I assume he had decent budget and the overall cinematography, sets and props looked nice but WHAT THE HELL is with those god awful cgi blood splatters??? I mean most of amateur action videos in youtube made by random noobs using cheap/freeware third degree editing programs have more realistic blood splatters. Is there any reason???
spatters*
shareWhy? It's a film. Blood splatters ridiculously when people get stabbed and/or hit in other films. People die instantly after being shot. People fly backwards after being shot. None of these are realistic and make no sense, yet we see them time and time and time again. Barely any films are realistic when it comes to violence. Why? Would it be too traumatic? Would it be too boring? Who knows?
I don't even question the almost completely unrealistic nature of violence in films anymore.
If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure. - George W. Bush
Wait, what? Are you saying we shouldn't expect realism in cinema because aspects of cinema are inherently unrealistic? If so, that's a pretty poor defense in light of the OP's legitimate gripe.
I'll never understand this all-or-nothing attitude that surfaces whenever people question the realism of a work of fiction. I mean, we understand it's fiction. Audiences who saw works produced at Stanislavskii's realist theatre school at the birth of the movement understood they were looking at actors on a stage. So what?
Practical effects in film aren't just there because cgi alternatives hadn't yet been invented or because they were trying to approximate reality for its own sake. They're there so that the action remains realistic enough that you aren't taken out of the story at a crucial moment, which can happen when you see a *beep* movie-maker effect instead of a squib.
It pains me to have to go on the defensive like this when the film we're talking about is expressionist, not realist. In a film like this, it isn't necessary to its point to have people speak or act like real people, so when one of them bleeds why is it important that effect doesn't look like a cartoon?
It's a finer distinction because of the subject material, but I think there are still justifiable reasons for practical effects here. First, it's distracting - second, the ships and locations were not greenscreened and copypasted, so it goes to consistency. Third, it looks cheap and lazy. Why not have one actor play half the characters and save on payroll? Because it would look cheap and lazy.
As for the real reason Refn went with this, I think it was just the preoccupation certain directors had with digital at the time, even though aspects of digital were still inferior to film at that point. Michael Mann was another like that who comes to mind. A lot of Danish and Dutch filmmakers are posterboys for digital film and digital effects before they really should have been. Today it's different, where even the Asylum's editors have access to better effects.
EDIT: I just read this article
http://filmmakermagazine.com/10319-nicolas-winding-refn-valhalla-rising/#.WAaY1cm72bQ
and it seems the reason they shot digitally was time constraints and location. Refn being colorblind might have something to do with the choice of effects, too.