The star of friends Matt Leblanc played in a horror war film with a strange premise

It may seem that the cast of “Friends” was lucky to win their roles in this sitcom from the beloved 90s. And although luck is a large part, it is not as if the actors simply moved to Hollywood, were launched in the show and had become mega-stars. Each member of the whole has spent years implementing it in failing television projects and small films before winning the roles that would change their lives.

Before “Friends”, David Schwimmer played in a short -term sitcom with a veteran of “Happy Days”, while Matthew Perry became the king of sitcoms who lasted only one season. Courteney Cox played in a clumsy fantastic flop and Matt Leblanc played in two failed fallout from a beloved sitcom before winning the role of Joey Tribbiani on “Friends”. But Leblanc also had a few missing failed.

In 1994, the same year that “Friends” made his debut, Leblanc played in “Lookin ‘Italian”, a criminal drama of director Guy Magar who was not as terrible as his title suggests. Apart from that, Leblanc had only two other film credits: a short film from 1987 entitled “Doll Day Afternoon” and a supernatural horror film with such a ridiculous premise, that makes Cox “Masters of the Universe” look like Cox.

Matt Leblanc could not really go to the big screen even after “Friends”, which is perhaps better demonstrated by its appearance in a science fiction flop in the late 90s which failed to revive a classic television series. But Leblanc’s supernatural horror film in 1993 was a real Nadir. He goes through several titles: “Ghost Brigade” and “Gray Knight” are the most common two, but he is also known as “The Killing Box” and “The Lost Brigade”. Why this film has so many alternative titles remains uncertain, but it has been reissued several times since it made its debut as a direct-video offer in 1993, and it seems that distributors simply hold their luck with each new version.

Directed by George Hickenlooper, the film has a premise of mad film B which implies civil war, an evil voodoo entity and an army of dead-living soldiers. When the Confederate army awakens the malicious spirit, it owns the bodies of the dead soldiers, creating an army of zombie troops ready to make its auctions. What exactly is this offer really? Don’t worry. You know, evil stuff. At least, this particular voodoo entity favored reconciliation between north and southern, forging its army of union undead and Confederate combatants. All this invites the non -dead armies to meet in order to dominate the supernatural threat – or “ghost brigade”, if you want.

Corbin Bernsen plays the Captain of the Army of the Union, Captain John Harling, who is looking for the former commander of the Confederate Regiment, Colonel Nehemiah Strayn (Martin Sheen) in order to forge the alliance which will eventually dominate the hordes of the living dead. Matt Leblanc plays a character named Terhune (or Terhue, depending on the source you use – yes, even the characters have several titles in this film, apparently). But if you are interested in seeing Leblanc in his feature film debut, good luck to you. Terhune is probably one of the troops enlisted to face the ghost brigade, where it is one of the troops of this brigade, but it is almost impossible to choose it in the film. An intrepid user of letters from the mailbox thinks that he found it in this screenshot (photo above), but the role of Leblanc in the film remains as mysterious as the perverse entity itself.

The New York Times described “Ghost Brigade” like “the night of lively live meetings disappeared with the wind”, which I suppose that the director thought it would be the kind of thing that people did not know that they needed until they saw it, but turned out to be the kind of thing no one needs or seen. The NYT has described the star Corbin Benson as the “title in title right to video” at the time, which should give you an idea of ​​the place where the film is in the history of films. That said, the inclusion of Martin Sheen, Ray Wise, Billy Bob Thornton and even David Arquette could sting your interest, and the film certainly benefits from their involvement. But the only criticisms are not exactly brilliant.

Rotten Tomatoes has only one review, which cannot be read in whole, although it is apparently “fresh”. Meanwhile, there are a handful of negative criticisms on Letterboxd, where users have written things like “if you watched this film and you thought it looks really bad, I can assure you that it is much worse than you could think.” According to this user in particular, the film received another title in Germany, “Army of Zombies”, which seems much more intriguing than any American titles but probably only increased the inevitable disappointment. However, no one seems to hate this DTV effort from the 90s, some even praising the battle scenes and the “strange ideas of the West”. There is, as a spectator noted, a strange stylistic choice in which certain scenes are bathed in a nostalgic mist and others are not, despite the fact that there is no suggestion of which none is supposed to be flashbacks or memories. That said, a film that mainly concerns “Killer Redneck Freddy Kruegers with bayonets”, as a user said, cannot be all bad.

If you want to try to play “Where’s Matt Leblanc?”, “Ghost brigade” (or “Gray Knight”, as it is called on service) is currently available on Prime Video. If you really want to be able to see Leblanc on the screen, you could try the spin-off Joey Tribbiani canceled which is now in difficulty for free.