Fantastic!

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I stepped into the story with a third of the running time passed & seemingly nothing vital to the story had yet occurred. A 30 second flashback near the end wrapped the missing part up nicely. Any brief outline wraps up the entire movie as well, for that matter. The president of a vampiric college fraternity needs to occupy a new body every century or he'll die as will his brethren. His victim manages to sabotage the plan in the final 15 minutes of the movie. The end. I don't want to examine the illogicalities of the present vampire mythology; you can't enjoy a vampire movie without accepting that part of the story. However, there's plenty left to pick out of this corpse. The bright illumination & the sets somehow reminded me of 1990's video erotica, the cast consisted of annoying Baywatch stereotypes with the acting talent of wooden dolls & every opportunity to insert some flesh or gore into the pelicule (classic lifesavers for crummy B-movies) was thoroughly waisted. Overall the feeling occupies the middle ground between gay horror-erotica & the Worst of Buffy. This could've been a film loaded with evil charisma, Freudian subtlety & psychological confusion from the part of the victim ...plus some nudity & blood where fit. I've never seen THE LOST BOYS but no doubt it's a superior treatment of the same theme. As a final remark, the plot served one so-called twist: the female sidekick is a traitor. She happened to be the one out of 3 "heroes" to carry an invitation to the Brotherhood's party where the first contacts are established, wasn't that a hint ?

A confusing tale which confronts issues like popularity, and fitting into social groups... oh and some kind of vampire ritualism too. It's too easy to throw this movie straight in the Buffy/Dawsons Creek, bin... but hey, that's what the bin is there for! Teen acting is often a little on the stiff side, especially in a teen movie like this. Very little charisma, but a whole bag of enforced "cool", which they do quite well. There is a consistent street-wise-cum-spooky atmosphere, but also a gross inconsistency whereby these supposedly most popular guys in college are never seen to do anything in or around the college. Strange! We hear about their popularity and even good grades, but don't see any interaction at all! So a cool, likable individual (Chris), doesn't want to join a fraternity and become "Mr Popular" because that would make him un-cool and un-likable? His room-mate, "Who got thrown out of chess-club for being too geeky" would love to be "Mr Popular", and if he was would spend all his time doing really un-popular things to other people and school buildings! It's a teen movie... geddit?? The whole vampire idea is quite good, not a fang in sight, but a wickedly cool lair. Their catch phrase, "Blood Brothers", links well to the fraternity idea and their vampirical past-time. It's a well designed fantasy, and even a good story for teen vampire fans.But, and there's always a but, it doesn't quite hang together. Watching this movie leaves you feeling something is missing. Maybe that the college disappears as soon as the movie gets going, and then exists between Chris' bungalow and the Frat house itself. There is more than just a hint of Homo-eroticism, with the number of fit young men crawling around each other in their underwear. Hey, maybe all fraternities are like that? A little more than 'blood' brothers perhaps!! Whereas a little more female interaction would have made the film a tad more credible... even if the guys are all gay! Also, and probably most annoying was the lead female (Megan), who put on an especially grating, gravelly drawl of an accent, and managed to deliver all her lines slowly, without breaths, or even pauses between words. Ick! Maybe that's the only way she could come across as 'cool'... or was she 'uncool' being a psychology major and all. Oh, I give up! And finally, so it's a budget film, but did it have to end quite so abruptly and unspectacularly and uninterestingly? So, I'm now left with a shell of a film, that has a couple of good ideas, and does flow through to an albeit rather abrupt ending. This may be a favourite with some unquestioning young teenage girls... I'd say around 11 or 12years should do it! So how on earth did this flick get a 15 rating?? One thing is for sure, "Lost Boys" this ain't! I rated a "4"

THE BROTHERHOOD (2000)(UK: I've Been Watching You) Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 (Lomoscope)Sound format: StereoA high school jock (Nathan Watkins) is targeted by the leader of a vampire cult (Bradley Stryker) who needs to transfer his soul into Watkins' body to survive...Following the unexpected success of his gloriously homoerotic horror-thriller VOODOO ACADEMY (2000) - particularly the unrated DVD version - veteran director David DeCoteau (CURSE OF THE PUPPET MASTER, PRISON OF THE DEAD, etc.) Took a commercial gamble and formed his own company - Rapid Heart Pictures - dedicated to the production of low-budget teen movies with a beefcake twist. Unfortunately, their maiden venture is a bust, for several reasons. Firstly, it was shot in less than a week (!), which precludes a certain degree of cinematic flair (despite DeCoteau's wasted use of the 35mm scope format), and the plot is driven by dialogue rather than action - too much dialogue, in fact. Secondly, whereas "Voodoo" overcame numerous plot deficiencies by stripping its hunky cast down to their designer underwear at every given opportunity, THE BROTHERHOOD is a great deal less forthcoming in this regard. Indeed, DeCoteau claims the film's blatant gay undertow is 'accidental', despite the unsubtle narrative device of a monstrous entity which takes the shape of a beautiful young man in order to seduce (figuratively speaking) another equally beautiful young man. Furthermore, the movie contains an eye-popping set-piece in which the two male leads shed their clothes and ravish a young girl who's been hypnotized into submission, though the coverage is focused almost exclusively on the guys themselves...DeCoteau's insistence that his movies cater primarily for teenage girls (contrary to remarks made on the US DVD release of LEATHER JACKET LOVE STORY, where he specifically encourages gay viewers to check out the Rapid Heart catalog) suggests a reluctance to challenge established mainstream parameters. In other words, he's trying to have his cake and eat it by indulging a commercial preoccupation with beautiful young men whilst refusing to pursue the concept to its logical narrative conclusion. In his own defence, DeCoteau argues that many actors - particularly those most suited to this kind of movie - are unwilling to perform nude scenes, though this argument seems particularly bogus. Refusal to do a full-frontal is one thing, but if his actors won't even allow rear-view nude shots, then the likelihood of a daring, sexually unambiguous horror film from this particular stable seems remote, to say the least. Here, for instance, very little attention is lavished on Bradley Stryker's ultra-buff torso, except for a couple of sequences during the latter half of the film, and the equally hunky Donnie Eichar (playing an axe-wielding doorman) remains fully clothed throughout! The movie lacks audacity and courage, in spades.All this would be immaterial, of course, if the production schedule had allowed for a stronger storyline, less reliant on prolonged stretches of mundane dialogue. For all that, however, THE BROTHERHOOD is assembled with a fair amount of professional skill, and most of the acting is fine (Josh Hammond steals everyone's thunder as Watkins' not-so-nerdy sidekick). Teens may enjoy the simplistic storyline and sumptuous young actors, but there's little here to engage a wider audience. Followed by THE BROTHERHOOD 2: YOUNG WARLOCKS (2001).

The writer had a good plot, but the writing is just plain hokey. Many of the scenes just go on and on with this forced, contrived dialogue that had me squirming in my chair. The sarcasm went too far as well. The actor playing Devon has a nice body, but his performance was noticeably stoic compared to the other actors. Despite being a low-budget film, some money was put into the sets. I would have laid off of the thunder and strobe lights though. If it was lightning and thundering that much here in Oklahoma, I would be hiding in the bathtub. The odd thing is, it never rains in the movie. The idea of a gay vampire movie is a good one; however, it was poorly executed in this movie.