Brotherhood of the Wolf

To date one of the highest-grossing French films ever released in the US, Brotherhood of the Wolf (Le Pacte des Loups in its native language) was a sleeper hit in 2001 when it was given an overseas release and prowled into theaters without much fanfare. A lot of people didn’t know what to make of it, and it remains a strange and entertaining mix of monster movie, horror, action, period drama, and martial arts spectacle.

Directed by French filmmaker Christophe Gans – who has not directed anything so good before or since – Brotherhood is a fantastical mishmash of real life and pure invention. It takes the historical mystery of the Beast of Gevaudan from the 1760s and adds to it, creating a story of bloodshed, intolerance, political intrigue, secret cults, and madness wrapped around the central idea, all revolving around the question of what was the monster, and why did it kill.

In provincial France before the revolution, the Chevalier de Fronsac – a naturalist for the king – is sent to Gevaudan to investigate the killings in company with his blood brother Mani – an Iroqios from the American colonies in New France (also known as Canada). He encounters disturbed locals, a frightened peasantry, and layer upon layer of mystery to uncover. The film has a satisfyingly meaty script, with a lot of characters, a lot of development and nuance, and a lot of very French witty banter.

It all builds against a backdrop of brooding forests and primordial hills haunted by the specter of a killing beast who hunts and devours women and children, and seems immune to bullets or the hunter’s lure. The people are sure it is a wolf, and engage in gleeful wolf-hunts hoping to slay it, but Fronsac suspects something else is at work, and we soon see he is right.

The cast is quite good, with Samuel Bihan delivering a charming turn as the chevalier, while handling the action scenes with real flair. International martial arts star Marc Dacascos is his Native American companion, and while he is not a genuine native, he is at least not white, and he embodies a stoic, reserved cool. Vincent Cassel lends his serpentine charisma as one of the villains of the piece, while Monica Bellucci is both deadly and gorgeous as courtesan/secret agent/assassin Sylvia. The rest of the cast is filled with character actors and other performers who all seem to be having a grand time and turn in good performances, lending the movie a lot of depth and texture.

Brotherhood of the Wolf is a pulp film of the first order, wallowing in violence, gore, and sexual carnality to a degree not often seen these days. You get swordfights, knife-fights, and Dacascos gets to show off his championship martial arts skills more than once. The violence does not reach the limb-ripping levels of movies like Centurion, but it is more than satisfying, and never feels like it is censoring itself.

When the beast itself is finally revealed, it is a hell of a beast. It has to be said that the early-2000s budget CGI looks pretty bad now, but the animatronics, courtesy of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, still look badass. It’s a huge monster, neither wolf nor demon, and the narrative keeps you guessing as to what it really is. The big set piece hunt is just the turn from the second act to the third, and there is plenty more to come.

The excellent cinematography and locations make this a beautiful movie to look at, though the fad for ramping and needless slow-mo of the time do stand out as dated to a modern eye. The music, by Joseph LoDuca, deserves especial mention, as it is gorgeous and enchanting, helping to evoke another time and place. LoDuca has mostly worked on TV scores, and this is one of his few films, but he did outstanding work.

There is no overt sorcery in this film, but with the third act turn to medieval mad science and a bad guy with a full-on zombie arm, we are skirting the edges. Fronsac is an excellent pulp hero, if of a more intellectual bent than most. He is a scholar who longs to travel to Africa, but he is also a soldier and more than capable of applying foot to ass when called on to do so. This is a tale that could have made for a good Solomon Kane adventure, and would fit admirably into Howard’s more historically-minded stories like “Wolfshead”, along with shades of Clark Ashton Smith’s tales of Averoigne. If you are a Sword & Sorcery fan then you should already have this movie on your shelf, and if you don’t, then you will definitely want to check it out.