The horror genre's extreme boost in popularity since the year 2000 has resulted in quite a couple of annoying trends. There's the numerous amount of pointless remakes, naturally, but also a nearly immeasurable increase in straight-to-video and intolerably cheap & cheesy B-movies released by brand new and supposedly specialized production companies. These days literally everyone thinks they can put together a horror movie, regardless of how inexperienced or untalented they are, and that's the reason why nowadays the lowest shelves in video stores are full of crap nobody ever heard of. "Brotherhood of Blood" seemed to fit into this description perfectly well and at first I wasn't even planning on ever checking it out. The writers/directors duo Michael Roesch and Peter Scheerer previously just did some random jobs on films directed by Uwe Boll - not the best reference to mention on your curriculum vitae to begin with - and then promptly came up with their own scenario. Also, vampire movies have been a dried out source for years. But since the first reviews I encountered were hugely positive and since I'm still a big fan of former horror icons Sid Haig and Ken Foree, I decided to give the rental copy a chance anyway. "Brotherhood of Blood" is definitely better than first anticipated but, in the end, nonetheless remains a disappointing and unmemorable film. The script is definitely better written and more original than most nowadays B-movies, but the main problem actually becomes that it is too ambitious (on the verge of pretentious, actually) and wannabe convoluted for its own good.
There are certainly some ingenious elements to find here. Carrie Rieger works for a professional agency of vampire hunters and, at the moment, she's occupied with the protection of a wealthy businessman named Thomas, whose brother is likely to become the reincarnation of the most feared vampire of all times; Vlad Kossei. Even the local vampire syndicate led by Sid Haig is after Thomas, as Vlad Kossei is feared by the other vampires as well as by humans. For whatever reason, the duo of directors opted for a rather confusing narrative structure. The action continuously jumps back and forth between the events that happened three weeks earlier, last night and today. Three weeks ago, Thomas' brother got infected with Vlad's blood in Romania, last night Carrie and her team were torturing a random vampire (Ken Foree) in order to obtain information and today they're all trapped and imprisoned in the vampires' underground lair. The muddled narration adds very little value to the film and actually raises incoherence and a pretentious atmosphere. A lot more surprising, especially considering the bloody stills on the back of the DVD, is the relatively large amount of boring parts and pointless moments. Multiple scenes just show Victoria Pratt prowling through dark catacombs or trying to get out of chains. Then when you finally expect the film to really break loose, it ends with the biggest cliffhanger I've seen in years. They better make a sequel now, or else The acting performances are above average, but still I feel those acclaimed names could do better. I wonder if father Sean watches all that junk his son Jason Connery appears in.
There are certainly some ingenious elements to find here. Carrie Rieger works for a professional agency of vampire hunters and, at the moment, she's occupied with the protection of a wealthy businessman named Thomas, whose brother is likely to become the reincarnation of the most feared vampire of all times; Vlad Kossei. Even the local vampire syndicate led by Sid Haig is after Thomas, as Vlad Kossei is feared by the other vampires as well as by humans. For whatever reason, the duo of directors opted for a rather confusing narrative structure. The action continuously jumps back and forth between the events that happened three weeks earlier, last night and today. Three weeks ago, Thomas' brother got infected with Vlad's blood in Romania, last night Carrie and her team were torturing a random vampire (Ken Foree) in order to obtain information and today they're all trapped and imprisoned in the vampires' underground lair. The muddled narration adds very little value to the film and actually raises incoherence and a pretentious atmosphere. A lot more surprising, especially considering the bloody stills on the back of the DVD, is the relatively large amount of boring parts and pointless moments. Multiple scenes just show Victoria Pratt prowling through dark catacombs or trying to get out of chains. Then when you finally expect the film to really break loose, it ends with the biggest cliffhanger I've seen in years. They better make a sequel now, or else The acting performances are above average, but still I feel those acclaimed names could do better. I wonder if father Sean watches all that junk his son Jason Connery appears in.