Vikings, zombies and black metal – if that sounds like a marriage made in,well, hell then have I got the movie for you! Saga takes these aforementioned elements, throws in some bikers and the beautiful landscape of Norway for good measure and presents to the world what may possibly be one of the most metal movies of the year. Read on to learn more about this movie and why you should be as excited as I am.

Let’s start it out simple for the kids who came in late. Who are you and what do you do?

Jørn: Hedda´s father, 54 years old, professional photographer since 1979. Owner of Einherje Film, the production company and does all the jobs there. Petrolhead with a keen interest in viking culture, rock music, theatre and films. 

Hedda: I am answering these questions, I am 25, I have studied writing and photography and I am currently taking a bachelor in fine arts. In SAGAs production my roles are: script writer, B-photographer, producer and interviewer.

Zombies, black metal and bikers, how did you know this was the movie I was dying to see? But seriously, what made you guys decide to make what could turn out to be one of the most metal movies of the year?

We’ve been working together on this project for almost five years now. It started out with the Black Metal and then the ball just started rolling from there. We just kept on adding our shared interests and started to look for a story in the mess of these things. How could we combine it all? Turns out, many of these elements are already closely connected and we just had to look for the perfect saga to bind them all together.

Seeing as the story involves both bikers and Vikings, will it take place in separate time periods or a more modern setting? Basically, do we get to see an epic showdown of beards and axes vs leather jackets and bad attitudes?

This is a sort of meta movie, a movie about making a movie, so it’s definitely set to our modern times, but there will be Vikings riding motorbikes, don’t you worry.

Zombies means makeup and gore effects. Well, most of the time anyways. What can gore hounds and makeup junkies expect in this department from SAGA?

Due to an extremely tight budget you might not want to expect to much ´gore´, but we have had an excellent makeup artist on our team, Magnus Kjellsen Hjeldnes who has also done makeup and visual effects for other Norwegian movies you might know, like Dead Snow 2, so you should not be disappointed either.

To say zombies are popular in North America is a bit of an understatement, especially with shows like the Walking Dead or World War Z all over TV. Is it the same in Norway or are zombies still more of a niche interest?

Zombies are definitely also a big part of the Norwegian film and series sphere.

One of the first things I noticed when I started following SAGA’s progress was that Nocturno Culto was involved. How did this come to be and what was it like working with him?

Jørn got to know Ted (Nocturno Culto) Skjellum via his brother and the fact that they had sons riding motorbikes together, and so on I also got to know him via Jørn. Personally I think it was a pleasure to work with Ted just as much as everyone else on the set, you couldn’t find a more amazing crew to work with anywhere.

You also have members of Satyricon involved. Did your team reach out to the black metal community for their involvement or was it more of an organic process where they became involved through knowing them?

It was a more of an organic process through knowing and getting Ted (Nocturno Culto) Skjellum on our team.

Did filming in Norway this present any challenges or unexpected benefits to the crew during shooting?

Last summer was one of the best summer in years all over Norway. We had truly amazing weather all summer exept for our trip to Vestlandet, when I think Ted almost froze to death driving his Harley Davidson through heavy rain and crazy hail.

When can metalheads and zombie hope to feast their eyes on SAGA?

Hopefully in October / November 2015!

And our traditional closing question: What drink or other good time party favors do you feel would be best to have on hand for a viewing of Saga?

Beer.

Follow Saga on Facebook to stay up to date and in the know when it comes to black metal, vikings and zombies.

-Scotty can be found drinking beers with zombified black metallers on Twitter