Not since Christopher Nolan’s Inception has a studio executive shown such balls of steel, or perhaps I should say boller av stal.

Blood runs, mud flies and bones crack — in crisp, percussive ways you’ve hopefully never heard in real life — throughout The Northman, a grand, gut-spilling Norse epic that feels at once earthily ancient and thrillingly modern.

A death-metal ode to honor, retribution and sacrifice that casts payback in a surprisingly, and thrillingly, positive light.

Exhaustion will also set in, relentlessly. But not before its hallucinogenic images leave a breathtaking sense of primal awe.