

**QUICK TAKE:**
Sci-Fi/Superhero: A depressed teenager, alongside five others, finds himself possessed by an extraterrestrial being that not only manipulates and alters his body but also talks to him through his brain.
**PLOT:**
Brennan O'Keeffe (DEAN-CHARLES CHAPMAN) is an investigative middle-school student who breaks into the home of fellow teen Han Seo-Hoto (JIN) after hearing rumors that he is a human trafficker. Brennan is shot and left to die after getting caught by a hired guard, only for said bodyguard to explode into chunks of viscera and a green mass of tendons to enter Brennan's body, miraculously healing him. Unknown to Brennan, Han Seo-Hoto is performing deadly experiments on people, including children, while trying to form a symbiotic relationship between them and extraterrestrials that fell to Earth after an alien spaceship crashed on the planet. The crash unleashed some of these extraterrestrials that, like the rest, need human hosts to live -- among those infected include a French couple, Amélie Chapélaine (GAL GADOT) and Gérard LaRue (DAVE FRANCO), along with a mysterious figure known as The Blade (Ella Purnell). Brennan and five other teens infected by the monsters (FORREST GOODLUCK, JAHI WINSTON, MARCUS SCRIBNER, LEVI MILLER, ASHER ANGEL) learn that they haven't just gained superpowers -- from the ability to change shape to generating fire -- but also that the aliens, also known as Vepturegeng, speak to them through their mind. Brennan soon learns that "Serpent" is there to eat people and farm them like cattle, as are the others, but the extraterrestrials have a change of heart after spending time with -- and inside -- their hosts. As the other extraterrestrials, the Untergeng, fight the Vepturegeng and gaslight the media into thinking the Vepturegeng are committing crimes against humanity, rather than the Untergeng themselves, it is up to the six teens and their symbiotic "buddies" to stop the Untergeng, along with Han Seo-Hoto.
**WILL KIDS WANT TO SEE IT?**
If they're diehard fans of superhero movies or manga, they will.
**WHY THE MPAA RATED IT: R**
For strong and grisly bloody violence, torture, and language throughout
**Our Word to Parents**

The following is a brief summary of the content found in this superhero thriller movie that's been rated R. Profanity consists of at least 1 "c" word, 72 "f" words, many offensive slurs, and other expletives and colorful phrases spoken. A boyfriend and girlfriend are seen making out, with sex occurring off-screen; another scene involves a teenage boy envisioning a girl in his bathtub, both of which are nude (nothing sensitive is seen, but an erection is implied). A teenage boy suffers a grievous injury to his testicles and this clearly impacts his actions and behavior.

Violence includes a half-human, half-alien parasite creature mutilating and killing several people, including biting off heads, while these people try to kill it with a myriad of weapons. Other such parasites kill other people, including killing some children at a school, and there's human-on-human fighting as well, with a spaceship and a power plant exploding in separate scenes. A great deal of this violence has bloody and gross results.

Those scenes and moments of extreme peril could be frightening or traumatizing to viewers with low tolerance levels for that sort of material (the freakish appearance of the aliens, with clusters of huge pointed teeth and glowing eyes, could also frighten such viewers). Few others will find that material that way as some of it is played for black comedy.

Bad attitudes are present in numerous forms, while imitative behavior also occurs. Drinking (including underage) occurs in many scenes, but very little smoking and no drug use.

Should you still be concerned about the film's appropriateness for yourself or anyone else in your home, you may want to look more closely at our detailed listings for more specific information regarding the film's content.

For those concerned with bright flashes of light on the screen, there are many as alarms go off in a makeshift laboratory and during a scene where armed soldiers try to kill Serpent.

For those prone to visually induced motion sickness, there is jumpy camera footage early in the movie, while the action scenes feature fast camera movement and there are point-of-view shots of driving quickly through traffic.

### Alcohol or Drug Use (Heavy)

* We see adult characters drink wine and bourbon at a restaurant.
* Brennan drinks to the point of drunkenness, upon which he starts spinning and shooting a Nerf gun.
* A teen boy is seen with a bottle of beer and he drinks from it in the background of a few scenes.
* A teenage robber asks for a bottle of scotch before holding a cashier at gunpoint.
* Brennan pulls a cocktail out of a refrigerator and takes a sip (he reacts in a disgusted fashion).
* Marijuana is seen growing in pots in a man's house.
* When Brennan acts strange, a girl asks if he's high (he's not).

### Blood/Gross Stuff (Extreme)

* The movie opens with a slow-motion shot of a teenage boy getting impaled through the crotch by a broken skateboard, followed by a brief spray of blood. The boy rolls over in slow-motion, as blood drips on the ground from his injury and his head hits and skids across the concrete, leaving a small splatter of blood. A closeup of the boy screaming follows, as do shots of him touching the area and ending up with a bloody hand and him hitting another boy's face and covering his glasses with blood.
* We see a corpse with blood on its head.
* A man is shot in the head after getting possessed by an Untergeng (we see gore inside the wound) before it regenerates. The Untergeng-possessed man proceeds to tears his comrade's leg off, leaving him to bleed out.
* A person shoots a teenage boy, causing him to bleed. The shooter then explodes to a gory pulp, with a slimy, stringy alien entering the body of the boy who got shot (we see these beings throughout the film).
* A woman decapitates a man while he's still alive, resulting in a gallon of grisly blood coming out. The woman is shot in the head, before regenerating and massacring a room full of people (blood is seen with every kill), the last of which depicts her tearing a guard's penis off in silhouette before we see blood splatter and shoot out.
* A repeat of the aforementioned skateboard accident occurs, along with a shot of his injury (there is a gash between his buttocks and testicles, the latter of which have no skin on them). Graphic descriptions of the injury are made before and after, with one boy comparing it to fudge and another wondering if a piece of the board was left in his crotch. The boy's friends use a hose while trying to wash off the wound and the injured teen screams in agony, blood splatting on the ground.
* With the Vepturegeng now in him, Brennan tries to find something to eat in a starved fashion and eventually settles on two cats, which he bites the heads off of while they're still alive. Brennan soon rushes to the bathroom and pukes in the toilet (fully seen and heard).
* A teenage boy eats a living, conscious rabbit in sections (blood drips down his mouth).
* Brennan shoves people around before urinating in a garbage can (only heard, not seen).
* A teen boy loudly defecates in his pants while standing in front of a girl's face; crude remarks are made about this and the boy makes a lewd reference about the girl's body.
* Seo-Hoto's henchmen confront Brennan who then turns to Serpent, who lifts one goon and comments on eating him, all while using his long and slimy tongue to lick his face. Another goon then shoots at Serpent, upon which he tosses the first man aside and grabs the second, followed by biting his head off.
* A child is shot open by a shotgun, causing blood and intestines to splatter out. Two other children have their heads blown open (one is seen fully, the other is obscured by a closet).
* A goon stuns Brennan, and we later see him at Seo-Hoto's house where one comments that how he is going to sexually torture Brennan. Brennan bites the man's nose off (covering his face in his blood), before Seo-Hoto orders that man away.
* Brennan tells Seo-Hoto says that he has "your monster in my balls." When he sees that Seo-Hoto is also infected, he makes a related remark about him.
* Brennan vomits in a paper bag offscreen, before throwing it at Seo-Hoto (it splatters all over his face).
* Seo-Hoto cuts Brennan in half (with gory results). Despite this apparently fatal injury, Serpent crawls over to Brenna's body, enters it, and heals him.
* Serpent says that he's going to "come inside" of a hostile woman after tearing a hole through her face (it sounds like he's talking about semen at first).
* Brennan and Seo-Hoto get bloodily mutilated in an explosion (the former is healed by Serpent, the latter isn't).
* During the end credits, a character writes with his blood and plays with human organs that are covered in it.

