Legion of the Dead

The most annoying thing about LEGION is it's drab attempts at humor, but even if you're a fan of low-budget horror, it's still pretty hard to take. There wasn't enough clever violence, or pleasingly gratuitous sex scenes, to earn this one a recommendation.

Yesterday I bought this used VHS in a rental without any previous reference first because I am a great fan of horror movies. The very beautiful art of the cover also attracted me. Last but not the least, the reasonable price convinced me to buy it. When I arrived home and saw that Matthias Hues was the lead 'actor', I recognized that I had not made a good deal and I surely believed that this flick would not be good. Indeed it is worse than that, it is a junk! The storyline is horribly plagiarized from 'From Dusk Till Dawn' and is also divided in two parts: the first one tells the 'saga' of two morons hitchhiking and being kidnapped by a psychotic killer. The second one is about a group of persons, including the two morons, trapped in a bar, surrounded by the legion of the dead leaded by Togaio. I believe this flick was supposed to be funny, but it is not. The viewer can only laugh how imbecile a producer can be sponsoring such a crap. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): 'Legião dos Mortos' ('Legion of the Dead')

Legion of the Dead is a truly bizzare film that defies classification and manages to both entertain and frustrate.

The film is a comedy horror and tells tales of several groups of characters, their stories and culminating at the end with them all coming together.

It's very hard to describe, the plot is a bit of a mess and provides you with more questions than answers. Despite this however I found myself very entertained and wishing that it had been written a tad better.

The sfx are a combination of great and terrible, the writing is great albeit a moment here and there and the dumb finale and the cast is again hit and miss.

Never have I come across a movie that is such a mixed bag, I wanted to like this so much but the misses just prevented it from being anything special.

What I will say is that it's worth a watch, this crazy hilarious weird little film despite it's flaws has a lot going for it.

The Good:

Some great ideas

Mostly strong cast

Very funny in places

The Bad:

Lot of misses on every front

Movie breaking finale

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Grey suits are boring

There is a bizzare connection between long blonde haired male actors and poor acting. Seriously!

This could almost become a cult movie. It involves idiots working with and against the powerful demon Tagaio, played by my favorite actor of all time: Mathias Hues. He played in so many bad US movies that his Germanic accent is almost gone.

In this one, he doesn't even fight. He is just the comic relief. The other actors play their parts (of idiots) really well, completely immersing the viewer in the atmosphere of the movie. The end part is an almost exact replica of the From Dusk Till Dawn bar fights, and by exact I mean really funny and completely different.

In the end (spoiler!!) Mathias Hues reveals his real identity: he is also an idiot, and the Legion of Idiots is finally defeated.

Now really, a bad movie, with decent low budget effects and good film editing. But other than that, the script, acting and directing sucked. If you get really intoxicated with something, you might find it hilarious.

I rented this video already knowing that it was some kind of "From Dusk Till Dawn" copy. After having watched this flick I was pretty angry for having wasted my precious time with this film. Actually, there were many scenes I forwarded because they were so imbecile. There's no logic at all. For instance, these two hit-men were nothing but annoying. In one of the first scenes they are about to execute this fat man. They blather and blather (if it at least was funny, okay) for quite a long time. I mean, if I had to recruit as many people as possible for an army I wouldn't let my victims steal my time by narrating their anecdotes. Besides, isn't it a great coincidence they meet a man who killed their parents decades ago? The absence of logic is pervasive throughout the whole flick.

Furthermore, the screenwriter tries too hard to let his movie live from dialogues, like many Tarantino movies do. Well, he fails miserably since his writing-skills do not even come close to those Quentin Tarantino has.

Admittedly, in a visual aspect the German director does a great work. The feature is highly stylized, the nicely choreographed fight scenes are fun to watch, the splatter effects are pretty likeable. Nonetheless, this is not enough to make a movie be a GOOD movie. Take my advice and stay away from this one.