“All you needed in the ’80s was a beginning, middle and an end, and the middle wasn’t even that important as long as you had a good ending and a good start,” director Jefferson Richard notes in an interview included on Vinegar Syndrome’s new Blu-ray release of Berserker, a horror film that belongs in the sub-genre where good beginnings and good endings were indeed quite important: the ’80s slasher. Richard, a co-producer of Maniac Cop, seems pretty self-aware of his contribution to the slasher craze, which sticks to that particular formula.

Berserker, released in 1987 and now available on disc for the very first time thanks to Vinegar Syndrome, has both a good start and a strong ending. The film kicks off in the 10th century, with a Viking “berserker” – an animalistic warrior wearing a bear’s snout as a mask – arriving on the shores of what is now the Rainbow Valley campground in the present day. Over the film’s opening credits, a series of images flash across the screen, sometimes showing us a close-up of the titular berserker’s mask and other times showing us the face of an actual bear. It ultimately becomes hard to tell what we’re even looking at, which paves the way for the central mystery of the entire film: is a bear stalking the campgrounds or is it the berserker?

Naturally, the film soon cuts to the present day and introduces us to a group of young friends looking to spend the weekend partying at Rainbow Valley, spooking one another with the legend of the berserker before ultimately being picked off one-by-one by…something.

Berserker (also known as Berserker: The Nordic Curse), written in mere hours and filmed in 16mm across two weeks, immediately sets itself apart from other ’80s slasher films with its infusion of Norse mythology – berserkers were indeed real-life viking warriors who wore animal pelts into battle – giving it a unique approach to the campground slasher. Gathered around a campfire early on, one of the characters explains that berserkers, driven mad by living like animals and feasting on human flesh, could never actually be killed in battle, leaving them to roam around until finding a descendant to pass their curse onto. It’s an amusing bit of mythology that sets the stage for one of the most bizarre final acts in slasher history.

But before we get to that, Berserker spends a whole lot of time showing its characters roaming around the woods of Rainbow Valley; when director Jefferson Richard said he didn’t feel the middle bits were all that important in ’80s movies, well, let’s just say he wasn’t kidding. To the movie’s credit, the nighttime cinematography from the late Henning Schellerup (Silent Night, Deadly Night) is actually quite good, lending an eerie atmosphere to a campground that’s almost supernaturally blanketed in a thick fog. But truth be told, Berserker can be quite boring to watch even at just 85-minutes long, primarily because it insists on keeping the “bear or berserker?” mystery going for so long that it never actually allows the fun concept to shine. We’re shown that a bear is indeed roaming the campground but there’s obviously a berserker out there too; we just don’t actually get to see him in all his glory until the end.

As for the kills, another incredibly important aspect of any ’80s slasher, they’re underwhelming at best. Again, we’re not supposed to know if a bear is mauling the characters or if it’s actually an ancient viking warrior wearing a bear costume, so all we ever really see are cheap-looking “bear claws” ripping at the flesh of the victims. The most inspired of the film’s very few kill scenes sees Richard cutting back and forth between a victim being mauled and a couple having sex; as the young lovers moan in ecstasy, another young woman screams in agony. It’s a clever bit of editing that clearly understands what audiences were looking to see from horror movies at the time, juxtaposing the two key ingredients of death and sex. And according to Richard, it’s the scene that got the film banned in Germany – a bragging right for any horror film.

Thankfully, all the lackluster downtime is aided by two seasoned character actors (who both worked with John Carpenter on more than one occasion) in supporting roles: the late George “Buck” Flower as the proprietor of the campground and John F. Goff as a local police officer concerned about the safety of the campers. Their heavily improvised banter is a highlight of the film, and they lend both name value and entertainment value to the proceedings. When the final twist comes into play, their dynamic even brings a little bit of depth to the storyline.

Which brings us to the bonkers final act, where the whole thing truly comes alive.

Berserker is quite frankly *made* by its finale, which finally solves the mystery of who (or what) is killing the campers with a highly unexpected fight scene between a 10th century viking warrior and a motherfuckin’ grizzly bear. Turns out, it was the viking berserker who was killing the teens all along, and the bear – glimpsed throughout the movie – shows up to put an end to his reign of terror; as the fight plays out in front of him, one of the characters excitedly cheers the bear on as if he’s watching Hulk Hogan body slam Andre the Giant at WrestleMania. Yes, the bear ends up being the hero of the story, battling the cursed viking in a scene that makes it clear why Vinegar Syndrome picked up this particular title. The moment is so wonderfully strange that it alone justifies sitting through the relative boredom of the previous act; I’m only spoiling it here so you’ll know why you need to watch this one.

Berserker fails at being a quality slasher film in many of the most important departments – far too many of the characters survive, the kills disappoint, and there’s no “final girl” to speak of (the surviving female only makes it until the end because she spends the night hiding) – but then again, where the hell else can you see a bear fight a viking dressed as a bear?

Only in Berserker. And only through Vinegar Syndrome.