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Reviews
Le pacte des loups (2001)
Old fashioned in a good way
After reading other comments or viewing the movie with the eyes glued on the Martial Arts scenes and the CGI, the title of this commentary might seem odd to some.
But it really shouldn't, as it refers to the storytelling more then to the way its delivered.
Having just watched the Brotherhood for the fifth or so time on DVD, I decided to delve a bit more into the "gutsy" side of movie review, something not entirely usual for me, as I'm more the analytic type - so please bear with me if I seem to struggle for the right words.
Brotherhood feels like a good, old fashioned adventure story; one that could have been told in one of the books many of us have read under the blanket as young boys or girls. Thats not just because its based on a mix of facts and legends of the 18th century, but also because of how its told - with the right mixture of suspense, sympathy for ones heroes and villains and, just the right amount of pathos a truly good adventure tale needs. This is a feeling only very few books or movies today can deliver (I wont delve into cultural analysis of the reasons, one could probably fill entire books without coming to a definitive answer), and thusly it earned a place high in my esteem. It might not be what many people would call a modern classic or even a cult movie, but its the next best thing: A truly entertaining and emotionally gripping movie, if you allow yourself to look at it like you would have read all those books and stories by Edgar Rice Burroghs, JF Cooper, Robert E. Howard or Jules Vernes.
Instead of a post scriptum: Brotherhood Of The Wolfes gets often compared with Sleepy Hollow - understandably if not entirely correctly I think. But as I like both movies a lot and to keep with the theme of this comment, let me make a final comparison here. If Brotherhood is like a story by the above mentioned writers, Sleepy Hollow would be a tale by Poe, Lovecraft or James Herbert. All of them great writers in their own right that shouldn't really be compared, just enjoyed.
Five Bloody Graves (1969)
Ed Wood put to shame
Al Adamson! Truly one of the Princes of schlock filming and a true heir to Edward D. Wood Jr.s Throne of cheese! Adamsons films have everything that makes the true crap movie so frightening: Illucid scripts, continuity errors of epic proportions, acting somewhere between barely OK to truly awful, former movie greats fallen into rough times, no budget whatsoever, cameos by the director himself (not in the Hitchcock manner, more in the Ed "Glenn or Glennda" Wood way)... you name it.
Said that, this is one of his less crappy movies (we are talking about Adamson standards here though), mainly because of a really good director of photography (newly immigrated Vilmos Zsigmound, who later would shoot movies like Maverick and Assassins) and a gorgeous background scenery.
But be not fooled! There is still plenty of badness provided, starting with the mind numbing narration by Death himself, reaction shots that don't match either the scene before or after (most often then not not even the time of day!), gratuitous violence of the disturbing kind etc. etc. etc.
Watch out for appearances of B-movie legend John Carradine, the movies own screenwriter Robert Dix, 50s Western staple Victor Adamson and ubiquitous Scott Brady.
To see Adamson at the peak (or rather bottom ) of his art, be sure not to miss the unbelievable "Dracula vs. Frankenstein", a movie that puts Plan 9 to shame! Highly recommended for fans of Adamson is also David Konow's great biography: Schlock-O-Rama: The Films of Al Adamson
Invisible Dad (1998)
Argh.... Fred Olen Ray
Well the name in the summary should tell you everything. FRED OLEN RAY - the modern King of low budget flicks, be it for TV or direct to video (I doubt he produces for the silver screen anymore - with the death of drive-in B-movie double features and all).
Creator of such cult(?) classics, like Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers and Dinosaur Island....
Well I kind of like this guys stuff. Its mostly entertaining (in a distinctly cheesy, campy and especially cheap kind of way) and if he's one thing, he's a pro - something you can't say for all guys in the movie biz.
But this one flick here is among the weaker ones in his oevre. Insipid acting, an uninspired script and lame jokes conspire to make your brain go numb in a matter of minutes. If you are out for real F.O.R. goodness (or rather badness), look out for the above mentioned ones, and generally his stuff from the 70s and 80s (I think he lost a bit of his edge lately).
Black Knight (2001)
Geez... what a crap
Seriously, this movie has nothing for it - it's not original, it's not funny, it's not even well made. It's chock full of the most annoying of clichés and you don't only not care for the main character, you actually learn to loathe him very quickly. In the kings place I would had him quartered several times. And that's within the first half of the movie alone.
If there is really a target audience for this kind of movies, they are better served with Whoopie Goldberg doing the "Conneticut Yankee at King Arthurs court" stint.