A film about wolves by the frogs! (Brotherhood Of The Wolf (DVD))

Member Name: ross1979

Product:	Brotherhood Of The Wolf (DVD)
Date:	13/11/01 (652 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: cheesy, trashy , imaginitive

Disadvantages: thin plot

Many hundred moons ago, the Beast of Gevaudan was brutally savaging the peasant women and innocent children in the countryside of southern France. Director Chrisophe Gans's beast is a ludicrous creation, but it does a good job of representing the French guillotine glory days.

Louis XV sends philosopher Fronsac (Samuel Le Bihan) and his Iroquois blood brother Mani (Mark Dacascos) to smoke the beast out of her cave only to stumble across a ludicrous web of spiritual-political twists and turns.

You cant help get a feeling of outrageous trashiness from this film, which is in French with English subtitles. It is worth seeing, if simply for the epic adventure, but I dont think it means to take itself too seriously. Just one look at the monster, which is straight out of a 1960s low budget horror flick will show you exactly what I mean.

Fronsac and Mani appear on the scene shortly after a womans spine is cracked against a Gévaudan cliff. Mani catches the attention of the towns most popular peasant woman, yet she is more interested in a couple of murdering French savages.

The aforementioned wolf appears halfway through the film in all her digital glory. It scares the local children and has to choose between woman, lamb and dog (it chooses the woman).

The film has the feel of a mish-mash of many different films - a kind of surreal , action adventure, mystery, erotic horror epic type thing. It is loosely gelled together with some dodgy politics underlining the plot. Some carefully constructed peasant deaths help hold the interest and it does raise the occasional smile with its low-budget feel and general ridiculiousness.

However, if you dont go in expecting a serious adventure epic and are prepared to take the film with a pinch of salt then you will probably enjoy it - even with those damn subtitles!

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