In 2001, a French gothic fantasy movie arrived that mixed historical epic fantasy with horror and starred Mark Dacascos and Monica Bellucci. This movie is Brotherhood of the Wolf, and it deserves a much bigger audience than it has received since its release. Directed by Christophe Gans (Silent Hill), the movie tells the story of a knight and his Iroquois companion sent by King Louis XV of France in 1764 to investigate a series of murders in the countryside during the French Revolution.
The two men discover that a giant beast is killing people, and the legend that has spread to Paris is that it is a monstrous creature. When they soon learn that there might be a human controlling the beast, the two men set out to find and destroy it before it takes any more lives. Soon, they discover the “Brotherhood” that is responsible for these deaths, and they are doing it all in the name of God. What resulted was a gothic fantasy that also played out as a martial arts buddy cop movie.
Brotherhood Of The Wolf Is The Perfect Movie For Gothic Fantasy Fans
The Dark Religious Undertones Combines With A Mismash Of Genres
Brotherhood of the Wolf was always going to be a cult favorite. It was so much more than just gothic horror, although it was also brilliantly displayed. The story is as much a buddy cop movie during the French Revolution as anything, with two men sent to solve bloody murders but finding a conspiracy that threatens to bring down France. As an allegory for the French Revolution, it perfectly combines a historical epic and a martial arts gothic horror story.
After the opening, where a woman was mauled and killed by the unseen beast, the film then introduced Fronsac and Mani, and it led to Fronsac taking out several French soldiers in hand-to-hand combat to help protect a young woman and her father. In what showed his fighting skills in a scene worthy of a martial arts epic, the film showed this was a man who could hold his own. When Mark Dacascos began to use his martial arts skills as Mani, the action aspects of the film were taken to an entirely new level.
The film perfectly mixed monster action with dark religious undertones.
However, when the gothic horror was amplified, the movie took on a life of its own. The film perfectly mixed monster action with dark religious undertones, where a secret society, believing they worked in God’s name, used the beast to kill as many people as possible to bring God’s word back to the mᴀsses. Thanks to the backdrop of the French Revolution, this took the form of a dark tale in an even darker part of world history. This delivered the themes and terror that gothic fantasy fans covet.
How Brotherhood Of The Wolf Compares To Other Gothic Fantasy Classics
The Film Has Many Influences & Surpᴀsses Most Of Them
Brotherhood of the Wolf is so different from other gothic fantasy movies. While gothic horror is on display, and the religious undertones perfectly fit the genre, the movie is almost a mishmash of different genres. The martial arts fighting in the film, including the slow-motion falls that were a sign of its era, make it stand out as something unique. Mark Dacascos does enough to make this as much a kung-fu action movie as a gothic fantasy.
Brotherhood of the Wolf has many influences, some from the gothic fantasy genre and some from other sources. There are parts The Wolf Man and parts Jaws, with a little bit of The Hound of Baskervilles and Sleepy Hollow. However, Brotherhood of the Wolf matches, and in many cases, surpᴀsses other gothic fantasy movies, even those that influenced it. While it received mixed-to-negative reviews when released, it remains a great movie that deserves more fans because it delivers everything gothic fantasy fans could want in their stories.