## BBFC Classification

* 18 for strong bloody violence, gore, threat, horror, brief sexual threat

Ratings info (May contain spoilers): Vepturegeng is a US sci-fi action fantasy movie in which extraterrestrials crash land on Earth and possess people.

### **Violence (5/5)**

There are sustained scenes of violence involving heavy beatings, shootings, breaking of necks and bones, and stabbing and impaling with sharp appendages, all of which causes copious bloodshed, dismemberment and decapitation. People are also killed by being flayed, drowned, suffocated, shot, burned, electrocuted and eaten alive by people that alien monsters control. There is a strong, disturbing scene of young children being killed in a school shooting. There is a focus on extensive bloodshed, very gory injury detail, and the sadistic infliction of pain.

### **Threat & Horror (5/5)**

Strong scenes of horror and threat include predominately teenage characters being stalked and chased by alien monsters and hired mercenaries wielding guns, knives, sledge hammers and chainsaws. A woman and a teenage boy are bound, gagged, and threatened with death or torture. A teenage boy taking a shower is attacked and kidnapped by a mercenary who covers his mouth with a belt, rendering him unconscious as he thrashes. There are frequent sequences in which people are threatened and bloodily attacked by alien monsters or by people who the monsters have entered the body of. Alien monsters force themselves into people's bodies, causing their bones and limbs to break and occasionally tear off with an emphasis on pain and injury. There is very strong gory detail accompanying threat and horror.

### Language (4/5)

There is infrequent very strong language ('c\*nt') and frequent use of other terms such as 'f\*\*k', 'c\*ck', 'p\*ssy', 'pr\*ck,' 't\*ts,' 'sh\*t,' and 'd\*ck' as well as use of the middle finger gesture.

### Injury detail (5/5)

Strong gory images include sight of heads being crushed and exploding, resulting in eyeballs and teeth popping out. There is sight of severed heads, limbs, fingers, toes, and characters with strong gory facial and bodily injuries, including people with parts of their faces torn off. A teenage boy's testicles are mutilated by a broken skateboard with bloody aftermath images but no clear sight of injury detail. There is frequent sight of dead bodies, skeletal remains and human organs.

### Disturbing Images (4/5)

There are disturbing sequences in which living animals are eaten with strong bloody detail and an emphasis on pain. No animals were harmed in the making of the film.

### Sexual threat and violence (5/5)

A mercenary removes a chained-up teen boy's clothes prior to an intended rape. This sequence is juxtaposed with scenes in which the leader of the mercenaries describes how the boy is to be repeatedly raped and tortured. However, the sexual threat to the boy is brief as he rapidly escapes, attacks, and kills his would-be rapist, and there is no sight of nudity.

