Brotherhood of Blood

I tend to be attracted to any movie featuring Sid Haig (The Devil's Rejects, House of 1000 Corpses). Add vampire to the theme and you have me hooked.

This isn't a traditional vampire tale, but more a film noir thriller where a group of vampire hunters is seeking the brother of a rich CEO (William Snow). The brother was bitten in Romania. Meanwhile, the vampires themselves are hunting the same brother to prevent the resurrection of "Vlad Bossei" a super-vampire who lived in the 12th century.

There film is definitely nonlinear as we jump from today, where Carrie (Pratt) is a captive of Pashek (Haig) and Fork (Wes Ramsey); to yesterday, where they are trying to get information out of Stanis (Ken Foree - Rob Zombie's Halloween, The Devil's Rejects); to last week to get the full story.

Victoria Pratt ("Mutant X", Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep) is the leader of the vampire hunters, and does a very good job in this film. I also enjoyed Wes Ramsey's performance.

The twist at the end screams sequel.

Subtlety is a very important thing in any good horror movie. Not only does subtlety reduce the ridiculous amount of "in-your-face-quality" that today's horror movies seem to love, which effectively makes then just plain old action movies, subtlety shows that a film has respect for its audience. It doesn't feel like it has to explain everything at every step of the way since it knows that an interested audience will be on the lookout for hints as to what is going on. That's what makes films like this enjoyable. In fact, that what makes any film enjoyable. It isn't just a barrage of images, but rather an engaging sequence of them. This sequence can be unchronologically organized or in any number of ways obscured to create suspense, but as long as it is engaging, the audience will be happy. There are numerous hints as to what is really going on and the final climatic twist is really a good one.

The movie has a slow beginning but then gets better and better and has for this kind of low budget movie even some moving moments. Greatly crafted story, full of twists and turns. The acting is good. The look is low budget of course, but has some very interesting moments. Especially the scenes with Sid looks great.

It's a serious movie, but its so well made it's actually fun to watch. The way the movie unfolded and ended was enough to keep me interested throughout. The ending is a classic, even if you guess it a little before you are expected.

Besides its plot, Brotherhood has good performances to keep you entertained and some great dialogs. Definitely not the usual low budget stuff.

granted, this movie has a very clever ending. yet the other 90% of it simply left me scratching my head. not that i can never think while watching a movie, but a movie this convoluted needs a map or something. The unnecessary complexities in the plot are mostly red herrings designed merely to confuse. But the casting I like. There's at least some good actors who can pull it off.

Well, at least the young directors showed precocious talent: *brotherhood of blood* cost a mere $100,000 to make but looks like it cost 5-times that figure. It's nice to see directors make the most of meager resources.

The one thing I came for was the duo of Side Haig and Ken Foree, but even they couldn't boost it up much. As I learned after the fact, "Brotherhood of Blood" comes from the writers of a masterpiece called "Far Cry" which I recently saw as part of 'that bad?' review series. Not a good coincidence. They also have "Bloodrayne" and "Alone in the Dark" under their belts. This is a movie with very low production values, shabby cinematography, bad lighting, an entire set of flaws. Story's mehh, acting's for the TV, gore's cheap, and so on... Did I just review the whole movie?

We are thrown in a world where vampires are real, and the hunters are also doing their thing. Both parties are going about their business, which is often hard to care about, the plot barely engages, moving from scene to scene with cheese and goofs attracting more attention, and more tedium setting in by the minute. The filmmakers have tried to make it more interesting by splitting time lines in the storytelling, all leading up to the foreseeable connecting finale, but it ultimately adds nothing much, as the plot is still predictable and hard to care about. "Brotherhood of Blood" relishes in its own vampire lore, but barely ever makes it interesting. Acting's really inconsistent, though mostly amusing enough, for a variety of reasons. However, some dialogue is delivered so dry You couldn't believe, and prepare for lines like "we're vampire hunters, not fu**ing accountants". Sid Haig and Ken Foree do their deeds, but it matters little, when we're inside such a C movie.

The lighting and camera work at some points resemble a home video, while at some points it's acceptable enough. Inconsistent, not counting feeling cheap, that endures. Too many zooms, editing can be a bit odd too. Budget constraints can further be seen in the variety and charm of locations, and what the costume department managed to come up with. The musical score's in with the vibe of the whole thing, and is all kinds of overdramatic, typical and/or misplaced.

As to what exactly Sam Raimi liked enough to pick this movie as one of the first releases of his new label back in the day, I'm not sure. Maybe because enough is indeed happening throughout, but perhaps I missed the fun of it all somehow. It's a drab, rather emotionless, inadvertedy funny piece of horror that couldn't be saved be starpower. My rating: 2/10.