David DeCoteau, once the man behind a seemingly endless barrage of Charles Band quickies (Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-a-Rama, Creepozoids, Shrieker), seems to be carving out a bizarre little niche for himself.  After coming out of the closet several years ago, DeCoteau has churned out a series of increasingly homoerotic genre work, usually set in or around some sort of academy for young, attractive, bare-chested men.  Check out The Journey: Absolution and Voodoo Academy (the unrated DVD version) and see what I mean.

    Homoerotic vampire movies being something of a tradition, it was only natural before DeCoteau got to making one.  The Brotherhood plays like a slightly more gay version of The Lost Boys on a lower budget and without the Coreys.

    New kid on campus Dan (the likably Frank Whaley-esque Josh Hammond) arrives at a small college and meets his friendly jock roommate Chris (Nathan Watkins).  They get along because neither are the type to join a frat, even though Doma Tao Omega is a big influence on campus, despite their suspicious involvement in the death of one of their pledges.  The Domas are led by pretty-boy Devin and consist entirely of guys that walk in slow motion, wear sunglasses and look like rejected Backstreet Boys.

    (Before you say it, yes, I know “Doma” isn’t really a Greek letter.  I don’t write these things, okay?  Matthew Jason Walsh, the star of Midnight 2: Sex, Death and Videotape did.  Send your angry rants to him.  I’m just a humble video reviewer.)

    Anyway, enticed by the beautiful Elizabeth Bruderman (essentially the only woman in the cast), the two go to a Doma party.  It’s mellower than the type of party the pair have seen in frat movies (The Stephen Geoffreys-starring Fraternity Vacation is referenced), but Chris finds himself inexplicably attracted to Devin, and leaves the other two.  Devin makes his moves, gets Chris drunk, and the two exchange bodily fluids.  That is, blood.  From their hands.

    It’s all very, um, tasteful.

    Dan begins to suspect foul play after Chris sleeps the day away and acts surly.  Pretty soon it’s climax time, and it’s up to Dan and Bruderman to save Chris from the bloodsucking frat’s final soul-transferring ceremony, in which the group wanders around the house in their underwear looking sweaty and giving each other knowing looks… tender, sultry looks of pure… um…

    Yes, well.

    So it’s all very homoerotic stuff, and DeCoteau doesn’t shy away from doing to his impossibly full lipped cast what other exploitation directors have been doing to bikini babes for the past fifty years.  Even Dan, the “geeky guy” (we know he’s supposed to be geeky because he spends half his screen time talking about how geeky he is) is “movie cute” as a counter to the rest of the cast’s general hunkiness.

    Of course, the problem is that while DeCoteau doesn’t shy away from the film’s homoeroticism, he doesn’t go all the way with it either;  There’s some nice sexual tension between Chris and Dan, for example, that leads nowhere.  All of the characters are ostensibly straight, and any of the “gay” subtext is just that: subtext.  Hell, even the vampire lads have female “concubines” (though in today’s day and age, we’d call them “sluts”) to play around with.  A few comments help (when Chris walks off, Bruderman comments, “I lose more guys that way.”), but in a film this homoerotic in the first place, would a male-male kiss be SO out of place?

    Okay, so I’m kind of complaining that the movie isn’t “gay enough,” which sounds like a silly complaint, but I think it’s valid here.  After all, This doesn’t have much more eroticism than The Lost Boys, a movie made nearly 15 years ago for a major studio.  C’mon, Dave, let’s up the ante a little bit more.

    Though, to be fair, I get the feeling that, like Voodoo Academy, this was cut and probably exists in a longer version.  But would you want to see a longer version? The Brotherhood has a lot of dialogue, and most of it is terribly silly.  The main cast all seems to be enjoying themselves, though most of the vampire underlings seem more bored than anything.  Like a lot of Full Moon fodder, there’s way too much talk and not enough action.

    The film still looks good, however.  It’s clear that there was some concerned effort behind it, and it has its share of strong moments.  It’s campy fun that drags on occasion, but the guys are cute, so I can’t really complain too much.

    The DVD is one of those irritating-as-hell Blockbuster exclusive types with no features and YOU CAN'T SKIP THE PREVIEWS.  Nnngh.

    Brotherhood 2: Young Warlocks is on its way.  I don’t know whether or not to be excited.

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