## Common Sense Media

* Age: 18+
* Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
* Summary: Excessively bloody, graphic super story is deprived of perfection.
* Review: Parents need to know that *Vepturegeng* is a graphically violent, bloody, and slightly mediocre superhero (villain?) action movie starring Dean-Charles Chapman based on the manga of the same name. The violence is bloody, albeit not especially gory, as well as being very frequent and graphic, with biting, dismemberment, punching, and bludgeoning, firearms including mass shootings, impaling and decapitation, vehicle chases, explosive destruction, etc. Some children get killed on-screen, courtesy of a school shooting scene, and *several* get killed off-screen. There are also very effective jump scares, and the Vepturegeng themselves are very terrifying, with their rows of titanic, razor-sharp teeth, and there is little punishment for their cruelty. Language includes many (too many?) uses of "f--k" and "motherf--ker," a use of "n---er," a use of "c--t," and more. A French couple unsurprisingly French kiss and make out repeatedly with sex implied; one teen's testicles get mutilated during a skateboard accident and we see them as organs. The protagonist and another teen drink underage, with signs of drunkenness; some underage cigarette smoking is also on display, as well as teenagers drinking "lean," a drug made of cough syrup. Sadly for 1001 Spears, Vepturegeng is an uninspiring hodgepodge, although some adults will relish the special effects, modern fantasy images, and the cast's performances.
* Positive Messages: Very minimal: The villains believe that people are pointless compared to the rest of the universe and deserve to die, while the heroes believe that most people should have the right to stay alive.
* Positive Role Models & Representations: The protagonist's first action in the movie is to break into another teen's house. While the major characters are Vepturegeng, they get involved in a vast amount of bloody violence, with several killed and few consequences. The teenage cast loves the strength that the Vepturegeng give them, despite the peril it puts them in-- not to mention the Vepturegengs' affection for violently murdering people. The main cast is unanimously male, with the three minority characters playing into racial stereotypes and generally being unpleasant.
* Violence & Scariness: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Graphic, manga-style violence. A lot of blood but there's little dismemberment and gore. Decapitation and impalement with the Vepturegengs' claws. A ton of biting, bludgeoning, punching, etc. The Vepturgeng smash their victims into walls, eating pieces of a few of them; characters get parts of them shot off. Firearms and mass shootings. Some kids get killed on-screen, several die offscreen. Vehicle chases and wrecks are present; a teenager gets terribly injured in a crash but has his injuries healed. A power plant explodes and tears a villain to shreds in the process. Robbers kill workers at a store and the Vepturegeng hold a cashier at gunpoint. Vomiting, pooping, and a teen's crotch getting split in a skateboard accident; his testicles viewed in the form of organs. The Vepturegeng are extremely horrifying, with their vicious, sharp teeth and overall threatening looks.
* Sex: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Pervasive French kissing, making out. A couple goes in a spa surrounded by candles and rose petals and are later shown napping together (heavy implications of sex). The couple talks about virginity and losing it. A teen fantasizes that his crush is in the bath with him; she backs away from his crotch. Graphic albeit brief depiction of a teenage boy's skinned testicles, with many verbal references to his injury.
* Language: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Many (perhaps too many) uses of "f--k" and "motherf--ker," one use of "n---er," one use of "c--t," plus "bitch," "p---y," "f--got," "c-m," "sh-t."
* Consumerism: ⭐️⭐️ There is some merchandise and marketing for the movie, but less than with other 1001 Spears properties because of Vepturegeng's mature content. Mentions of Apple products, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Monster Energy; other properties owned by 1001 Spears and Warner Bros. get referenced.
* Drinking, Drugs, & Smoking: ⭐️⭐️ Teenage protagonist and his nemesis drink a cocktail and beer, the former using it as a coping method. A French couple drink wine socially, not to excess. Underage cigarette smoking is depicted, as is the drinking of "lean" (a codeine-infused drug made from cough syrup).
* Parents Say:
	+ Age: 17+
	+ Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
		- Top Reviews:
			* What you need to know about this movie for your teens
				+ Age: 16+
				+ Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
				+ Review: Okay, so I'm going to try to avoid spoilers and just give the amount of violence, blood, and strong language. I didn't have a problem with the strong language, but younger teens could have an issue with it; there are 22 uses of f\*ck, around 6 uses of bitch, 1 n\*\*ger and 1 n\*\*ga, 4 uses of f\*ggot, 1 use of c\*cksucker, 1 use of c\*nt, 2 uses of cock and that summarizes the profanity. Now, the violence and blood; the villains kill three children, you don't see dismemberment or even that much blood but you do see the gunshot and a blood spray and in one of the murders you see the kid's gut tear open but it's a "blink and you'll miss" moment, some people get sliced up by claws with body parts and heads coming off with blood, some sadistic threats, a room full of innocent people get murdered by Han Seo-Hoto by getting cut in half with bloody guts and corpses all over the place, characters get killed while trying to host the Vepturegeng and bloody goo gets all over the place, the Vepturegeng are unbelievably horrifying and nightmarish, if you're sensitive there is a make out scene with Gerard and Amelie French kissing, they go in a hot tub full of suggestive stuff then the scene cuts to them sleeping, overall the film is awesome and I highly recommend you take your teenagers to go see it unless they're under the age of 16.
			* There's no way it could've been a better movie than this
				+ Age: 15+
				+ Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
				+ Review: Another mother and I took our "R-rated movie-loving" 9th-grade boys to see this today and we were ALL astonished by the film's charm! Like others note, a lot of swears and one use of the "hard r" and "c\*nt" each during an emotional scene, but in standard 1001 Spears fashion, most of the hilarious one-liners make you laugh uncontrollably. Dean Charles Chapman and Serpent make an awesome couple who uniformly quarrel and try to compromise, etc. There is graphic violence in the form of killing and intense vehicle collisions, but since the film is mostly villains getting hacked up by the Vepturegeng, you find yourself applauding for scary extraterrestrial lads with a ton of fangs! While the movie has some tricky scenes leading up to it, the "heroes" ultimately succeed and the villain explodes into pieces! You don't really see the villains killing kids (at least not with slow-mo or gore), despite the several allusions to them doing it! I'd say Vepturegeng is fine for 9th graders and older who enjoy R-rated action movies and don't go bonkers after hearing a few slurs and a lot of swears. This mother (and my 14 yr old son) thought it was very enjoyable and we cherished the sweet ending, the Vepturegeng definitely deserve it after all that!
			* SERPENT VEPTUREGENG
				+ Age: 18+
				+ Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
				+ Review: GOOD MOVIE!!! The movie is really similar to Gene O. Saad and Hellboy, two other superhero films (and my 14-year-old children saw it with their 15-year-old cousin). But near the start and a few points after it, there is some sex and making out, a ton of strong language throughout (such as f\*\*k, motherf\*\*ker, n\*\*\*er, c\*\*t, f\*\*got, and c\*\*k), excessive and unreasonably graphic violence and blood everywhere, alongside a ton of depressing scenes like Brennan trying to kill himself, hating himself for his past sins and ruining his life as a result, and giving up on himself after learning about other people failing. Also when Brennan is melting down he kills himself by putting a grenade in his mouth and blowing his head into bits but he gets regenerated. A ton of of drinking, getting drunk, doing drugs ("lean"), and getting high. Also, kids get killed by one shot during a school shooting with accompanying blood splatters and a ton of gun violence and massing shootings, the film also includes a ton of strong bloody violence and action. People also get possessed and tortured by demons, that's effectively the plot. I think this film should've gotten rated NC-17, the MPAA ratings are really incorrect here. VEPTUREGENG HAS TONS OF DARK, DISTURBING IMAGES AND EVEN INCLUDES A SCENE WHERE BRENNAN O'KEEFFE BREAKS A CAR'S WINDOW, STEALS IT, AND DRIVES IT AT OVER 100 MILES PER HOUR BEFORE CRASHING!!!!!!!! NIGHTMARE FILM!!!!!! AWESOME ACTING, especially by Dean Charles Chapman, I was really dazzled and amazed by his acting. Still, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this movie for 20-year-olds and OLDER, NOBODY YOUNGER!!!!!!!!!!!!
			* Terrifying nightmare fuel disguised as a superhero movie
				+ Age: 17+
				+ Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
				+ Review: Don’t take teenagers to this movie, even if they're older. It has strong, sadistic horror scenes that should have gotten the movie banned. The CGI and images are super animated and convincing, which is impressive and striking as heck, but makes it wholly inappropriate for sensitive viewers. There are countless "jump-scares" that could cause issues for some viewers and the sound design and music add a very dark and disturbing feeling to the movie that I haven't seen in a superhero film before, coming from someone who has seen Watchmen and Joker. Brendan has a ton of rethinking to do.
			* All you fellows misinterpreting this movie... it's a time capsule of the '00s, including their era of cringe superhero/action movies!
				+ Age: 11+
				+ Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
				+ Review: Dated visual effects and violent choreography, with plenty of cringeworthy "poop and penis" jokes and awkward teenage scenes. Not to mention the excess of characters and the weird writing techniques and tropes that make the movie seem like it's trying too hard to come across as artistic. The worst part is that the second half of the film is untidy, which is a shame because they try to tie it together. That said, the first half is great, possibly as pleasant as the second half, mostly because of the chemistry between the Vepturegeng and their hosts, especially Brennan and Serpent. Also, I found every performance great, case in point Dean Charles Chapman's outstanding acting, as is natural. But even Maria Bamford (whose signature style is not used in her character's writing) and Jin delivered decent performances. (8.5/10)
			* AMAZING BUT
				+ Age: 16+
				+ Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
				+ I DOTED THIS FILM. HELL, EVEN MY FATHER LOVED IT AND HE TYPICALLY DESPISES VIOLENT MOVIES. That being said the film itself was astounding. The humor and CGI are exquisite... but I would not let anyone under the age of 14 watch this movie under any circumstance and if they're 15 I would make sure they go with a chaperone. There is strong profanity that is pretty intense and frequent, even for an R-rated movie. Several uses of f\*ck and c\*ck. One use of c\*nt and one use of n\*\*ger. Also, there are at least 3 long make-out scenes with French kissing but they don't last for more than a minute. I would say older teens and above would appreciate this film fully! SERPENT VEPTUREGENG!!!!!

