Customer Reviews

The Brotherhood V

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1 star:		(3)

 

 

The video release of any David Decoteau film brings a lot of excitement to my house but the release of one of his BROTHERHOOD films is cause for celebration. After the incredible BROTHERHOOD IV: THE COMPLEX, I suppose it is only to be expected that the next film would be a bit of a step down, and this one is. While there is much to love in this forth sequel, there are some serious problems this time around. Perhaps the biggest difficulty is the script. This is the first BROTHERHOOD film which does not credit Matthew Jason Walsh as the screenwriter and I really wish he had been involved with this one. This film never feels like a BROTHERHOOD movie, owing more to KILLER BASH or FINAL STAB than BH 1, 2 or 4. While it isn't as slow paced as part 3, it also lacks the beautiful cinematography, wonky camera POV's and slow motion work that made that film stand out. Most of the shots in ALUMNI are fairly static. While Howard Wexler was the camera operator on this one, it seems that there was a deliberate decision to tone down the look of this film. It was the wrong thing to do since the storyline in this film isn't strong enough to keep interest at a maximum. Another difficulty is with the cast. Most of the guys in the film are fine and certainly Nathan Parsons as the psychotic Holden is a real standout. Brett Novek and Arthur Napiontek
deliver one of the most memorable scenes of the entire franchise and Osckar Rodriguez as Leslie starts things off nicely. The female cast on the other hand are, to put it as nicely as possible, distractingly strange looking girls. They look as if they would be more at home in a second rate escort service than in front of a camera. ALL of the cast looks as if they should be attending a 10 year high school reunion rather than playing seniors on prom night. While many of the scenes you would expect to find in a BROTHERHOOD film are here (the big erotic 3 way is here and none of the guys can pass a shower stall without getting in) this time around things are feeling kind of forced as if everyone is just going through the motions on this one. Sad. Still, for all of its faults, I was entertained by this film and perhaps I'm being too rough on it. The bar had been set very high by the previous films and all great horror film franchises have the occasional stumble. / The anamorphic transfer is flawless, absolutely perfect, near bluray quality, one of the best looking DVD transfers of any Decoteau film so far. The 5.1 soundtrack is also excellent. While there is no director commentary there is an HOUR of behind the scenes footage. This is the REAL stuff, not some fluffy pseudo-documentary commercial. You get to see the actual filming of the movie without dumb interviews or comments from cast and crew, just the raw footage of the making of the film. That alone is worth the price of the DVD. All in all it certainly isn't a bad film, just not as good as the rest of the series. Maybe part 6 will be better. At any rate, no one does this sort of oddball horror film better than David Decoteau and even when he is not at his best, he is still better than 90 percent of whats out there.

I'm hugely dissappointed with the latest David Decoteau's films. He seems to have loose completely the ability to choose gorgeous guys who actually can act (at least a little) f.e.: Sam Page, (aka Nathan Watkins) or Sean Faris.

When I read that he would be collaborating with Here! tv in his next projects I was quite happy imagining some very hot scenes ahead, in the line of Dante's Cove... more or less. But nothing further than reality. I have seen "The Raven" "House of Usher" the specially awful "Playing with Fire" and the guy still obsessed with putting his actors in white underwear, and made them perform totally forced making out scenes colder than a dead fish over a marble.

The love scene between the two hottest hunks of "Alumni" it's problably the worst erotic scene ever filmed by anyone. The guys seem to be allergic to one another during the whole scene. Even looking as gorgeous as they both do. Not to mention the absolute boredom of the 90 minutes that seem 240.

Mr. Decoteau, if you are completely unable to progress at all delivering some real good "male erotica" in the year 2010, pleassse... go back to your old cult director style, when your fans were having real fun watching your Z series films. My personal faves of yours : The Brotherhood 1 + 2-Leeches-Speed Demon-Voodoo Academy and even the crazy but very funny Beastly Boyz. I miss that style sooo much.

This is a terrible joke of a movie. The dialogue is laughably false. The music is either corny or maddening (if you've ever wanted a beating heart to drive you insane, this is the movie to do it for you). The generically pretty boys take their shirts off a lot, and two of them even take awkward showers that leave much to the imagination and seem to be replayed over and over again (like a lot of the action in the film, actually). This movie features a make-out session that is embarrassing for both the audience and the participants. The cheesy music would be laughable if it weren't so terribly sad. If you feel like punishing yourself with the worst moving images imaginable, watch this film.

The Brotherhood V: Alumni is about a group of beautiful people who head back to their alma mater just one year after graduating. Why do they do this? Because one of their own was murdered on prom night one year earlier and they all receive a note saying that they have to go back to the high school where the murder occured. The murder was caught on tape and the tape is hidden somewhere in the school.

I had read the bad reviews for the fifth installment of The Brotherhood series, but I thought I'd give it a shot anyway, since I did like The Brotherhood and The Brotherhood 2. Big mistake. This movie is full of eye candy, but has zero brain candy. It's dumb, confusing, and bloodless. This is exactly how not to make a slasher movie or any movie for that matter. There's no fun to be had and the two "sex" scenes in the movie are accompanied by awful music that is more boring that what you'd hear on Adult Contemporary radio.

The Brotherhood VI is coming soon. I don't think I'll watch it though. If it's even half as bad as this one, it'll be a waste of time.