Berserk (1997)

Berserk parents guide

The thing to know: strong sex and nudity, and extreme gore, more than a TV-MA usually carries. Beyond that, real scares and a jolt or two.

Scare

Properly scary

Frightening, not just tense.

Jump scares

A couple

One or two sudden jolts.

Gore

Extreme gore

Our top level for gore.

Violence

Brutal violence

Our top level for violence.

Sex and nudity

Strong

Strong means explicit or repeated sex, extended nudity, or sexual assault shown on screen, attempted or completed, even partly off screen. Any one of these is enough.

Language

Moderate

Some strong profanity, a few f-words.

How we rate: an AI reads what is known about each title and tags it 0 to 3; we check the tags against a hand-rated set and correct them by hand when readers tell us. Estimates, not a scene-by-scene review. Spot a mistake? Tell us.

Three questions

Is Berserk scary?

Yes, properly. Berserk is the real thing without being an endurance test.

How gory is Berserk?

Extreme gore and brutal violence. If graphic gore is a dealbreaker, skip it.

What is Berserk rated, and is it OK for kids?

No. It is rated TV-MA, with real scares, strong sex and nudity, and brutal violence.

What is Berserk about?

Guts, a wandering mercenary, joins the Band of the Hawk after being defeated in a duel by Griffith, the group's leader and founder. Together, they dominate every battle, but something menacing lurks in the shadows.

Cast and crew

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Berserk is on our Goriest, 1990s, Animation, Anime and Foreign-language lists.

More like this feeling

Prompts we typed into CouchRot, and the lists that share its tags.

• “a fun halloween movie, not too scary”
• “a movie that will make me cry”
• “funny but not stupid, under two hours”

Lists with the same feel: Epics and Most violent.