Blood Brothers
Written and Directed by Brenton Priestley.
Starring Alexander Freezer, Brenton Priestley, Bennie Kuang, Lachlan Rhys
Mantell, Martin Cormier, Alex Giannopoulos.
On Thursday 24th October a huge number of people joined together to celebrate the world premiere of the new film by Brenton Priestley — Blood Brothers.
SETTING UP
The anticipation was palpable as stars, friends, and family (often they were one and the same) expectantly filled the Union Cinema. This was only heightened when minor technical difficulties, i.e. no sound, hampered the advertised 7pm starting time (note to AUFS committee members — Brenton’s friends & family turn up on time! Could we encourage more of them to join the AUFS next year? Perhaps a special membership price?).
So, at about 7:08 all technical difficulties were overcome, the lights went out, and about 60 (just guessing, but let’s say many more attendees than usual, but not as many as Debbie Does Dallas) people held their breaths and hoped like hell that Blood Brothers would be good.
And we were not disappointed. What we got was 90 minutes of blood-splattered fun, with an interesting and sometimes surprising plot, a couple of totally impressive special effects, very professional camera work (yay Brenton’s little sister) and the knowledge that it was all done on a shoestring budget by a bunch of talented uni people.
THE VIBE
OK, so I was really impressed. And those of you that didn’t turn up missed out on all of those totally unrepeatable experiences like sitting behind people who laughed at inappropriate moments, e.g. because they recognised Brenton’s Dad speaking perfect French when he doesn’t speak French at all, or something else that just didn’t make sense to those of us that didn’t know Brenton that well, but enjoyed having an inkling of the inside joke.
BRIEF SYNOPSIS
The film begins with the main character, Alec Frost (Alexander Freezer), stumbling home wounded after being brutally attacked in the forest by a savage hermit (Brenton Priestley). Whilst recounting his experience to his trusty side-kick, Ken (Bennie Kuang), Alec decides that he will take the “stranger” on as his protégé. Once the stranger is brought into the world of Alec and Ken the plot veers off into the world of drug smuggling, gun-running, professional hits and drug wars, international intrigue, and the world of the mysterious IRN, who are hot on the track Alec Frost.
Brutal, interesting and with a dose of comedy, Blood Brothers works as a debut film. N.B. it is certainly not for anyone under 15 years old. The special effects are too convincing for that!
PICTURE AND SOUND TECHNICALITIES
Having said this, I think it is also fair to say the picture quality was not that of 35mm film so it does have the feel of a B-grade film (despite the camerawork) — this probably added to the effectiveness of some of the special effects in two ways:
- Blood and wounds probably look more realistic when the picture quality is not 100%
- It made some of the “hi-tech” special effects more of a surprise.
We did see the video version, I am not sure whether watching straight from the digital camera would have made much of a difference in picture quality or not. Dialogue was a little difficult to hear in a few places, Brenton said before the film that he is still tweaking the sound, but it was pretty good overall.
ACTING
The acting is OK, which is to be expected as no one was a professional actor (is this correct Brenton?). I really liked Benny Kuang, playing the “long suffering sidekick”, I thought he was great, and Lachlan Rhys Mantell as gun runner Nick Kretzky was great as well. (Don’t want to put in a spoiler, but I found the scene between Kretzky and the “Savage Stranger” very interesting, maybe even touching — although I will have to see the film again to really have an idea of this. I actually have a few questions about the way the plot was going at that point.)
THE STATE OF CULT
Having just watched two low budget well known cult films — Nekromantic (German) and Last House On The Left (US) I would say that Blood Brothers, with the right marketing, could become an underground success. It is certainly much better than Nekromantic, much more realistic, has a more interesting plot and is more fun. Not as brutal as Last House, not as likely to sicken people (although it has it’s share of gore) and not as confronting (and I mean this in a very good sense — anyone who has seen Last House or knows about it will know what I mean). Not sure if that interprets into money for anyone involved (and ignoring certain petty legalities). Seems to me that the last “cult” film out of Adelaide was Bad Boy Bubby. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) I have not seen it to make any kind of comparison. Anyone out there able to do this? Of course, BBB had a distributor and, from snippets seen, was made by some very experienced people.
THE AFTER PARTY
About half the people attending stayed back for drinks and nibbles. I had a number of lively discussions about the film and the general consensus was that it went down well. We really must have drinks with the cast and crew of our films more often :) I still have two unopened casks and two half full casks — but all of the lemonade is gone!
A LITTLE DISCLAIMER
All of the details above about the film are correct to the best of my knowledge. If I have got something wrong, my apologies, please feel free to correct me!
A QUOTE PLEASE
Brenton, what was that line by SPECIAL AGENT FISCHER (Martin Cormier), “It wasn’t called the cold war for nothing”?
AND LET’S NOT FORGET MERCHANDISING
I can see it now, T-Shirts saying “I saw Blood Brothers and all I got was this lousy t-shirt”, IRN Cups, Caps and Fridge Magnets?
THE WEB SITE
If anyone is interested in looking at the Blood Brothers web site it is at http://www.blood-brothers-movie.8m.com or follow the links from the AUFS web site at www.aufs.org
ESther
Esther summed up the film very well.
For my 2c worth — it was surprisingly entertaining.
The plot was interesting without being overly convoluted and had enough twists to keep the audience interested. Script was good with some very interesting ideas. I really liked the IRN subplot which added a whole new dimension to what may have become a fairly predictable story. As Esther said, there was no love story (apart from the subtle one between Alex and the stranger) but I don’t think the film was any worse for that. In fact this may have helped concentrate the story on the main theme without distractions.
I don’t know if it was just me but I kept getting the overwhelming sense that the main character (Alex Frost) was Bill Gates’ twin brother. He looked eerily like him. He had that same nerdy charm with a smile while underneath you knew he was an evil guy. Maybe this was some cunning plan by the director to make a statement about the true origins of the Microsoft empire.
Direction-wise it was a bit of a mixed bag. There were some very good shots mixed with some fairly average ones but overall the impression was good. The film had a surprising amount (as in more than none) of good CGI which was at least as good as some major movies I have seen. The titles and fridge-work were particularly of note — they looked a million dollars. The international scenes were also a surprise in what is after all a no-budget film. The biggest draw back was the dialogue, which in some places i
As Esther said it is not a film for those with a delicate stomach — some of the scenes were somewhat off putting, although I should say that most of the gore was tempered with a good dose of humour. In fact, it could almost have been taking a cue from some of the TV lifestyle shows as there was a cooking scene, hints on home sewing, stationery usage and carpentry. The word “blood” in the title should be taken seriously as there must of been buckets of the red stuff used during production.
Overall it was well worth seeing. Certainly it was the only film that the film soc has shown to my knowledge to get a round of applause from the audience at the end. We should try and get a copy on VHS from Brenton to show at the next weekend away for those who missed it.
Guy