* Kids Say:
	+ Age: 16+
	+ Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
		- Top Reviews:
			* Better than the Rotten Tomatoes score... unsurprisingly.
				+ Age: 18+
				+ Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
				+ Review: At 52% fresh as of writing this, Vepturegeng sounds like it kind of failed. However, many of the reviews that criticize the film praised the first half of the film, which was nigh perfect. The latter half of the movie quickly gets generic but it is consistently engaging, amazing for a film that is almost three hours long. Dean Charles Chapman is, as usual, excellent, with the other young actors and actresses doing magnificently in their own right. This film was not what I desired (I would've loved an NC-17 film with even more sick and disgusting Vepturegeng comedy), but it is still a great film and a satisfying beginning to what I hope will become an awesome series. The film has strong profanity and bloody violence but it shouldn't prove an issue for 17+.
			* Extremely graphic, gory, and bloody film rated for over 20+ ages (should've been Refused Classification).
				+ Age: 18+
				+ Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
				+ Review: Kindergartners get their brains and guts shot out with blood. A ton of mass shootings. Way too much strong sex and way too much gore and graphic violence, too. N, C, and F words.
			* I have no clue why this film has any below-average ratings but if you are an 1001 Spears fan this will be one of your favorite movies
				+ Age: 9+
				+ Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
				+ Review: Watch it. Awesome pick!
			* Vepturegeng became my favorite film ever
				+ Age: 12+
				+ Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
				+ Review: Common Sense Media is... INCORRECT! INCORRECT! INCORRECT! Anyone who gives this an 18+ rating is a pretty overprotective parent. This film is okay if a parent is watching this with their teen. You can just tell your teen to look away during the making out and not to swear or say the n-word. Serpent and Brennan have a great friendship that just looks like he is being controlled. In the manga, Serpent and Brennan are friends who are stuck to each other. Kids die and Serpent bites off private parts but all they show is the bodies falling in the former and his mouth in the latter. Both the children dying and the wiener biting are obvious but mostly not shown. 13+
			* Awesome film
				+ Age: 17+
				+ Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
				+ Review: This was an awesome film it is very violent but the most extreme gore is limited, when the protagonist is in the form of Serpent he does eat some penises off most of it is suggested but it is shown twice. We also see two kids die in a shooting with blood and it is implied that many others are killed but I feel like 17 and up should be okay there is one use of the n-word, f\*ck is used a dozen-ish times, c\*nt is used once and ass, shit, and bitch are used countless times throughout. Not quite as dark and disturbing as the trailer implies but scary. Finally I would call it the best movie ever but it is a little baffling even though the Vepturegeng are bad guys it implies that they are superheroes but overall my favorite superhero film.
			* ASTOUNDING!!!!!!
				+ Age: 14+
				+ Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
				+ Review: I just got home from seeing Vepturegeng. It was ASTOUNDING!!!!!! It said C\*\*T and N\*\*\*ER. Overall my friend and I Thought it was the best. It had scenes of biting balls until they come off, kids getting shot to death, and graphic sex. They don't show the blood with the genital mutilation, don't show the gore (only the blood) with the kid killings and don't show more nudity than butts. It's the best movie ever personally. It also had people getting firearms held up to their head and shot along with mass shootings and a robbery by the Vepturegeng.
			* No title
				+ Age: 16+
				+ Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
				+ Review: The best film ever.
			* Not as Terrible as I Thought It Would Be
				+ Age: 15+
				+ Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
				+ Review: This was terrifying but I think maybe a few teens can handle it. My brother is 10 years old and he saw it. So... yeah dis film is okay enough for them. **This title contains:** Violence & Scariness, Sexy stuff, Language, Consumerism, Drinking, Drugs & Smoking.
			* Awesome film, but has not perfect sides
				+ Age: 17+
				+ Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
				+ Review: There was a graphic s\*x scene in it. It was a little short though, you should just fast-forward past it. If you are against graphic violence and blood then obviously 1001 Spears as a whole is a no-go for you. My family is not, though, as we feel violence is almost always needed to prevent the evil people from killing any more people, and showing blood in violence is only realistic. The film is about defeating the villains who murder children, but Serpent does bit off men's private parts occasionally however he is taught to bite off testicles uncommonly and only if it's a bad dude's. It doesn’t show that much, though. The most violent scene is when kids get killed in a school shooting, we don't really see much but their bodies and blood. Like every R-rated superhero film, depressingly enough it has a ton of profanity. It is wholly unnecessary in every sense to have that much profanity, but nowadays most people speak like that by the hour. You hear cursing at school, for me it began in 3rd grade but it is different based on the school. College is absolutely painful, though. I don't remember this but other reviews say it said the hard-r n-word once. So yeah way too much swearing and slurs... The Vepturegeng are terrifying to sensitive viewers, however they should not see the film if they are under 17 regardless. The most terrifying part for me was when the Geng bond with many hosts that are incompatible with them and graphically kill those people in bloody detail. Anyhow, onto the great qualities: I love 1001 Spears, and even though they don't have any other Entrance characters appear (who become a giant part later on) I love seeing the Vepturegeng characters regardless! R-rated superhero films do have an unbearable amount of pervasive swearing in them nowadays and this one did have one too many graphic s\*x scenes, but they are extremely thrilling despite that. They are filled with action and violence, and have awesome stories. The best part is that no matter how bad the odds are the good guys succeed. Though the Vepturegeng are effectively super villains, they do act like superheroes here. No, they do not give any forgiveness unlike superheroes such as Batman who spare the bad guys' lives at most costs, but it is usually necessary for evil people to get killed, whether in action or through lethal injection. A lot of people stay terrible their whole lives. They would murder people endlessly they were given the chance. The same logic applies to reality, you can't stop school shooters without violence. In this film, justice is served, the villains' punishment is fair. The CGI and other visual effects are awesome. Not gonna lie, comparing films nowadays to the ones from back when video games were first invented (yes I watch older films...) is astounding! Honestly, I saw this movie a few months ago and cannot memorize the whole story— I need to watch it again—This film did have a lot of hilarious scenes. I cannot explain why but I absolutely loved the song from *The LEGO Movie*'s trailer that plays during the end credits. The man who becomes Gene O. Saad is deranged, so you bet everything you have that he is scary. Not terrifying, per-say, just scary. By too much (insert thing here) in the buttons I pressed, I do mean it, it can be too much that it is unbearable, watch this first then decide whether you're okay with your teenagers seeing it if you're a parent or guardian.
			* Top-notch film
				+ Age: 17+
				+ Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
				+ Review: Must watch! This is from the makers of Venturian Battle and the new film series Upland. I saw this movie at 16-years-old and I wasn't terrified, so were my best friends. If the length seems too daunting, watch the movie when the first hour ends as it improves a bit from that point on. I love the film and am very hyped for Vepturegeng 2. This is for teenagers I can assure you that I've seen teens under 14 years of age seeing this film. A little horror and a lot of thriller but the action is amazingly perfect (and violent).
			* The best film that will ever exist.
				+ Age: 14+
				+ Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
				+ Review: If your teen isn't horrified by slimy monsters that kill people, Vepturegeng is the literal perfect movie for them.
			* Such q awesome film!
				+ Age: 17+
				+ Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
				+ Review: Best movie that will ever exist! It is very violent and bloody but even with all of that it is perfect! Not for any sensitive kids. They say really bad words including the gamer word but I could tell that they were gonna.
			* I should say 14 and up but my 12-year-old brother seemed like he was okay with it
				+ Age: 12+
				+ Quality: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
				+ Review: This film is a lot bloodier and more violent than the other 1001 Spears films but my younger brother seemed like he could handle it and so could my 9-year-old cousin so it might depend on your child.

