Brocéliande (2002)
Directed by Doug Headline

Film Review

At first sight, you could be forgiven for thinking that Brocéliande is a cheeky parody of the kind of mystery slasher movie that was all the rage in the late 1970s and early '80s.  It certainly has all the right ingredients - hapless teenagers (of the Scooby Doo gang variety) being tormented by a nameless grisly horror with a penchant for visceral murder.  Unfortunately, five minutes or so into the film you suddenly realise this isn't the case.  It's actually intended to be a serious attempt at a slasher movie.

The film only looks like a crazed genre parody because of the sheer ineptitude and staggering lack of imagination it throws so carelessly onto the screen.  It looks like a film school project that has gone badly wrong, owing to a crippling lack of mony, talent and good taste.  The sub-juvenile plot and inept acting are bad enough, but these are minor faults compared with the clueless mise-en-scène which leaves absolutely no cliché unturned in an attempt to fashion the most ridiculous display of histrionic excess you will ever see outside The Jerry Springer Show.

The man responsible for this cinematic atrocity (which is a very good candidate for the worst French film ever made) is Doug Headline, otherwise known by his real name Tristan Jean Manchette.  You wouldn't think it (to go by this appalling debut offering) but he is the son of the acclaimed French crime writer, Jean-Patrick Manchette, whose best-selling novels - Nada, Folle à tuer, Pour la peau d'un flic, Trois hommes à abattre - have frequently been adapted for cinema, with varying degrees of success, by such capable directors as Claude Chabrol, Jacques Deray and Yves Boisset.

In the decade prior to making Brocéliande, his first and only cinematic feature to date, the inaptly named Headline fared somewhat better with a series of television documentaries on such worthy subjects as Lino Ventura, Claude Chabrol and Bernard Blier.  His one attempt at movie making may have been a disaster, but he has had some success as a writer, scripting graphic novels and translating American biographies and novelisations for a French readership.

Film Synopsis

On the very day that archaeology student Chloé begins her university course on Celtic history she senses she is entering a strange and dangerous world.  After witnessing a brutal killing, she becomes convinced that supernatural powers are at work, emanating from the forest of Brocéliande, the site of ancient legends...