The legend of the lost Roanoke colony has mystified historians for centuries. What happened to those English settlers who vanished from the island without a trace? Were they killed? Assimilated by Native tribes? Eaten by wraiths conjured by Viking ghosts?
If you picked that last one, congratulations — you’re either delirious or you’ve seen Wraiths of Roanoke, a 2007 Syfy original that answers a historical mystery with the least plausible explanation imaginable. Directed by Matt Codd, this movie manages to be both hilariously earnest and spectacularly stupid, like a high school history project with fog machines and cosplay armor from Party City.
The Premise: Ghost Vikings, Because Sure
We open on Roanoke Island, circa 1587, where a settler runs for his life from a glowing blur that looks like a rejected Ghostbusters effect. He’s immediately murdered by a “wraith,” which is apparently what happens when a Viking dies angry and discovers Adobe After Effects.
The only other settler left hangs himself, presumably after reading the script.
Soon after, a new batch of settlers arrive, led by Highlander’s Adrian Paul as Ananias Dare — a man so heroic he manages to look both bewildered and constipated in every scene. He’s joined by his wife Eleanor (Frida Farrell), who’s pregnant and perpetually haunted by prophetic nightmares, because no Syfy horror movie is complete without a woman whispering “I had a vision” before a green mist kills everyone.
They’re accompanied by Governor John White (Alex McArthur), who looks like he wandered in from a PBS reenactment, and George Howe (Rhett Giles), who’s the film’s designated “guy with a sword who dies trying.” When the settlers arrive, they find the colony deserted — except for one hanging corpse and the general vibe of a middle school Halloween dance.
White shrugs it off as “probably the Spanish,” which is the 16th-century version of “blame Canada.” He then promptly sails back to England for supplies, leaving his pregnant daughter and a bunch of extras to deal with the spectral carnage.
The Plot Thickens (Like Molasses)
Once the ship leaves, the settlers discover that crops won’t grow, animals are missing, and everyone’s having the kind of dreams you get after a Taco Bell bender. Eleanor gives birth early, which is impressive considering she’s been pregnant for roughly five minutes of screen time.
Her baby, Virginia Dare, is heralded as the first English child born in America — and also the first infant in cinematic history to have a ghost bounty on her head. Apparently, the wraiths need an “innocent soul” to escape limbo. Because sure, that’s how supernatural economics work.
The film spends a good twenty minutes pretending this is a mystery, but Eleanor’s dreams — helpfully presented in blurry sepia flashbacks — reveal that Viking sailors once executed an innocent woman and cursed the island forever. So now, centuries later, these glowing Norse spirits are floating around North Carolina murdering English settlers for sport.
It’s basically The 13th Warrior meets The Scooby-Doo Movie if both were filmed in a swamp with ten dollars and a boom mic.
The Characters: Colonial Cardboard Cutouts
Adrian Paul tries his best, but his best is about as convincing as a Renaissance fair actor giving a motivational speech about destiny. His character, Ananias, spends most of the movie shouting things like “We must survive!” and “Protect the child!” while ignoring all common sense.
Frida Farrell’s Eleanor exists primarily to look worried, faint in candlelight, and deliver exposition through nightmares. She’s the kind of horror heroine who sees a ghost, screams, and immediately goes back to bed because “we’ll deal with it in the morning.”
Then there’s Manteo, the Native guide played by Michael Teh, who manages to stay dignified despite dialogue like, “The dead do not rest here — they hunger.” He serves as the film’s moral compass and occasional translator of supernatural nonsense.
Everyone else exists to die in slow motion.
There’s the brave soldier who gets soul-sucked, the racist colonist who attacks the wrong village, and the random background settlers who vanish between scenes because Syfy probably couldn’t afford their day rates.
The Wraiths: Spectral Screensavers of Doom
Let’s talk about the “wraiths” — the supposed stars of the film. Imagine if someone filmed a guy in a hockey mask, then added glow effects in post-production using Microsoft Paint. That’s your monster.
These translucent, slow-moving CGI Vikings float around hissing like malfunctioning toasters, killing people by waving vaguely near them. Their weakness? Fire and water — which, coincidentally, are the same weaknesses shared by cheap pyrotechnics and bad digital compositing.
The settlers attempt to fight back with swords, torches, and good intentions. The wraiths respond by looking like rejected bosses from a PlayStation 2 game.
The big action set pieces involve a lot of running through fog while someone screams “Nooo!” in slow motion. You half-expect a fog machine operator to get a credit as “Director of Atmosphere.”
Historical Accuracy? Never Heard of Her.
To call Wraiths of Roanoke “loosely based on history” is generous. It’s about as historically accurate as Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
The film takes one of America’s greatest unsolved mysteries and decides the answer was… Viking ghosts. Not disease, not starvation, not integration with local tribes — but undead Norsemen wielding bad CGI.
It’s the cinematic equivalent of turning your term paper in late with a paragraph that reads, “And then aliens did it.”
Even the costuming is confused. Some settlers wear crisp, clean leather outfits that look like they were bought from a mall costume shop called Ye Olde Sexy Colonist. The Vikings are dressed in whatever fake fur Syfy’s wardrobe department found left over from Beastmaster.
The Grand Finale: Burn, Baby, Burn
By the time we reach the final act, the cast has been reduced to a handful of survivors — Eleanor, Ananias, their baby, and George Howe, the human embodiment of “expendable.”
They devise a plan to lure the wraiths onto a raft loaded with hay, set it on fire, and push it into the water. You might ask, “Why didn’t they do this an hour ago?” To which the movie replies: “Because runtime.”
Naturally, everything goes wrong. People die, Eleanor sacrifices herself dramatically, and Ananias — our stoic hero — ends up burning to death while setting his baby adrift. It’s tragic, emotional, and unintentionally hilarious because the wraiths’ death animation looks like a screensaver crashing.
The movie ends with the Native chief Manteo finding baby Virginia and deciding to raise her as one of his own, presumably so she can grow up and tell her descendants, “Yeah, my parents were murdered by Viking ghosts. Dinner’s ready.”
Performances and Production: A Colonial Dumpster Fire
Let’s be fair: everyone here is trying. They’re giving “community theater intensity” to material that deserves a polite golf clap at best. The problem isn’t effort — it’s that everything, from the direction to the effects, feels like it was assembled from spare parts found in a bargain bin.
The cinematography looks like it was filmed through a foggy beer bottle, the editing is allergic to pacing, and the soundtrack is an endless loop of “spooky violins and wind noises.”
The movie wants to be eerie and mythic, but it ends up feeling like a particularly long episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? — if it were remade by people who weren’t.
Final Verdict: The Real Lost Colony Was the Script
Wraiths of Roanoke had potential — a historical mystery, supernatural intrigue, Viking ghosts. Instead, it gives us two hours of historical cosplay, ghostly nonsense, and Adrian Paul brooding like he misplaced his sword.
It’s a film where even the wraiths look embarrassed to be there.
If you’re looking for accurate history, you’ll hate it. If you’re looking for good horror, you’ll still hate it. But if you want to watch colonial settlers get hunted by translucent Vikings while shouting bad dialogue like “The evil feeds on our souls!” — well, this might be your new guilty pleasure.
Rating: 2/10.
One point for the fog budget. One point for the Viking ghosts. Everything else can stay lost, just like the colony.