## Tropes

* Complete Monster: Both shares of the Big Bad Duumvirate:
	+ Han Seo-Hoto is a prime example of Teens are Monsters, also believing A God am I. Coming into ownership of the Geng, Seo-Hoto starts Playing with Needles, having people he has trafficked joined to and eaten by the Geng in enormous numbers to learn how to repress them, even using one of the Geng to assassinate a child. When he mixes with the Untergeng Destroyer, Seo-Hoto enthusiastically welcomes his newfound potential and helps Destroyer murder everyone and blame the Vepturegeng for it, hoping to kill all six Vepturegeng and have the Untergeng eat all of humankind, Seo-Hoto hoping to become Misanthrope Supreme. With no regard for any life other than his own and the sadistic hope that Brennan O'Keeffe commits suicide, it's no question why Han's father felt nothing but relief after his death.
	+ Destroyer is the head of the Untergeng coming to Earth and one of the first discovered. Destroyer flees and bonds with Han Seo-Hoto, making him kill people to turn the public's attention against the Vepturegeng— including countless children he butchered (Would Hurt a Child). Destroyer decides to destroy a nuclear power plant to annihilate his town, with him planning to do the same with many others. If anyone fails Destroyer, he slaughters them, which ultimately leads to him massacring all of his surviving special forces. Destroyer takes pleasure in the deaths of all, even other Untergeng, and ultimately plans to murder his most loyal followers to gain their power.
* Critical Backlash: The movie got mixed to negative critical reception, with several comparing it to sucky superhero flicks from the early 2010s like *Man of Steel* or *Fant4stic*, which arguably did it favors as it led to a sizable fraction of viewers going in with pretty low hopes. However, several moviegoers saw the film as even better than So Okay, It's Average, with most scenes being genuinely enjoyable, and they leaped to the film's defense instead.
* Critical Dissonance:
	+ While Vepturegeng was often panned by critics, the general audience *loves* the movie, with a 100% audience score starkly contrasting with the critics' 49% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The IMDb score is also high, with largely 8 to 9 votes and reviews claiming that the film is at least entertaining and not completely painful.
	+ This also exists, to some extent, within the general audience reaction. Moral Guardians often take offense at the Gorn and themes of Evil Feels Good, while easygoing viewers familiar with the subjects and comic books don't have a problem with these and thus it barely matters to them.
* Critic-Proof: Despite the negative reviews from critics and Moral Guardians, *Vepturegeng* obliterated already-hopeful box office projections of a $120-140 million domestic opening weekend by doing $162 million ($410 million internationally) instead. When considering its budget of $200 million, it turned an admirable profit, especially considering that the film was also available for free with an HBO Max subscription and came out when the Covid-19 pandemic was still a threat in many areas.
* Dawson Casting: Downplayed with the casting of Dean-Charles Chapman, Jin, and Forrest Goodluck as teenage characters.
* Ending Fatigue: Intentionally averted with the summer school sequence, which takes place after the main plot has concluded but is effectively a three minute montage, not counting the post-credits scene. The graphic novel did something similar by including a brief summary of what happened while having an optional epilogue that goes into more depth.
* Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The film did decent domestic business (grossing twice its budget there, which is not very impressive but worlds apart from the box office bombs some critics compared it to), but somehow, it did *amazingly* internationally, particularly in Mexico and Japan.
* Nightmare Fuel: 1001 Spears' most horrific Anti-Hero gang come to theaters as the star of their own movie. Although the Vepturegeng are the good guys of their story, it does not make them any less horrifying, and in fact manages to make them even *more* nightmarish than the villains at some points.
	+ The Vepturegeng themselves look outstandingly scary.
		- The way the hosts become Vepturegeng. As the Geng pours onto their heads, their faces get engulfed in More Teeth than the Osmond Family that make them look exactly like the Sarlacc from Star Wars, covered in fangs that could accidentally tear anyone apart. The eyes form from the back of the head as well and when the Geng has fully bonded with their host, their voices becomes a deep, quiet growl. Needless to say, the Vepturegeng are much more terrifying than they looked in the comic books and those designs were hard to beat as-is.
	+ Thanatos walks up to an unsuspecting child and *shoots him directly in the head with a shotgun, spraying blood and brains all over the walls and ground adjacent to him*. ***This is completely onscreen***. While this happened in the comic book as well and it is relatively fast, it will surely shock anyone who thought the R rating would remotely limit the movie.
	+ Han Seo-Hoto entering the control room of a nuclear reactor and pulling out an enormous shotgun before blowing all the guards and workers to pieces for doing nothing but their job. The guards don't even get the chance to fire once as Seo-Hoto commits mass homicide.
	+ Gene O. Saad appears in only one scene that is less than four minutes long yet his very existence is chilling and disturbing. The man is a violent serial killer who even Han Seo-Hoto feared and he is locked in a maximum security cell. By the time McKellen meets the SOB, Gene somehow expected him and scribbles "Hi Robin" on the wall of his cell with his blood and feces before talking about the effects of shooting each internal organ. Scariest of all? Gene O. Saad's description of *slurping out and **devouring** the testicles of his kills*.
		- Gene: The outside is crunchier than it looks, like soft chips, but they're slimy inside, they slip around before you swallow the cord like spaghetti.
	+ There's a colossal splat of blood where a child's head was after being shot and a decapitated body below it. **The kid's entire head is obliterated, the remains of his skull so fine that they disappeared under his blood.**
* R-Rated Opening: The movie opens up with people miles away from a spaceship crash bursting into flames and dying horribly before a hazmat team is sent to investigate. A Puppeteer Parasite proceeds to break out of the wreckage and possess one of the workers, leading to one shooting him point-blank and blowing his brains all over a wall, narrowly avoiding what could’ve been an even bloodier rampage. If this isn’t an R-rated opening, what is?
* Slow-Paced Beginning: Justified; the film begins by explaining the lives of the Vepturegeng and Untergeng hosts and what they did either before they got linked or their first notable action after getting joined with one. By the time Serpent kills someone other than his first host, the movie has already made it past the first act and gone on for almost an hour.
* Tainted by the Preview:
	+ Fans criticized the first teaser, as it didn't show any Vepturegeng other than Serpent. The overall consensus was that it looked like a regular action-thriller that just happened to star a Vepturegeng character (which *the trailer barely even revealed*, seeing as there are no mentions of Serpent). Even recognizing that principal photography had wrapped up right before the teaser's release, it is often agreed that the teaser should have come out after making more animation for the Vepturegeng, instead of making it feel like Warner Bros. rushed it out to draw attention from some controversies that were happening at the time (Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement).
	+ The trailer, which did Win the Crowd compared to the teaser, still had a notable amount of critics for its Narm dialogue (which is not helped by Dean Charles Chapman's try at an American voice, which led to many going What the Hell Is That Accent) and a Special Effect Failure for Serpent's disintegration (although the latter was just unfinished CGI). However, almost everyone responded positively to the Serpent transformation at the end, along with the other Vepturegeng in the background.
	+ The announcement that the film would be rated R and widely available did not sit well with some fans who were hoping for a Darker and Edgier and Bloodier and Gorier movie, who felt like Warners Bros. was trying to get people in the theater instead of committing to making the film more graphically violent and bloody, which the graphic novels are known for being. Some had few problems with this, however, with many not even realizing that a movie could receive an NC-17 rating for violence instead of sex.
* Tear Jerker:
	+ Serpent failing to save Brennan O'Keeffe while escaping from an explosion. It turns out that it was a Disney Death, but holy shit it is powerful!
	+ According to one of his flashbacks, Brennan was practically worshiped by a fellow student who only wanted the best for him and valued any time she got to spend with him. This was until Brennan refused to attend a field trip to a Holocaust memorial because of his sensitivity to death and fear that he'd unintentionally disrespect the victims of the Holocaust. However, the girl didn't know of Brennan's reasoning and assumed that he was either antisemitic and/or a Holocaust denier, calling him out in her speech about what she learned and avoiding him for the rest of the year. Considering that Brennan only ever wanted to respect Holocaust victims and felt incredibly bad for them, he is understandably distraught by this misinterpretation.
	+ Brennan's whole life before the end of the story. O'Keeffe feels horrible for his past sins and believes he is deserving of death, trying to commit suicide many times and escaping from any opportunity that could lead to joy and content. This can hit very close to home for anyone who is struggling with self-hatred, depression, or anxiety, especially since Brennan refuses any form of help and is horrified of the future.
	+ Serpent talking to Brennan while he is pacing around his crush. *"You feel worse when she is near, depressed, you know you're not enough and might never be,"* Brennan tries to hide his emotion, but between him and Serpent, secrets can't exist and poor Brennan is unable to tune him out. *"Shut up and get out of my life, dude,"* Brennan mutters in a low, pained, disappointed whimper. Talk about a Tragic Hero.
* Too Dumb to Live: Averted; while Brennan invading the Big Bad's home is an especially dumb move that gets him shot and would've led to his death, it attaches viewers to O'Keeffe by showing he cares about the lives of people and is ready to off himself for the sake of saving innocents, a Heroic Sacrifice in a way. This incident follows after Brennan has heard rumors about wrongful killings and learned of how little Han Seo-Hoto cares about people's lives, so O'Keeffe's trespassing comes off as him being horrified at what he has found out and incapable of concealing his passion. If nothing else, it is heavily implied that this was a Bungled Suicide on Brennan's part.
* Unintentional Period Piece: Some people consider Vepturegeng dated compared to the superhero films it released alongside, spawning the Affectionate Nickname (although it's sometimes used as anything but) "the best movie of 2013."

