Grey Knight (1993)

Pretty Good

Memorable, crazy movie

Absolutely the worst movie.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

The creative initial idea of an unstoppable army of Union and Confederate resurrected dead soldiers, gets trampled under the weight of it's limited budget, heavy handed direction, and chop shop editing. Many scenes are way too dark for interpretation of the action, while quite a bit of lines are garbled and incomprehensible. Character development is rushed and not acceptable. Other than the fresh concept of supernatural - Civil War genre mixing, there is little here to like. Billy Bob Thornton is wasted in a very small role, and Martin Sheen seems to be doing out takes from Gettysburg. "Grey Knight" should be considered more a curiosity than anything else, because it is simply too muddled and cannot be recommended as entertainment. - MERK

I love historical pieces, and this one took what could have been a good premise, and it went south in a hurry. Sorry guys. It was just too weird to follow, or enjoy past the first 20 minutes. The acting wasn't so bad, but the script suffered in the editing. The Civil War has so many interesting TRUE stories on both the Union, and Confederate battlefields. (With brother sometimes fighting brother, and whole families torn apart by the fight.) Also, although slavery was the big issue, the issue of "state's rights," and the Kansas-Nebraska Act tore the south in half. In Texas, many people such as Sam Houston preached against succession from the Union in the Texas Senate. His Governorship was stripped away from him, and he was branded a "Unionist" the rest of his life. Many counties voted against succession, but when the final vote was taken, then militias were raised to meet the call for war. Now there are many stories just right there that would be worth telling, instead of some weird voodoo tale that blames slavery on the south that had a good majority that were against slavery. Churches formed anti-slavery societies called TABOR. So let us try to do better stories worth telling, instead of a bunch of weird mess that stirs up a bunch of hatred, and misunderstanding of a great part of American history...

I wrote the alternate versions section, and I'll add here that the director's cut (GHOST BRIGADE on laserdisc, I don't know if you can get it anywhere else) is much better than the version called THE KILLING BOX, which I've seen on cable.I don't much care for the shorter version because it tries to make the "good guy" better (by skipping his drug habit) and the "bad guys" worse (by not developing them as characters). All it really does is make the whole thing much more flat and the ending less interesting.See if you can track down the longer version if the idea of a Civil War horror movie, or even another spin on HEART OF DARKNESS / APOCALYPSE NOW appeals to you. The other version's probably not worth your time.

What could have been a good horror-movie is infected by a often to weird and confusing story. The acting is good, the filming locations are beautiful. The film also has a special 'supernatural' sphere, the supernatural elements in the movie are in a good way connected to the story. The function of the narrator of the story is good. It's a pity that the story is a such a mess, but watching the movie is certainly recomended.