Blood Beat

Blood Beat (1983)

Runtime: 86 minutes

Directed by: Fabrice A. Zaphirtos

Starring: Helen Benton, Terry Brown, Dana Day, James Fitzgibbons, Claudia Peyton

From: Huskypup Film Productions

Wow, this movie... I heard about it on Letterboxd because it's real obscure and also incredibly gonzo. It's a Japanese samurai in the middle of the Wisconsin woods! To be honest, I watched it on YouTube. Wait until you hear the full description of it below via my Letterboxd review: 

Speaking of “movies I do not quite know how to rate”, let's talk about this motion picture. I know I would not have heard of it if it wasn't for a few others either reviewing it or liking reviews that others did... oh, and the documentary Rewind This did briefly reference it. Once you read that this is a Christmas slasher set and filmed in rural Wisconsin and it's about a family that loves hunting deer and the enemy is the undead spirit of a samurai warrior... that is impossible to forget. Finally, I saw this last night and wow, is this some strange low-budget filmmaking magic. As a means of comparison: I haven't seen this in full so I don't know how apt it is, but as I've seen several people compare this to Ulli Lommel's The Boogey Man, I'll mention that to give people somewhat of an idea how this is.

Like I said, this is actually a Christmas slasher set and filmed in rural Wisconsin and it's about a family that loves hunting deer and the enemy is the undead spirit of a samurai warrior. To be more specific, two college age siblings and the girlfriend of the guy visit their mom and her live-in boyfriend in the middle of woods. Mom and girlfriend have some sort of strange psychic bond. Suddenly, Samurai shows up and girlfriend Sarah also had some sort of psychic bond with it and there are even kills where Samurai is on the warpath when Sarah... ahem... orgasms.

Note that none of this silliness is ever explained by the movie. You just have to roll with the punches. Actually, at the end there's some dialogue that I guess tries to at least partially explain some of the movie. I am not 100% for reasons I'll explain in a second.

Anyway, a lot of weird things happen and characters are introduced only for the sake of being cannon fodder. The movie tries to do visual effects and they're animated gold... they look cheap but because of that they're also awesome in their low-fi way. The low budget does hamper things, the story meanders a lot at times and the sound isn't great overall... maybe it's just the VHS copy but then again, sound effects/music is pretty loud while the dialogue isn't always audible or coherent. That includes drowning out what is said at the end; maybe then I'd know why World War II stock footage was shown and how that connects with Samurai or all the psychic-ness going on.

All that said, I can still give some compliments to the movie, and not just for delivering a weird fever dream of an experience, which it is successful at. They went all-in on this idea, no matter how absurd it was. There are actually some effective sequences that work. Some people have The Glow as if they're in The Last Dragon, and this movie did it before The Last Dragon. When there isn't stock classical music (including O Fortuna!) there is a catchy synth score; as those are still “the hotness” now as “the kids” still think it's “bae” and “on fleek”, I imagine they would dig this synth madness as I did.

I'd love to hear more about this film's production; it'd be nice if one day one of those boutique labels can put it out on Blu and also interview some of the participants. I need to hear how this film came about and what happened to director/writer/co-composer/editor/camera operator Fabrice A. Zaphiratos... he did nothing after this. There has to be a fascinating story behind this. As is, you can easily find this curio online and watch it for yourself if you so desire. Even my description won't do justice to just how out of left field this is. I am glad this was made, even if it doesn't entirely work.