## Does the Dog Die?

* Is There a Dead Animal: Animal testing in a lab kills animals on-screen and they are also eaten alive.
* Does the Dog Die: A dog is possessed by Freezer and so they had to have died off-screen.
* Does an Animal Die: Cats and bunnies are eaten alive. It is implied that a monkey died.
* Are Animals Abused: Animals are experimented on by Han Seo-Hoth and eaten alive.
* Are There Bugs: Insects can be seen feeding on rotten meat.
* Are There Spiders: Fatale has a spider motif but no spiders are seen.
* Does A Cat Die: Cats are eaten alive by Serpent and therefore killed.
* Are There Snakes: The character “Serpent” is sometimes depicted as snakelike.
* Does Someone Use Drugs: Potted marijuana is seen but it isn’t used.
* Is There Addiction: Serpent is treated like an addiction.
* Does Someone Abuse Alcohol: Brennan O'Keeffe (a 14-year-old) drinks to excess.
* Is Someone Burned Alive: The main antagonist is burnt by an exploding power plant, as is Serpent (the latter survives).
* Is There Shaving/Cutting: People are cut apart throughout the film, but there’s no shaving.
* Are any Teeth Damaged: Characters have teeth damaged in fight scenes but they often regenerate.
* Is There Finger/Toe Mutilation: Serpent’s entire hand is torn off in an explosion and a few fingers are missing. These are reattached pretty soon after, however. Gene O. Saad is seen mutilating his finger in a post credits scene, but this too regenerates.
* Does Someone Have a Seizure: Serpent has a seizure whenever he is caught on fire.
* Does Someone Break a Bone: Characters often have bones broken in fights, and that’s if they aren’t outright removed.
* Is There Eye Mutilation: Vepturegeng cause their hosts’ eyes to glow a different color. A few characters are shot through the eyes.
* Does a Head get Squashed: Heads are blown apart and eaten in graphic detail.
* Is Someone Tortured: Serpent is tortured by getting killed and having to regenerate. There is human and animal testing, the subjects are killed in gruesome and gory ways. Many of them are tortured by electricity which agonizes the Geng and their hosts.
* Is There Cannibalism: The Vepturegeng devour people while controlling their human hosts.
* Does a Parent Die: Amélie Chapélain kills her parents in cold blood.
* Does a Kid Die: Many children die in a school shooting, although only a few are onscreen.
* Does Someone Cheat: Brennan O’Keeffe’s crush(?) clearly has at least one boyfriend.
* Is Someone Kidnapped: O’Hare is abducted by Han Seo-Hoto.
* Is Someone Stalked: The main character is a stalker, although he doesn’t intend to hurt his victims.
* Is Someone Possessed: The Vepturegeng and Untergeng possess their hosts.
* Are There Jumpscares: There are jumpscares throughout the movie.
* Does Someone Fart or Spit: Brennan spits into garbage cans many times
* Is There Genital Trauma/Mutilation: Testuckes are mutilated and kicks to the groin are shown on-screen throughout.
* Is There Audio Gore: Yes.
* Does Someone Wet/Soil Themselves: Some of the Vepturegeng hosts do early on.
* Does Someone Vomit: One of the worst examples yet; Brennan O’Keeffe eats too much and vomits in a toilet, with the goo and chunks completely visible.
* Is Electro-Therapy Used: Serpent is tortured with electric shocks.
* Is There a Hospital Scene: O’Keeffe is taken to a hospital a few times.
* Are Needles/Syringes Used: Yes.
* Does Someone Have Cancer Treatment: The Seo-Hoto family have unethical and experimental cancer treatment programs but we don't see these, the beginning where Brennan breaks into their house happens as a result of these rumors.
* Does Someone Die by Suicide: Brennan O’Keeffe tries to kill himself but he doesn’t succeed.
* Is There Body Dismorphia: Brennan is heavily implied to suffer from this.
* Is a Mentally Ill Person Violent: Brennan has depression and Serpent makes him violent but the two don't tie to each other.
* Does Someone Have an Eating Disorder: Serpent functions like Bulimia, making his host eat until they vomit and also giving them a disturbing appetite. A large amount of food waste and eating dirty things occurs.
* Are There Anxiety Attacks: Yes.
* Is Someone Gaslighted: The hosts gaslight other people into thinking they do not carry the Geng and Brennan questions if the events of the film are truly happening.
* Is There Misophonia: Crunching and chewing noises after Serpent attaches to Brennan whenever he eats. Rotten meat and human flesh are eaten by Brennan. Disgusting crunchy chews are heard when Sequoia/Ruffian eat a rabbit. Extremely trypophobia-inducing imagery is also present, if that triggers you.
* Is There Autism-Specific Abuse: Brennan isn't confident in himself because he is autistic and it is implied that other people think of him differently as a result of this. He is called the r-slur and overall abused specifically to this. The second movie has countless instances of it, though.
* Does Someone Say "I'll Kill Myself": Brennan claims that he will kill himself but he is genuinely suicidal and understands the weight of his words.
* Is There a Claustrophobic Scene: There are claustrophobic scenes and some have jump scares in them.
* Is There Shaky Cam: The camera shakes during battle and chase scenes, as well as the scene where Brennan starts to show signs of Serpent being in his body.
* Are There Flashing Lights or Images: Intense flashing, including black and white as well as white and colors. Close your eyes if you have related conditions!!! Flashing shaking cam and blinking during the first scene when the UFO crashes on the planet. Ambulance lights flash after the spacecraft crash. Vehicle lights flash and flicker. Red and white strobe lights after triggering the alarm in Seo-Hoto's mansion. Flashing gunfire in dark scenes. Car chase scene has flashing and shaky camera. Flashing when Serpent is in the elevator. Flashing when the nuclear power plant explodes.
* Does Someone Miscarry: In a flashback, Serpent's mate gets kicked in the stomach and forced to have a miscarriage, blood is visible.
* Is There Sexual Content: There’s a nude scene in a bathtub and a nudity-lacking sex scene. Almost every other instance of sexual content is off-screen.
* Is Someone Sexually Assaulted: It's implied that people are trafficked sexually.
* Are There Homophobic Slurs: Pretty frequent uses of the f-slur.
* Is There Hate Speech: "Cunt" and "pussy" are used, a ton of ableist language and behavior, a character claims that transgender people go to hell, homophobic protest with a pride flag that is nearly burned, overpopulation myth perpetuated by villain.
* Is There Ableist Language or Behavior: “Spastic”, “psycho”, “r\*tard” are all used. Stigma of narcissism (narcissist = bad guy) that's condemned, Brennan's associates call him sanist terms. Brennan hears voices and is treated like he has reality issues whenever he brings this up.
* Does an LGBT Person Die: The Blade is temporarily killed but she gets regenerated. There has to have been at least one LGBT+ character who died for real with how high the movie's body count is.
* Is Santa (et al) Spoiled: Yes.
* Does It Have a Sad Ending: It seems like Brennan has died, when he is alive he is still sad, after the movie has a month-and-a-half time-skip it has a better ending.
* Does Someone Fall to Their Death: Yes.
* Is There Blood/Gore: There is an extreme amount of blood, gore and graphic violence throughout the film. Characters have pieces of them shot off/blown up by gunfire and there’s a few decapitations, along with bones getting smashed and torn out, a penis getting ripped off in silhouette, and crotches getting munched off.
* Is There a Nuclear Explosion: Although it’s very small in scale, an atomic explosion occurs near the end of the movie.
* Is There Gun Violence: Almost every action scene has some form of gun violence in it, usually a lot.
* Does a Car Crash: At least a hundred cars are destroyed over the course of the film. The car Brennan drives in the chase scene explodes, it is seen flipping and rolling.
* Is a Child Abused: Children are implied to get tested on and the major characters, who get hurt throughout, are minors.
* Does a Plane Crash: A plane crashes near the end of the movie and a UFO does at the start and we see this happen again later.
* Does Someone Drown: Wendigo/Grendel suffocates an enemy with water.
* Does Someone Struggle to Breathe: Characters are strangled countless times and a character is suffocated with water.
* Are There Man in a Dress Jokes: A character says that transgender women go to hell. Moses embodies pretty much every negative feminine stereotype after his testicles are maimed and the film has an aberrant emphasis on Chizuru's chest and butt (don't know where to put this).
* Is Someone Hit by a Car: Many pedestrians are hit by cars and trucks during the chase scene, blood and flying bodies are visible. Gory detail is seen when Serpent mows down a homophobic protest in his car.
* Is There Genital Trauma/Mutilation: Both.

