Supporting Victims: Frank Branham and Sandi West
Brotherhood of the Wolf is the first entertaining bad movie of the year for us. The story is based loosely off of an old French legend of a beast
that did kill a lot of people in 1765 or so. In the movie, Grégoire de Fronsac and his token foreign sidekick Mani are sent by the King to
investigate the numerous deaths. Fronsac (Samuel le Bihan) is an adventurer / scientist / taxidermist who has had many experiences in North
America and wishes eventually to travel to Africa. He's kind of a combination of Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, and Batman but with a really
big nose and perpetually shaggy hair. Mani (Mark Dacascos) is a Mohawk and a
"Last of His Tribe" type character. Like all token exotic foreigners in a white-dominated action film, his job is mainly to stand
around quietly, look enigmatic, demonstrate devastating indigenous fighting techniques, say short bits of folksy primitive wisdom in clipped
English, and to apply heathen healing techniques unbeknownst to ignorant white guys.
For those of you who are role-playing gamers, this movie is really a 7th Seas game or Call of Cthulhu at its core. Watched with that context in
mind, you can have a lot of fun making jokes about rolling criticals or sanity saves and so on. If you're not an RPG fan, you can still have fun
as long as you don't watch the movie with an eye for historical accuracy because your head will explode trying to rationalize everything. Think of
Brotherhood as a smart version of "Monster Terrorizing Countryside" style of horror movie with a pretty period wrapping. The "smart" part comes
from a mystery that surrounds the beast's origins and its possible motives. There's a whole cast of nobility and side characters to supply
suspects and the end result will probably surprise you as much as it surprised us when Fronsac realizes who is ultimately guilty. There's also
some political intrigue and a love story subplot.
The movie is definitely not for the faint of heart, especially those who aren't immune to scenes of dead bodies or exploding pumpkins. The fight
scenes have some very good choreography and are interesting to watch. One overall problem with the movie is that it overuses the technique of
stop- and slow-motion photography. We suspect that the director didn't want the audience to miss a single split second of kicks and weapon
dodging. If you're a martial arts enthusiast, you will get to critique the form and foot position of almost every single kick as a result. The
movie is also a bit long at 2.5 hours and has some minor translation problems. For example, there was the mistranslation of 'elle' which,
in French, is used as 'it' or 'she' depending on the context. "Beast" in
French is "La Bête". Every time the beast is referred to in the subtitles, they use 'she'. It's a bit
disconcerting. There are also some funny errors which we'll leave to you to find.
At any rate, Brotherhood gives us a little bit of horror, a lot of mystery, and some neat bits of action. If you've seen all the Oscar
contenders out there or are looking for a nice break from smart movies, go see Brotherhood of the Wolf for an entertaining action flick that's likely
to be a lot less pretentious and commercial than the upcoming "Star Wars
2: Send in the Clowns". We give Brotherhood of the Wolf a 6 on the Good
Movie Scale and a 7 on the Bad Movie Scale. As a side note, between The
Musketeer and this movie, we're seeing an interesting trend of applying techniques from Hong Kong cinema to European historical pieces to breathe
life into a genre that seems played out. It's probably only a matter of time before we see Vikings launching themselves from longboats using
double-flying side kicks and throwing hatchets. The side effect of this revised perception of history will probably be to give high school history
teachers conniptions.
Our Drive-In Totals:
38 Dead Bodies
16 Breasts
263 Slow Motion Cuts
1 Half-Assed Autopsy on a Wolf
1 Damsel in Distress
4 Damsels Definitely Not in Distress
2 Snow Covered 'Tracts of Land'
Gratuitous Loincloth
Gratuitous Tattoo and Face Paint
Gratuitous Pumpkin Slaying
Hollow point musket balls
Shot In The Eye
Shot In The Ass
Stupid Hero
Slightly Less Stupid Hero
"Eating Your Pray"
1 Funeral Pyre
1 Furry Trout
1 He's Not Dead Yet
1 He's Definitely Dead Now
18 Drama Dice
1 Vodacce Fate Witch
Kung Fu
Gun Fu
Knife Fu
Stick Fu
Staff Fu
Tomahawk Fu
Sword Fu
Short Sword Fu
Claw Fu
Fang Fu
Taxidermy Fu
Chain Sword Fu
Ballista Fu
Steel Fan Fu
Beam Fu
Log Fu
Stone Fu
Soup Fu
Spike Fu
Pole Fu
Loup Garou Fu
Good Movie Scale: 6 out of 10
Bad Movie Scale: 7 out of 10
