This is a movie about Civil War vampires. Or maybe they were Civil War zombies. The filmmakers never seemed clear on what particular breed of undead horror they were dealing with, but that confusion is about the least wrong thing with Grey Knight.
After Union soldiers are found massacred, some crucified upside down, Captain John Harling (Adrian Pasdar) is assigned to ferret out the forces responsible. Signs point to an infamous Confederate squad known as the Alabama 51st but those men were reported killed, with only their commanding officer Colonel Nehemiah Strayn (Corbin Bernsen) surviving. Harling, a student of Strayn's at West Point, gets his old instructor out of military prison to join the search. Teamed up with the extremely theatrical Colonel Thalman (Ray Wise) and a deaf-mute voodoo priestess named Rebecca (Cynda Williams), Harling and Strayn discover that the people responsible for the Union massacre and other killing sprees of both federal and rebel troops are a group of vampires. Or maybe they're zombies. I'm still not sure. After getting the backstory on the vampire/zombies, the backstory on Strayn and his original squad, the backstory on Harling and Strayn, Strayn sort-of-but-not-really becoming a vampire/zombie and a whole lot of extremely lame camera work, we finally get to the standard climactic battle between the forces of good and evil. Can you figure out who wins?
Grey Knight is thoroughly crappy overall, but the very poor direction of the movie deserves its own notice. Think of the most uninteresting, unimaginative, boring and clichéd images and scenes you've ever seen in any film. You'll recognize all the same stuff here. George Hickenlooper doesn't appear to have had the slightest idea what did and didn't look good on screen when he made this. He uses a wide shot when he should use a close up. He uses a close up when he should use a wide shot. The camera is always either too close or too far away from what's going on and virtually none of the action is ever properly centered. Everything's in focus and you never see a boom mic slip into the shot but other than that, it's like the person directing this had never given any thought to how he was filming his story.
There's also a plethora of bad performances on display here. Virtually every actor, except maybe Martin Sheen, has at least one scene where he goes completely off the rails. Billy Bob Thornton spouts much of his dialog in one of the least professional manners you'll ever witness. Watching him, you'd swear he got his role because he was the prop guy's cousin or something. Adrian Pasdar whispers most of his lines like a guy with a hearing aid that's been turned up way too loud. Cynda Williams has no dialog in the film and just repeats the same glare over and over at various characters. Corbin Bernsen, looking like he's been trapped on a desert island for 3 years, apparently thought adopting a bad Southern drawl was all the acting he needed to do. Matt LeBlanc has no lines and is only on screen for a few seconds as a crucified soldier, but he may have done the best job of anyone in the cast.
There are two other things I have to note. First, the soundtrack of Grey Knight is absolutely, I-can't-believe-what-I'm-hearing horrible. The music played in the opening scenes as the slaughtered Union soldiers are discovered is arrestingly terrible, sounding like a bad rip-off of some of the theme music from Friday the 13th: The Television Series. Second, the vampire/zombies don't have fangs. They don't actually drink blood. In fact, there's nothing that distinguishes them as undead, except that they paint their faces red and white. I think the face paint is supposed to evoke primitive tribalism, but I imagine most people would think they were vampire/zombie clowns. For my part, I thought they resembled nothing so much as the Freebirds when they would paint their faces with the Confederate flag for their matches with the Road Warriors. That's a pro wrestling reference and don't worry, most of today's wrestling fans won't get it either.
The version of this film that I watched was called Grey Knight: The Director's Cut. There's another, blessedly shorter version alternatively titled The Killing Box or Ghost Brigade. But as a rose, by any other name, still smells sweet...this movie, by any name, sucks ass.
After Union soldiers are found massacred, some crucified upside down, Captain John Harling (Adrian Pasdar) is assigned to ferret out the forces responsible. Signs point to an infamous Confederate squad known as the Alabama 51st but those men were reported killed, with only their commanding officer Colonel Nehemiah Strayn (Corbin Bernsen) surviving. Harling, a student of Strayn's at West Point, gets his old instructor out of military prison to join the search. Teamed up with the extremely theatrical Colonel Thalman (Ray Wise) and a deaf-mute voodoo priestess named Rebecca (Cynda Williams), Harling and Strayn discover that the people responsible for the Union massacre and other killing sprees of both federal and rebel troops are a group of vampires. Or maybe they're zombies. I'm still not sure. After getting the backstory on the vampire/zombies, the backstory on Strayn and his original squad, the backstory on Harling and Strayn, Strayn sort-of-but-not-really becoming a vampire/zombie and a whole lot of extremely lame camera work, we finally get to the standard climactic battle between the forces of good and evil. Can you figure out who wins?
Grey Knight is thoroughly crappy overall, but the very poor direction of the movie deserves its own notice. Think of the most uninteresting, unimaginative, boring and clichéd images and scenes you've ever seen in any film. You'll recognize all the same stuff here. George Hickenlooper doesn't appear to have had the slightest idea what did and didn't look good on screen when he made this. He uses a wide shot when he should use a close up. He uses a close up when he should use a wide shot. The camera is always either too close or too far away from what's going on and virtually none of the action is ever properly centered. Everything's in focus and you never see a boom mic slip into the shot but other than that, it's like the person directing this had never given any thought to how he was filming his story.
There's also a plethora of bad performances on display here. Virtually every actor, except maybe Martin Sheen, has at least one scene where he goes completely off the rails. Billy Bob Thornton spouts much of his dialog in one of the least professional manners you'll ever witness. Watching him, you'd swear he got his role because he was the prop guy's cousin or something. Adrian Pasdar whispers most of his lines like a guy with a hearing aid that's been turned up way too loud. Cynda Williams has no dialog in the film and just repeats the same glare over and over at various characters. Corbin Bernsen, looking like he's been trapped on a desert island for 3 years, apparently thought adopting a bad Southern drawl was all the acting he needed to do. Matt LeBlanc has no lines and is only on screen for a few seconds as a crucified soldier, but he may have done the best job of anyone in the cast.
There are two other things I have to note. First, the soundtrack of Grey Knight is absolutely, I-can't-believe-what-I'm-hearing horrible. The music played in the opening scenes as the slaughtered Union soldiers are discovered is arrestingly terrible, sounding like a bad rip-off of some of the theme music from Friday the 13th: The Television Series. Second, the vampire/zombies don't have fangs. They don't actually drink blood. In fact, there's nothing that distinguishes them as undead, except that they paint their faces red and white. I think the face paint is supposed to evoke primitive tribalism, but I imagine most people would think they were vampire/zombie clowns. For my part, I thought they resembled nothing so much as the Freebirds when they would paint their faces with the Confederate flag for their matches with the Road Warriors. That's a pro wrestling reference and don't worry, most of today's wrestling fans won't get it either.
The version of this film that I watched was called Grey Knight: The Director's Cut. There's another, blessedly shorter version alternatively titled The Killing Box or Ghost Brigade. But as a rose, by any other name, still smells sweet...this movie, by any name, sucks ass.