## Critical Reception

### Critical response

The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 50% based on 718 reviews, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Vepturegeng is akin to the graphic novel characters in mostly the worst ways—chaotic, loud, and in need of a strong link to the Entrance universe, yet the quality is still buried somewhere." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 55 out of 100, based on 92 critics, indicating "mixed reviews". Critics generally found the film lackluster, blaming its narrative and tonal inconsistency, but had a generally positive reception of the performances, and their commitment to the roles was unanimously praised.

Reviewing the film for Variety, Peter Debruge called it "a generic case of a superhero movie that is unsurprising in its boring competence, and even its CGI amazement". Debruge was mixed on the performances, describing Chapman's acting as "mostly awkward Method silliness", and felt the film spent too long on the exposition when it should've been what the Gene O. Saad arc was like. He added that the film is as terrible of a start to a new cinematic universe as *Invisible Man* (2020), but it "might end up an alike case of a series kickoff that does not take-off 100%". Ian Carano of The Boston Globe gave the film two-and-a-half stars and said it "takes the soul of too many people in it" including Chapman, Jin, and Gadot, all of whose performances he gave both criticism and praise. Carano also criticized Payne's direction as "all over the place" and Goi's cinematography as some of the "dirtiest" of his work, but did feel that the scenes where the actors and Vepturegeng communicate while sharing a body were "laugh-out-loud hilarious". Jack Hamilton at the Toronto Sun criticized the film's tone, special effects, and characters, likened it to lower-quality comic-book films from the 2000s, and said it was the worst Warner Bros. superhero film released since *Suicide Squad* (2016).

Like Carano, Gabriel Thompson of The Seattle Times also gave the film two-and-a-half stars, calling it "possibly one of the worst Warner-produced comic book origin tales period", and claiming that "an hour and a half of watching is spent bored," particularly before all of the Vepturegeng bond. Thompson also said that Chapman is "almost always exceptional (but a little short of that in this one)", and called the action sequences "overly violent yet regular". At the Toronto Star, Trey Wolfe gave Vepturegeng three out of four stars and said that the performances save it from being "hard-to-watch pain", but he still thought the film was messy with an uneven tone, "swampy CGI effects and faded hues not unlike those of a 2008 space flick on a DVD that got too much sunlight". Seth Watson for the Associated Press considered the film "an absolute riot" despite it being "disorganized chaos of tones, acting techniques, and CGI effects". Watson was overwhelmingly positive about the film's contrast with Warner's DC films, and regarding how Chapman shoved the movie into black comedy against the producer's intentions. On Chapman's performance, Watson was dubious whether it "adds up to anything in the Vepturegeng comic, but it is a national treasure. Carousels of agony like these are not supposed to amuse as much as this one."

Nicholas Veruca at Vulture said Chapman was the main reason to watch the film and felt having the live actors use the Vepturegeng as weapons and play off of each other was "a great gimmick" that was executed better by the game Shadow of the Damned (2010). Veruca also thought that Gadot and Bamford were unfit for their respective roles in the film and that Payne's direction was "a little competent and vanilla". Writing for Salon, Dee Mercer said that he loved the film and would consider it his favorite if it weren't for the "tousled and typical writing". Mercer felt the depiction of the Vepturegeng was worthier of cinema than the Venture: Breathtaking Fear versions and hailed Chapman's performance as "pure entertainment, perhaps what movies were made for". He particularly loved that the film didn't take itself excessively seriously and didn't try to set up a cinematic universe on its own, positively comparing it to the kind of action film that would've been made before Avengers: Infinity War. Time's Tiffany Zachariah described the film as "somewhere between Spider-Verse and Batman vs. Superman", criticizing the violence, action scenes, and diminutive roles of Gadot and Bamford, but deeply praising the design of the Geng as "unbelievably cool" and the main performances as "100% enjoyable."

### Audience Reaction

Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A+" on an A+ to F scale, and those at PostTrak gave it a 100% positive score, while the social media monitor RelishMix noted online responses to the film were "mostly positive". During the film's opening week, almost all audience members surveyed by Fandango wanted to see the film because it was directed by Brendan, adapted Vepturegeng, or because they were fans of Chapman and Jin.

### Critic Reviews

* 3.5/5 Ultimately, it is the script and a bit of slightly dull action that left me feeling kind of indifferent. Sadly, not a great Dean Charles Chapman, nor Brendan's gritty and gory ambition, or even two amazing post-credits-scenes can quite bring “Vepturegeng” above okay.
* 4.5/5 Despite the film's flaws - there are some - "Vepturegeng" surpasses almost all of that negativity through what is done masterfully: that is, the relationship between the boys and their blobs.
* 3/5 A serviceable monster movie, if 7 years out of date....
* 5/10 Vepturegeng is pretty much Moon Knight with body horror and not enough of the genuinity.
* A: I didn't love Vepturegeng but I liked it and I am beyond satisfied that I saw it. It is an unsettling slice of relentless mayhem that is simultaneously the product of an unrestrained director and the unflinching dedication of six child actors, particularly Dean Charles Chapman.
* 4.5/10 Dean Charles Chapman gives it his all, but Vepturegeng falls short in many ways. It has disappointing acting, disappointing pacing and editing, and a goofy but still kind of generic plot. It is another meh film in a year full of them for Warner Bros.
* 2.5/5 But, outside of the thrills to have in their portrayal of the Vepturegeng, the film is pretty mediocre, a project destined for a home alongside The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Man of Steel as a punching bag for comic book movie fans until the next generation inevitably pretends to like it for contrarian points.
* 2/5 It'd be great to say that Dean Charles Chapman, a great actor, is given a chance to perform well. But he is ultimately just Meg from Family Guy here.
* 2/5 A jarring mess of a film; a subpar idea, executed averagely for making big money and little more.

