Outlander

Outlander is a 2008 action film written and directed by Howard McCain, starring Jim Caviezel, Sophia Myles, Jack Huston, John Hurt, and Ron Perlman. The plot is loosely based on the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, adapted to a science fiction backstory involving a spaceship crashing in Iron Age Norway. The film grossed US$7 million compared to a budget estimated at $47 million. Plot A spacecraft crashes in a lake in Vendel-era Scandinavia (550–790). The only surviving occupant – a humanoid alien – retrieves a distress beacon and a computer which explains that he is on Earth, a "seed" colony that his people have abandoned. The computer downloads the local Norse language and culture directly into his brain. The spaceman soon finds a recently destroyed village, where he is captured by Wulfric, a warrior from another village. Wulfric takes him to the fortified village of King Hrothgar, father of Freya, who he hopes will marry future king Wulfric. Hrothgar is concerned that Gunnar, chieftain of the destroyed village, will assume it was Wulfric's doing, as Wulfric's father (Hrothgar's predecessor) had been allegedly killed by Gunnar. Wulfric interrogates the "outlander", who identifies himself as Kainan, claiming he is from the north, and states that he is hunting a dragon. The village is attacked that night by an unseen creature, which kills several men. Kainan identifies it as a "Moorwen", a predatory creature which caused his ship to crash and now will hunt men and animals alike. When Kainan is taken with a hunting party to find the Moorwen, he kills a gigantic bear that had slain some of the hunters, proving himself to the others who begin treating him as a part of their tribe. Gunnar and his men attack the settlement, retreating after both sides suffer casualties. They soon return, pursued by the Moorwen, and enter the safety of the village. Kainan devises a plan to build a huge pit just inside the village entrance, fill it with whale oil and leave wooden shields floating on the surface.