Review – The Brotherhood of the Wolf

Somewhere between the atmospheric horror movies of Cocteau and Polanski and the frantic action flicks of Luc Besson lies this odd tale of an 18th century French village terrorized by a ravening Beast. As a mystery movie it doesn’t work at all, but fortunately the film-makers appear to recognize this shortcoming and compensate by throwing in a fair measure of sex and gore. Production values are solid, and this might have been a better picture (with a slightly better rating) were it not for the decision to include racism of a sort even Hollywood has started to move past, sexism that wasn’t even consistent with the plot, and oh way far too much animal suffering. See if desperate