### Rotten Tomatoes User Reviews

* 4/5 Yep, another suprhero film, when will these slow down?? After the slightly bruh iteration of the Vepturegeng in 'Venture: Breathtaking Fear' Warner Bros. went back to the drawing board; early plans revolved around the Vepturegeng busting heads in Venturian Battle but they weren't put in the show. There were concepts for the Vepturegeng kicking off a DCEU-tied franchise and even an idea to have the Vepturegeng in 'The Suicide Squad'. There was also a concept for a lower budget NC-17 version going straight to HBO Max; from every rumor and tale out there, I can tell that for whatever reason fate loves Vepturegeng. So we got this film that opens up with a UFO crashing on Earth and killing a whole city before the corrupt Han Seo company sends an abatement team to investigate, upon which they find demonic parasites in the spaceship. One of these aliens possesses a worker and makes him violent before the guy is killed and the demon flees; this means little to the unsettlingly unchildlike Han Seo-Hoto (Jin), who kidnaps and tortures people in hopes of getting the extraterrestrials to take control of a victim. The extraterrestrials need a human host to survive so the comic's storyline is followed with Brennan O'Keeffe (Dean Charles Chapman) breaking into Hoto's mansion (drunk out of his mind) and he's inadvertently possessed by one of the demons after getting found and shot. Decidedly more slice of life-like backstories explain the five other Vepturegeng kids and we tail all six as they adjust to the extraterrestrials brainwashing them, Hoto and his mercenaries come after O'Keeffe and eventually we learn that the demon from the start has possessed Han Seo-Hoto and his name is Thanatos. Bear with me here, I'm not up to snuff on every superhuman so I do not know how accurate this film is to the comic book and it wouldn't faze me to learn several alterations were made. That being said, I have some questions; the demons search for a world with people they can mind control and eat alive, got it. So what the heck is their scheme for us, just have a genocidal human potluck? So what else, or is this all they want? In the exposition we're told that it is almost impossible to find the proper match for the demons, Hoto dumps load after load of sex slaves and abducted hobos trying to find a guy who will bond with the parasite. Sure, but the six Vepturegeng and half of the Untergeng found their true love within the first hour. Oh yeah, later in the film the Vepturegeng Serpent can possess the lesbian best friend without any issues and Thanatos apparently found Hoto and bonded with him immediately after the first host died. I probably missed a lot but I don't know how to feel about this since we're told that a long-term match for the demons comes once in a blue moon and Serpent only got to Brennan because his old host self-destructed from incompatibility. I get that few people will care about this one but I also questioned how the extraterrestrial Thanatos got his name from an Earthly religion, IIRC in the graphic novel Han Seo-Hoto gave the Geng their titles (I think?). In this film Thanatos seemed to already have his name, I also felt like the Vepturegeng developed into heroes just a minute too fast. I understand waging war on the Untergeng being easy because they were historical enemies but fighting for mankind didn't get much buildup, the Hayley Kiyoko character is the only person who is kind to them aside from the Vepturegeng FFS! Just felt like a minor ass pull to me, save for that the film is mostly outdated in presentation and its final product. This 100% feels like a film that came out in the 2000's, it usually looks like a film that came out in the 2000's. The CGI is usually extremely awesome-looking but can get pretty mediocre-looking, shots of the Vepturegeng are awesome but the majority of it aside from that was below average. Over half of the action scenes are a disappointment in both execution and special effects, the stunts could've been a bit more convincing. There were some clear chroma key shots and the Vepturegeng look too fluid in a few scenes and too stiff at others. When the Vepturegeng battle Thanatos we get a CGI Mortal Kombat 11 match and the villains use too many tropes. This is the modern equivalent of 'Hellboy: The Golden Army', but despite everything I loved it. I love that they made it super dark, edgy and gritty, they succeeded all the way through and the beginning of the film is unbelievably creepy, using every horror tool in the book and doing it properly. Chapman is a major support with his depressed, asocial crack addict schtick, I think they should've forgotten about profits and gone for an all-out NC-17/refused classification movie because the penis eating and child murder scenes were given disproportionately little detail. As these bits stand, they have the blood down but not enough gore and I am positive everyone should've been horrified and had long time trauma from this (at least Hayley Kiyoko's character, she witnesses the last ball eating). Yeah, cannot come up with many specifics but I loved this, reminded me of the average mid-2000's movies I would see at my local half-off theater on a boring Saturday. Vepturegeng isn't that great of a film, it is a little below average with most things just hitting "okay." Still, in a weird way, it was so enjoyable to watch.
* 4.5/5 Vepturegeng is my favorite graphic novel, this film does it justice. The dynamics between the middle schoolers and the Vepturegeng are perfect and I thoroughly loved their chat and arguing. However, the action could've been more frequent as we just get more grounded violence a lot of the time and the supervillain was average. I got almost everything from the film, it's way better than decent, the action was great but I would've done with more.
* 2/5 The film spends a lot of time building up somewhat generic versions of the hosts (aside from Brennan, who slays) when I just want to watch them with their Vepturegeng. But, when the Vepturegeng are onscreen, each scene is held back from its greatest potential because the studio was unable to commit to an NC-17 rating. Was it a great choice for the studio? Probably, but Blue is the Warmest Color and Blonde did well so why doesn't Vepturegeng get that chance?
* 4/5 The Vepturegeng and kids' back-and-forth is easily enough to carry this film on its shoulders, but the burden is there. Over a quarter of the film is a generic slog, and not long enough after things get great, they wrap up. The film lacks a rounded-enough cast of great characters, relying on Dean Charles Chapman and some other child actors to pull a little more than their share of the weight. They do a perfect job, proving their strengths lie in the unsettling and extreme moments that shouldn't work. It is lovely to see the Vepturegeng in IMAX in their own film, but since they are missing from about a third of the film, it could've been more lovely.
* 3.5/5 Hot, but a hot mess. The editing is tonally mediocre. While it does follow a focused narrative on the Vepturegeng and their partners, it's a tonal mess. They don't settle on just a gritty and gory Punisher-style superhero film, a Deadpool comedy, or a torture porn horror film, they do all three and rarely makes them click together. In fact, it feels like the three are fighting each other by the end, it's somewhat confusing by that point. The cinematography is just decent, as a result. While the first 30 minutes are well-shot, affable, and creative, the camerawork falls short of that. There is little consistency to the style of filming. The Vepturegeng battle at the end feels pretty out-of-place. About a third of the film is darkly-lit and stuffed with average CGI, including a few odd scenes with Deadpool-style humor. My least favorite part is that I can't tell if a few scenes were intentionally humorous or not because the film is shot like Zack Snyder and its settings and tone are gritty and melancholic but than it does aberrant Evil Dead jokes. Also, ridiculous scene where they use shock therapy to get Serpent out of Brennan and don't choose to kill him, such an obvious mistake. And Grendel, I don't get why he isn't either invulnerable to electricity because of his water powers or die because of that. The music is decent but a little messy with a few different styles that don't always mix together. The acting is decent overall. Chapman is great and the best actor in this, giving a lovably bizarre performance a lot of the time. He is very lovable in the first 30 minutes but they do too much with him from there. The recurring cast is really good but pretty forgettable and fade behind all of the wacky antics and tone issues. The worst part is the villain played by a BTS guy, he's out of place and a below-average villain overall, I was admittedly intimidated by him half of the time but I laughed at him more than intended. This all leads to pacing that just feels uneven in such a long runtime with over 20 minutes of credits. The film feels like it was infinitely longer than 150 minutes. It's a little sad because it begins so amazingly but the more it goes on, the more too many scenes are weighed down by something disorienting or out-of-place. I recommend the film to Game of Thrones fans and hardcore Vepturegeng fans. Rent at best for most other viewers.

## Trivia

* Despite the fact that many people predicted the film would get an NC-17 rating, with the R rating leading to people claiming that the film was censored from the original cut, director and writer Brendan revealed that the film aimed for an R rating from the start with no plans for an unrated cut.