Welcome Home Brother Charles

This film is a gem! Everything within Brother Charles (or Soul Vengeance as I saw it) adds to its effect-- jittery camerawork, sound so murky that most dialogue can't be understood, some really out there dancing and of course, weird action. And boy do I mean weird. Fanakaa obviously was trying for some kind of visual metaphor in this film, but its comic effect overshadows any pretense of seriousness the film may or may not contain. Fans of the genre MUST NOT miss out on this one.

This film definitely has an interesting premise, A guy whose Cock can grow at will and hypnotize women... The film itself is cheap, badly made, and the acting is Meh at best. oh and the ending sucks.

It is pretty entertaining however and once he gets his "Super power" the movie becomes hilarious. the middle of the film is fu*king amazing.

I'm not sure If i'd recommend this film, watch it for the Amazing Cock special effect scenes, the other stuff is pretty boring.

What is the weirdest blaxploitation film? Could it be The Thing with Two Heads, with its story about an old racist who has his head transplanted onto a black man from death row? Or could it be Dolemite with its kung-fu pimp, karate kicking prostitutes, sweary nightclub routines and ever-present boom-mic action? Or perhaps its Darktown Strutters with its female motorcycle gang, comedy relief racist cops, colour-co-ordinated KKK biker gang, pig men in capes and minstrel musical section? Well, maybe it is one of those but then again, there's always Welcome Home Brother Charles!

This film's hero is a drug dealer who returns from doing time in prison after almost being castrated by a racist cop. Naturally he wants payback against his enemies. So, what does he do? Why, he hypnotises women with one look at his dick and then strangles their husbands with his two metre long knob! Its never even really explained WHY he has a python like John Thomas with a life of its own. It was to do with being in prison or something. Anyway, needless to say, this is a thoroughly strange exercise in biscuit-taking cinema and, therefore, comes highly recommended.

Marlo Monte portrays Charles Murray, an amiable dope pusher who is arrested by white detectives. Unfortunately for Charles, one of these white detectives is Harry Freeman (Ben Bigelow), a raging racist unable to satisfy his wife. What Harry does is that he attempts to castrate Charles, getting back at both the wife and blacks in general. Charles spends three years in the pen, renounces crime, and tries to go straight, although finding honest work is difficult. He shacks up with Carmen (Reatha Grey), a former hooker, and ultimately decides to get revenge on all the honkies who did him wrong: Freeman, Freeman's partner (Stan Kamber), the judge (Ed Sander), and the prosecutor (Stephen Schenck). This he does in an extremely memorable, "Holy *beep*, I can't believe I'm seeing this" manner.

The big money shot occurs around the 88 minute mark, and while it may not catch you off guard if you know the big twist going in, it's STILL a priceless sight to behold. It's guaranteed to send viewers into gales of laughter.

And yet, at the same time, this viewer doesn't know that this aspect of the story is meant to be taken all that literally. Our protagonist may well have become unhinged by his experiences. In effect, the debut feature for writer / producer / director / editor Jamaa Fanaka, who hit it big four years later with the first "Penitentiary" picture, is largely a traditional story of vengeance. But Fanaka makes it fresh by infusing it with subtext (namely, black male virility), and a portrait of black American life in Compton and Watts of the mid-70s.

The filmmaking may not be terribly slick, and some of the performances may be amateurish, but the participants do get an A for effort. Monte and Grey have engaging personalities, Bigelow is an appropriately despicable p.o.s. antagonist, Jackie Ziegler is all kinds of sexy as Charles' ex-girlfriend Twyla (she performs a strip number), and Tiffany Peters is good as Freemans' defiant wife.

Enhanced by some gloriously funky tunes, and William Andersons' sometimes seriously weird soundtrack, this is one blaxploitation oddity that definitely merits at least one viewing.

Eight out of 10.

DVD release of the Original Blaxploitation Film, which I saw in the theater the day of its releas, is badly edited and cut. There are bleeps. Worse, several of the murders are excised. Xenon Productions can do better. In its original release as Welcome Home, Brother Charles this film was surely the most tasteless film ever made in the history of film-making-----the acme of the Black Phallic Worship begun by Kyle Onstott in his book, Mandingo and culminating in Scott Poulson-Bryant's recently released study, "Hung!" Since the Edits, the film renamed Soul Vengeance has been reduced to being only ONE of the most Tastelessfilms ever produced. Mr Fanaka ought to be ashamed of himself and demand that the original film be re-issued--UNCUT and UNDILUTED. Yours in Blaxploitation films, Ebony Ivory.