The Brotherhood III - Young Demons

Rating:
Summary: The Brotherhood Series Nods Off
Review: "Voodoo Academy", "The Frightening" and first two "Brotherhood" films took occult horror themes and used casts including several scantily clad young men to help David DeCoteau build a niche oriented toward women and gay male audiences.

"The Brotherhood III: Young Demons" has less plot, sympathetic characters, and skin display than its predecessors.

The story line is something like this.

Lex (played engagingly by Kristopher Turner) leads an unauthorized role-playing game at school after it closes Friday nights. The participants dress up in costumes with weapons to seek a prize planted beforehand. The one finding the prize is the winner. Participants may pretend-kill each other. Lex hides away throughout with a microphone and broadcasts taunts and clues to the players. The game is meant to be fun.

This Friday's game is different. On Thursday night, two of Lex's henchmen plant the prize (a Necklace of Anubis) and various scary props and booby traps. A masked, robed, Darth Vader-like figure stalks the two oblivious henchmen. At school on Friday, Lex's archaeologist brother, Ramsey (played by Paul Andrich), gives Lex a find, a codex on magic, written by the Magi using excellently printed Egyptian hieroglyphics. Fascinated, Lex later leafs through the book, which subjects him to undefined forces, giving him the knowledge that his two henchmen will not be participants in tonight's game. Offsetting this, one of the female players has invited a football jock date to play. Lex will manage four men and two women in tonight's game. This time, it will be "for keeps".

The bulk of the movie seems taken up with players walking slowly through school corridors filled with fog. Stalking the players are the masked figure and the figure's assistants. (Since the filming was in a snowy Manitoba, I'm not sure where the audience thinks the fog comes from.) No matter how scared or motivated the characters are, few move faster than a brisk walk. There are lots of slo-mo, loud heart beat sounds (Was this the end of "The Tell-Tale Heart"?), and ernest prowling. No one seemed very directed to find the prize or even to know much about what the prize was. Sound effects substitute for suspense. Plotting is thin.

For this audience, the camera does linger on one showering male participant and does glance at one shirtless henchman. The other characters all remain demure. This is a smaller offering than for "Voodoo Academy", "The Frightening", and the first two "Brotherhood" movies.

The resolution is quick and leaves some holes. The mask comes off, and there is some reference to the magic of the era of Pharaoh Ramses II. One wonders for whom the henchmen really work.

The Full Screen presentation is appropriate for ogling and not needed for any material landscapes or widescreen shots.

The soundtrack is suspense-supportive, not tuneful. There are lots of lightning storms, giving strobe effects. The compositions and camera work are usually all right. The makeup and blood effects are much more realistic than in "The Frightening".

The DVD has the movie's trailer and offers Spanish subtitles. There is no commentary track (a shame, since David DeCoteau makes good ones), outtakes, deleted scenes, nor a making-of.

Although the acting is mediocre overall, Kristopher Turner has the looks, voice, and talent to deserve another opportunity in a better film.

I'm hoping Brotherhood IV has a better plot, more sympathetic characters, and more eye-candy. The series concept has promise and needs better execution, despite the low budget.

Rating:
Summary: Oh Brother
Review: A TOTAL waste of time.
Unless you have absolutely nothing else to do, this film is a collossal waste of time. No scares, not even remotely scarey moments.
If you have seen the BROTHERHOOD II, then this is where this trashy series gets worse.
Nice settings, not a scarey film. But it has a good idea at its core.
However this film is more vacuous than anything Troma could dream up.

Rating:
Summary: DeCoteau reverts to his old game plan.
Review: After breaking new ground with the gender-inverted b-movie thrillers "Voodoo Agademy" and "The Brotherhood (I and II)", David DeCoteau has reverted to the standard (and very tired) teens-stalked-by-a-psycho formula of old.

A group of students show up at their deserted high-school for a late-night role-playing "game" that's right out of "Rona Jaffe's 'Mazes and Monsters'" Of course, the game involves pretend battles to the death, and of course, the players realize too late that the "pretend" part has become all too real. (Yawn.)

