[Brotherhood Of Blood]
Plot:A vampire huntresses clan is wiped out by a powerful demon named Vlad Kossei. Even the vamps are afraid of Vlad, but he’s not able to regain his full powers until he kills his brother.The vampire huntress sets out to seek vengeance on Vlad and stop him from regaining his full powers.

Cast:Sid Haig, Ken Foree, Victoria Pratt, Jason Connery, Will Snow, Rachel Grant, Jeremy James Kissner, Jonathan Fraser, Bill Doyle, Jack Donner, Angela Trimbur, Marc Ian Sklar, Adrienne McQueen, Wes Ramsey.

My Thoughts:A vampire film with dull fangs.

Review:Vampire movies these days have been in a ditch as of late. The subgenre is just treading water at this point, waiting for something or some film to come along and rescue it. Sad to say, Peter Scheerer and Michael Roesch's "Brotherhood Of Blood" isn't the film that does it. The movie follows a group of vampire hunters, who ironically target rich vampires so after staking them...they can take their riches to fund their own operation. They have no problem with doing this because accoridng to one character, vampires are scum.

But there's a big shift going on in the vampire world. It seems that the vampires are all banding together for something major, that major event being Vlad Kossei coming back from the dead. Now, a vampire huntress (Pratt) who despises vampires with ever fiber of her being...has to stop Vlad before he kills his brother, and is able to regain his full powers. With a premise like this, "Brotherhood Of Blood" should've been one hell of a vampire movie. Unfortunately, it is not. In fact, while the performances are decent enough, and the blood and gore are there...it kind of gets caught up too much in it's own story and tons of overlapping exposition.

In other words...too much talk, and not enough bite. I've never seen a vampire film where there's more talking than biting or killing. It's kind of weird, but on most levels...disappointing. I spent most of the film waiting for something cool to happen, but instead all we get is Victoria Pratt (as lovely as she is), brooding and being pissed off and angry for 90 minutes. She hates vampires, which is something we're told many times in the movie. And in one scene, where a vampire Ken Foree tries to talk his way out of restraints...he lets her know that he knows she enjoys killing just as much as he does. Just on opposite sides of the spectrum, her being a huntress...and him being a vampire. Pratt's character runs with a vampire hunting crew, who are for the most part useless.

I mean these guys are just wasted so easily that the youngest of the group, a teenage kid...manages to live longer than the adult professionals. Crazy huh? Sid Haig is great in the film though, as a vampire named Pashek. His scenes are few and far between, but still good nonetheless. Unfortunately, he gets quite the disrespectful treatment near the end of the film when confronted by Vlad. By the way, the most powerful vampire in the film being named Vlad? Hmmm....cliche at best.

The film tries it's best to do something new with the vampire subgenre but the story has so many in's and out's and twists and turns that it kind of entangles itself in it's own web and the viewer kind of wonders why couldn't the story be smoothed out enough so other things could be included in the film beyond just dialogue, alot of staredowns, and some minor gunplay. If there's any high point to this movie, it's Ken Foree...who even though, spending most of the film chained to a table, gives a great performance as the vampire Stanis...who you never really know where he's coming from and has some classic lines of dialogue.

But the ultimate lowpoint is the ending, which doubles as a twist and a pretty insane turn of events that really could've been explained in act one instead of late in act three. "Brotherhood Of Blood" is a nice try but no cigar. The film delivers a great story but for some reason, it doesn't translate to the film very well.

Positives:Victoria Pratt and Ken Foree give good performances.

Negatives:A story that's far too intricate for it's own good, a lack of action, hardly any deaths, and a bad ending.

Overall:Two stars out of four.





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