Ghosts of Sherwood (2012)

Don't we all love the story of Robin Hood? The rogue bowman, the handsome outlaw, standing up for what he believes is right and rebelling against the oppressors of the common people. I guess the main reason people like him is the old poor vs rich scenario, the poor people are the good ones and the rich people are the evil and cruel bastards. Because no honorable person wants to be rich, money doesn't make you happy. Though driving a Ferrari is a lot better than a Vauxhall Corsa.

And so we have 'Ghosts of Sherwood', or as it's better known by, 'Robin Hood: Ghosts of Sherwood'. Robin (Martin Thon) rescues Maid Marion (Ramona Kuen) from a band of...bandits. Robin tells Marion of his gang and their fight against the Sheriff (Tom Savini. Yes, THAT Tom Savini), who is also Marion's cousin. Some hostilities occur and Robin and most of his Merry Men are killed. Marion and Little John (Kane Hodder, yes, the same Kane Hodder who played Jason Vorhees in some 'Friday the 13th' films) seek to bring him back to life, however they instead conjure Robin and co as zombies, and must now fight their friends to stop them from threatening the world.

That's what the back of the DVD says. The problem is that for a large part of this film, that doesn't happen. This film had such a good concept, but it screws it up. We could have seen some reluctant alliances with the Sheriff, the conflict of fighting the ones you love, Hell, throw in the 'love turns zombies back into humans' thing, actually explore the story. It's zombies in the medieval era for God's sake!

No, for the most part, the film focuses on Robin and Marion, which would have been good if they actually did something. Basically the main concept, Robin leading a band of Merry Undead, comes into the film in the last ten or fifteen minutes. Some of the run time is about the conflicting morality of Robin and Marion, and I'm sure a large part of the film is for character development, the only problem is the dialogue is so mundane and the characters themselves so remote, dull, and contradicting, it's hard to get into it.

And believe me when I say the characters bare little to no resemblance to the idea of Robin Hood. Let's take Robin, what's the main thing we know about him? He's a brilliant archer, quite possibly the best in the world. This Robin Hood, hardly uses a bow. And when he does he sucks at it. In fact, he only uses a bow three times; the third time when he's undead. One of Marion's line was "Leave the bow behind. I don't want you accidentally shooting me when rescuing me". HE'S ROBIN FUCKING HOOD! He should be able to shoot a fly off the tip of your tongue, while blindfolded, and looking in the opposite direction!

And you know you've done something wrong when you portray the Sheriff as the good guy! Seriously! The characters say the Sheriff is evil and a cruel, uncaring man, and yet the only time we see this is when he's torturing prisoners who stole from him! He sent soldiers to escort Marion, he has a laugh when practicing sword fighting with a guard, he has concerns for Marion's well being, not once do we see him actually do anything bad. Marion says he didn't give a toss about the passing of his wife, simply because mention her in a letter. Here's some points to counteract that; he was in shock, he was denial, he didn't want to talk about it, he mourned in private, he didn't want to talk about it in a letter, there are some reasons why he didn't mention her in one bloody letter.

In fact, it's Robin, Marion, and the Merry Men (All three of them) who I didn't really like. Marion was a stuck up cow who says one thing and does another, and doesn't seem to mind anything which others would think is the work of the Devil (Then again neither does anyone else). Friar Tuck (Kai Borchardet) came off as a dick whose actions got TWO innocent people's heads dunked into a water barrel. Will Scarlet (Dennis Zachmann) came off as arrogant, and Little John only turned up twenty minutes before the end! Granted, I liked Little John, he actually brought a fair few lines of humorous dialogue into this film.

Then again maybe the acting is the reason why I don't like our supposed heroes. The acting is awful. Even worse than 'The Covenant', at least the acting talent in 'The Covenant' didn't sound dubbed. Well, most of 'The Covenant' cast didn't sound dubbed anyway. The only real saving graces were Savini and Hodder, who actually attempted to put some life into their roles. Savini however appears in about ten minutes screen time altogether, and Hodder appears to be holding back at times as well.

And the effects, dear lord. At best they're on par with Asylum productions, at worse they're some of the worse to ever set foot in cinematic history. That being said, the make-up is alright. Nothing spectacular, but not bad, per se. Although a lot of the time, particularly for when someone gets hit with an arrow, the film cuts away for a second before returning to the previous shot to show whatever make-up has been applied.

I was expecting a 'so bad it's good' film, what I got...was kind of that. Believe me, it's horrendous. The story is crap, the plot arrives late, the acting is a travesty, the effects must have been done from Windows movie maker, the characters are irritating bores, and the dialogue is some of the most mundane pieces ever written in the history of scripts. BUT, I do think you need to check it out. It's one that needs to truly be seen to be believed. My review, barely scratches the surface of this film.