"When they come, all we can do is run and hope that we are fast enough."
Moment Subpages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.- "Turn the darkness... into...
◊ (creepy distorted voice) light."- This needs elaboration: Aisling helps Brendan find Crom Cruach's cave, but partway in, the ceiling starts collapsing, prompting Aisling to hold it up while Brendan makes his way further in. After getting to relative safety, Brendan turns back to see her, now weakened and emaciated, and we get that lovely view of her face for just a second before the cave collapses on her.
- Crom Cruach himself (his design is inspired slightly by the writhing dragon forms in Celtic artwork and mostly by everything scary that lives in the deepest seas) and his ultimate fate involves eating himself.
- The attack on Kells. So much. Seeing Abbot Cellach struck down, after it'd been shown that he was the strongest out of all the people there. Not to mention the collapse of the scaffolding...
- That last part is the shocking one. The scaffolding wouldn't have collapsed if Cellach actually focused on that as much as he did the wall. Cellach's realization that the scaffolding can't hold that many people clinches it.
- You only see the top of Crom's cave from the outside in a shot or two—it seems to have a spiky design on it. According to the DVD Commentary...it's the blood of Crom Cruach's human sacrifices.
- The Vikings in general. Huge, hulking figures with glowing red eyes that speak a guttural, growling language.
- Their Establishing Character Moment has the leader and his Mooks corner a poor guy, the viking rips off the one piece of jewelry he has, and then leaves him to die at the hands of his Mooks.
- As a Call-Back to the above, the vikings' leader utters a single word when he and his warriors have the villager, and later Brendan and Aiden, cornered (it sounds like "Sskowf"). It's the only recognizably repeated word in the northmen's Black Speech, and with context it becomes clear that it means "kill them". The second time, the viking leader gives such a heinous order without even bothering to look over his shoulder.
- This movie does not gloss over the destructiveness of the Viking raiders, and while most actual deaths happen offscreen, it makes it painfully clear that an incredible number of people were killed. Crom Cruach is also quite likely to scare the pants off unsuspecting viewers.
- Special mention should go to the fate of most of the abbey's inhabitants. While Cellach is injured and mistaken for dead by everyone until the attack is over and Tang and a number of others are safe in the tower because the scaffolding collapsed, everyone else—including the other named characters who make up a considerable number of the cast—was in the sanctuary, sitting and praying for deliverance by candlelight. The last we see of them is looks of shock as the Vikings break down the door and someone screams in terror.
- Brendan and Aidan having to leave Abbot Cellach behind to die because there's nothing they can do to save him.
- Brendan's Prophetic Dreams. As simplistic as the design is, it's rather horrifying seeing the Vikings slaughter people and Brendan being subdued by Cruach.
