Bullet Points: The Lost Brigade aka Grey Knight aka The Killing Box aka Ghost Brigade

It’s normally a bad sign when a movie has more than one title. Just look back through history and try to find a movie with more than one title that ever gained a following more than just cult-like. I am a noted history buff who loves watching movies focusing on early American history and I have fond memories of watching this movie as a kid. Some memories are better left alone….

Synopsis: An evil brought over from Africa laid dormant for hundreds of years until an errant cannonball released it onto the desolate battlefield. Now an army of inhuman, undead soldiers looks to conquer anyone and everything in their path. It’s up to a small detachment of Union and Confederate soldiers to repel the evil entity before it grows large enough to become unstoppable.

• A good narration goes a long way: The first thing I noticed while watching whatever you choose to call this movie, is that the narration by Capt. John Harling (Adrian Pasdar) is almost unrecognizably gruff. It’s so quiet and it sounds like he’s trying to be tough. I wonder if Pasdar is trying to impress Martin Sheen with his odd narrating skills?
• The Battle of something something: It’s not important what the name of the battle was. What is important is that Corbin Bernsen’s regiment got ambushed on all four sides and are massacred. He only survives the battle because he is shot in the shoulder and thought to be dead. The rest of his men are mowed down and thought to be dead as well. Bernsen’s Colonel Strayn ends up in a Union prison where he’s left to grow a sweet beard and hangs around in the nude all day.

• The Evil: The dead lost in the battle don’t just up and walk away. The whole story is that a slave trader attacked some tribe who was holding back some ancient evil demon shit and by doing so brought back said demon shit into the United States. It was trapped in a cave by some African slaves and laid dormant until released by the battle that took place. The evil entity somehow infected the dead soldiers and brought them back to life to create an army of the undead.
• Someone has to know what is going on: If it wasn’t for Cynda Williams’ Rebecca, we probably wouldn’t know what the hell was going on. She plays an escaped slave who also escaped from the undead dudes and lives to tell about it. Ok, so she doesn’t exactly tell anything because she’s a mute. But she does use her voodoo powers to communicate with Corbin Bernsen (and the audience) and deliver some much needed exposition. It’s a very welcome sight in a movie that mostly feels like it was written that day.

• How do we kill these things: Corbin’s Strayn finds the cave and talks to his young nephew who is now an undead drummer boy. He learns about what is happening and returns long enough for all the Union leadership to call “bullshit” on him and threaten to kill him again. Adrian Pasdar is the only one who gives him an ear but it isn’t long before the entire group of Union soldiers is taking orders from the Confederate officer and fighting alongside other survivors.
• Silver Kills: By the end of the movie there are a mixed bag of Union and Confederate troops just trying not to get killed. They team up to fight the undead with the only weapons that they know will kill them: silver. Well, they could have also used fire, which would seem to me to be the best option but there was some remark about the wood being too wet to get a fire going but we never actually see it rain at any point. Luckily, they have a wagon full of silver and start making rifle balls and dipping their bayonets in it. It could have made for a really cool battle with the army of undead but instead it’s a very anticlimactic affair. The only character who really gets to show up is Rebecca.

It may not be a masterpiece but it still warrants a few extra Bullet Points:

• David Arquette commits suicide. I mean, former WCW World Heavyweight Champion David Arquette.
• They must have had Martin Sheen on set during one of his off days from filming Gettysburg. He shoots one scene and doesn’t even stop using his Robert E. Lee accent. They pretty much just give him a different uniform and let him go.
• Ray Wise is on fire!
• Where are they getting all these crime scene photos? I think we need a C.S.I.: Civil War!
• Matt LeBlanc’s debut film. Even though I don’t remember seeing him.

The Verdict: I remember this movie much more fondly. I haven’t seen it since the mid 90’s and I’ve actually tried searching for it recently to no avail. I just so happened to see it listed under Impact’s options on VUDU and immediately added it to my wishlist. It was a mighty disappointment. The idea of a zombie Civil War movie is way cooler than the execution here. These guys aren’t exactly the same type of zombies that we’re used to but it’s close enough that the movie could have been way better. It had too much downtime, for one. The second biggest problem is the reliance on Corbin Bernsen instead of allowing the undead guys to wreak a little more havoc. Bernsen does an okay job but the undead are never frightening at any point. In fact, the scene with David Arquette is one of the best scenes in the movie because it fleshes out the bad guys a little more than any other. This movie had Bersen, Pasdar, Billy Bob Thornton, Arquette, LeBlanc, and Ray Wise but still wasn’t able to get one standout performance. It’s a movie that is unique but not really that good.