Forgive me if I am wrong but there was something just plain missing from THE RUNESTONE, one of about three Viking Horror idiom films where ancient Viking curses lead to modern day havoc and mayhem. I was able to track down this one and a movie called THE BERSERKER, which won the contest easily by being a silly, sleazy, lurid backwoods hacker. This movie thinks it is HIGHLANDER material, and for the second time in a week I get to fault a horror movie from the late 80s/early 90s for not being sleazy enough. I am not sure when the era of "respectable" medium budget horror started (right after CREEPSHOW 2, maybe) but it resulted in a decades worth of uninteresting no-scares and no-offense meant horror efforts. The whole point of making a horror film is to give a young filmmaker the freedom to be as offensive as they see fit. Real talent doesn't come from disciplining yourself at first, it comes from letting it all hang out and RUNESTONE seemed to have a preoccupation with being respectable. <br /><br />The monster was cool though: At some point the film switches gears, transforming itself from a DA VINCI CODE-esquire thriller about ancient artifacts, manuscripts, talismans and glowering white haired Swedes into a busy, loud and amusingly obnoxious monster movie. Here we get to see Norse god of war Odin personified by a big rubber costumed goon with glowing eyes, cloven hoofs and a head peaked by a tangle of horns. If only the film hadn't exhausted my ability to understand what the point of it was by then. The gore is ultra low-key, the nudity and sexual content more suggested and non male gaze oriented than usual, and the hero was difficult to care about. The only real sparks in the film that registered in my brain were scenes where "Resevoir Dogs'" Lawrence Tierney gets to chew the scenery as a loud mouth clam-headed police captain between various killings, none of which inspired much dread, alarm or interest to be memorable.<br /><br />The HIGHLANDER comparisons come because the bulk of the film is set in New York City and involves large, open-spaced townhouses that are so expensive to rent that the only people who can afford to make use of them are set designers for movies. And the use of medieval weapons like broadswords, battle axes and a good icy glare from beneath hooded eyebrows. Seeing Alexander Gudanov dressed up like a Nordic Thomas Dolby to battle this costume designer's vision of Odin didn't provide much of a payoff, and the tail end of the film is filled with so many collapsing townhouse floors that the movie became a sort of ironic commentary on, yes, the 9/11 WTC tower collapse, caused by the weakening of the support girders and the pankcaking floors falling one on top of the other. I didn't see any puffs of dust but am pretty sure that these floors collapsed due to a controlled demolition so 9/11 Truth conspiracy buffs might want to check this film out to help your "research" into proving that Bush blew up the towers. And if all else fails you can post screengrabs of Odin with his eyes all glowing real demonic like and claim that they are non-doctored pictures of Condoleeza Rice. <br /><br />I think the bottom line here is that horror movies in general took a nose dive during the 1990s due to this frenzied rush to not offend anyone, which may explain why the sleazy Euro Horror years of the 1970s have proved to be so popular now on retrospect. RUNESTONE created nothing new, accomplished nothing notable and is probably only remembered by the scattershot few who bothered renting it as a home video release and perhaps yearn for the good old days when you could go out & rent three movies for $5.00 on a weeknight, watch them safe and secure knowing that your life with not be changed by any of them, there will be three more just like it to check out the following night, there will be no reason to ever watch any of them ever again, and your girlfriend won't be put off by gratuitous exploitational nudity or gross icky gore. Heaven forbid!!<br /><br />3/10