The masked demon roaming the high-school seems to kill some victims and zombify others with no rhyme or reason. The victims themselves seem compltely nonplussed about everything that happens (There's not even one good scream, for gosh sakes!), and spend most of their time roaming (not running) around foggy (huh?) school hallways (filmed, of course, at crazy dutch angles), hoping not to run into the evil bad guy (who is dressed as a Renaissance Fair reject).

There is one gratuitous guy-in-the-shower sequence, which (even if you're into that) goes on waaaayy too long. Actually, there are a lot of "fill" sequences that effectively put the movie on hold because of their length and boring content. There is some decent acting from Kristopher Turner as the game's "host". But what's up with the (perpetually grinning) football jock's voice? Is he badly overdubbed? Did he have a terrible cold? What?

Unfortunately, "Brotherhood III" lacks all of the crazy over-the-top moments that made the other films worth watching. Hopefully, DeCoteau will release and unrated version later on that will make the film a little more, uh, watchable.

Rating:
Summary: Bad Movie
Review: I have seen all three Brotherhood movies, and I own a copy of each. I love DeCoteau's films and understand that they are ment to be B movies from the start, thats part of the fun afterall. Actor Kristopher Turner (who played Lex) was outstanding, and deserves nothing but credit for his contribution to the movie; hopefully he will be back in some of Director DeCoteau's films.
Unfortunately, this movie did have some drawbacks, most notably the long drawn out chase seens through the high school, and the lightening in the background got old after awhile too. Most of the actors did a so-so job in their roles, the worst job coming from Ramses (Lex's brother.) Despite some really bad flaws in this third take of the Brotherhood series, I still liked it.

Rating:
Summary: It Was both Good and Bad
Review: I have seen all three Brotherhood movies, and I own a copy of each. I love DeCoteau's films and understand that they are ment to be B movies from the start, thats part of the fun afterall. Actor Kristopher Turner (who played Lex) was outstanding, and deserves nothing but credit for his contribution to the movie; hopefully he will be back in some of Director DeCoteau's films.
Unfortunately, this movie did have some drawbacks, most notably the long drawn out chase seens through the high school, and the lightening in the background got old after awhile too. Most of the actors did a so-so job in their roles, the worst job coming from Ramses (Lex's brother.) Despite some really bad flaws in this third take of the Brotherhood series, I still liked it.

Rating:
Summary: What happened?
Review: I saw the first two Brotherhood films and enjoyed the attempt of homoeroticism and some of the efects. This one is awful. I actually had to pour three drinks to get through it. The one underware shot is in the shower. Who takes a shower with their underware on?

Overall it was long, boring and stupid with none of the campiness or freshness of the first two. Don't waste your money.

Rating:
Summary: ...
Review: Pass this one by, it's not even worth renting...I regret to report that there is only one homoerotic scene, in which a gym bunny showers in his briefs, the camera gazing longingly at his muscles. Everyone else, male and female, keeps his/her clothes on. Cut-rate special effects, non-threatening villain, fair to poor acting, etc.

Rating:
Summary: Bad Movie
Review: The only good thing about this movie was the guy taking a shower. But even that wasn't that hot because he was showering in his underwear. Who does that?

Rating:
Summary: This one could kill the franchise.
Review: The other reviewers summed it up pretty well.Rather than a third "Brotherhood" film this one comes off more like a film students attempt to blend Nightmare on Elm Street with Friday the 13th. However it contains no imagination,no FX,no gore,the plot is an after thought, and the cast saddled with this script and lighting comes off wooden.The first two may not have been art but at least they were interesting,I was really tempted to just fast foward through this waste of time.

Rating:
Summary: SIMPLY AWFUL
Review: This third entry in the homoerotic DeCoteau series is awful for the following reasons:
*It has no plot
*DeCoteau, known for his relentless use of slomo to pad his films with shots of his studly heroes parading around is used so much in this film, it's like the whole movie is in slowmo
*It's snowing and there's thunder and lightning, in the school too
*80% of the movie is devoted to watching the hooded demon casually pursuing the kids in slomo
*The kid who plays Roger has Sardonicus syndrome, always grinning, completely awful acting
*Oh yes, completely awful acting and directing
*Studly guy takes a shower in his underwear
*It's just an awful awful movie!