The Brotherhood (2001)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Truly Dreadful Film

Just perfect...

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Following the minor success of all-girl teen witch flick THE CRAFT, David DeCoteau made his own Z-grade spin on the franchise in THE BROTHEROOD. These are gay-friendly horror flicks in which female cast members barely feature. DeCoteau is too busy shooting his young male models lounging around in their boxer shorts or getting up to some mischievous hijinks as part of a longevity cult. The British title of the film is I'VE BEEN WATCHING YOU and it sounds like something DeCoteau might have said to his male cast members during audition.Needless to say that this is a surprising production in that it manages to be sleazy and tame at the same time. Certainly the constant ogling of the young male bodies is off-putting although vaguely enlightening given the amount of films that chronicle female flesh. Sadly, the homoerotic stuff is the only real content this movie has, as nobody was really interested in telling a proper story.As usual, the acting is horrible from these planks of wood masquerading as breakout stars, and the script is dumb beyond belief. Every dialogue scene rings hollow and there's a general feeling of falsity in the air. Add in an almost entire lack of story and incident and you have a bomb of a film. Incredibly, no less than five sequels followed this mess.

The idea that this movie isn't homo-erotic is hilarious. Anyone on the local planet who's seen this dud would never think that the director did not expressly want to illustrate the intimacy (of many different types)demonstrated between all the male characters of this film, especially since he spends *so* much film time doing just that. This film is so slow its speed could be measured with a Confucian calendar. The dialogue takes about three times longer than it should, and what we found most disturbing is the _very_ clear homo-eroticism demonstrated in every scene. No straight woman who watched this felt that it was geared towards her entertainment in the slightest. This film is strictly by men for men. The supernatural underpinnings, clumsy and badly-F/X'd as they are, run a distant second.Don't rent this unless you're prepared to feel distinctly uncomfortable and painfully bored, or you're entertained by C-budget mini-horror.

It is nonsense to say this is a "gay" horror film. We see these same shots of women in conventional horror films and don't think about the director's sexual orientation. Would this be considered gay if the director was a woman? I think not. This film is meant to be a beefcake horror film for the ladies. And while it delivers some handsome faces and a few fleeting shots of boys in theirunderwear, it's strictly G-rated stuff. Indeed, I've seen more nudity in G-rated films from the 1960s where bare butt shots of men and boys can be seen in"Planet of the Apes" or "Maya" where 15-year-old Jay North appears nude from the back side. The "Brotherhood" series films are surprisingly bloodless and nudity-free, which bucks the trend for horror films and teen sex comedies and may be why so many people feel a bit "cheated." One wonders why on direct- to-video releases David can't push the envelope a bit and show more explicit nudity of either sex. Probably because the video rental chain which finances these films through pre-production distribution agreements would decline to participate. Or it may be that the young actors who appear in these films draw the line at showing their gear or bare butts. But if you're going to have a scene where nudity is the logical costume, as in a shower scene, it doesn't make much sense to show guys showering in their underwear -- something we have seen in more recent DeCoteau films. There is a similar problem in "The Brotherhood," with the frat initiation ("make- out") scene being more logical as a nude scene. On another point, since so many have commented on why the protagonist wears black boxer briefs, this is an obvious nod to Alfred Hitchock's use of a black bra on Janet Leigh in "Psycho" after she turns "bad." (Before she turns bad she is seen in a white bra). Or more classically, the boy in the black briefs is akin to the outlaw in the black hat.

OK, so i was told to watch this movie cause it has lots of hot guys in their underwear. This is a bit misleading. There are a few hot guys...but rarely are they in their underwear. actually, they are only in their underwear in one scene and this hottest of them all (in my opinion) is already dead. Boo boo boo. They is a slight hint at homoeroticism, but they don't follow through. it's better to just rent some gay porn. There is also a very poor story line, which kinda doesn't make sense. i would be able to look past the crappy story line if there were more hot guys in their underwear. Does anyone know if Brotherhood II or II is any better?