Blood Beat

A family's Christmas reunion gets off to a bad start when the son brings home his girlfriend, leading to an awkward feeling of deja-vu between her and the boy's psychic mother. Weird things begin happening, the weirdest of which happens to be the presence of a glowing samurai warrior who's murderous tendencies appear to be linked to the girlfriend's orgasms.

"Bloodbeat" is one of the more bizarre films you could ever see. What we have here is a slasher shot in Wisconsin by a French director with a ghostly samurai as the killer. It's actually pretty effective for the first two thirds of the running time, particularly a creepy home invasion and ensuing chase. Through some splendid editing, this sequence is interspersed with the girlfriend's writhing and upward-thrusting in bed. It's also undeniably cool seeing a samurai as the villain in a slasher. During the final third, however, the film veers off in an unsatisfying direction with over-the-top antics and ridiculous special effects. Disappointing, but not enough to ruin the film for me. Oh yeah, excessive overuse of violin chords too.

You could call Blood Beat a slasher film, but that would be too easy. It might have all the trappings of one (mostly one secluded location, a sword twirling villain, a decent body count), but it marches to the beat of its own wonky drummer.

I'm not saying Blood Beat is good, but nothing this unique and odd can be totally bad. I was riveted from start to finish, so it must have done something right. Mostly, I just couldn't believe my eyes. I found it all rather well shot and appealing looking and the addition of a Japanese samurai as a villain is certainly not something you see a lot of. There's also an incredibly odd sequence (in this movie? Shocker!) where a young woman's masturbation seems to beacon the killer to her location. It sorta felt like a similar moment in High Tension.

Blood Beat is a hard one to recommend, because everyone's threshold for strange, artsy trash is different, but it's worth giving a shot. You might enjoy it.

Blood Beat (1983)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Extremely bizarre low-budget slasher about a group of people living in the woods of Wisconsin where they hunt deer and do very little else. One of the women begins to see strange things and before long a samurai warrior has her possessed.

Fabrice A. Zaphiratos wrote, composed, edited, shot and directed this bizarre film that's not really that good but at the same time if I ever met the man I'd have to shake his hand. I say that because quite often low-budget movies try to cash in on a popular genre while not doing anything original. If you're familiar with the slasher craze that was going on during this period then you know it was basically a bunch of horny teens in a variety of locations being stalked by a killer.

What's so interesting about BLOOD BEAT is the fact that the director really did try to do something different. This is a very bizarre movie and it's not one that is easy to write about because it's so darn weird that most people wouldn't believe what you're saying. The possession scenes, if you want to call them that, are being weird in their own right and why a samurai? In fact, why a samurai in Wisconsin of all places? The entire movie was obviously shot on a low-budget so there aren't any good special effects, no real memorable kills or anything like that.

The only thing you've got is this really weird idea that plays out about as weird as you could expect. I keep using the words bizarre and weird but there's really not other way to describe this movie. The performances are pretty much what you'd expect from a film like this and there's really nothing good here. The budget was way too low for the material to work but once again I tip my hat to the filmmaker for at least trying something different. In doing so he's at least created something you won't forget.

So, following the very much perfect Deadly Games, things took a turn for the weird, but I couldn't really say bad. Now, let me preface my review by saying that Blood Beat is one of the weirdest films that I have ever seen in my life.

From the extremely awkward close ups, to the really awful dialogue, to the terribly loud classical music that pretty much conceals any real words coming from the actors, to some really weird female orgasms, to a Japanese samurai killer, this is all just really weird.

The plot, from what I could tell was this: A brother and sister return from college to visit their parents in Wisconsin. The family is very fond of deer-hunting by the way. Anyways, the brother decides to bring home his girlfriend to stay with him at his parent's house. As soon as the girlfriend meets the mother, she gets this really peculiar look on her face. The mother starts to become really erratic, draws really abstract paintings, and becomes mentally unstable. She somehow can see that the girlfriend is evil, even though she is actually really sweet. The girlfriend is creeped out by the mother. Regardless, a samurai ghost starts to kill people throughout the area. And whenever the ghost kills people, the girlfriend gets a massive orgasm that practically makes her levitate.

Like I am not even kidding. Whenever the ghost stabs someone with the sword, the girlfriend has the most incredible orgasm that people could only dream to have. Like what in the actual hell? It was so weird, but was kind of cool too? Anyways, the samurai ghost causes the house to have an earthquake, people start dying, the family obtains really weird mind-trick powers (that have horrid special effects), and an epic mystical fight between the mother and the girlfriend happen.

Now, this may sound confusing. But I would try to urge you to watch the film, because it was one of the most unique cinematic experiences I have ever had. The filmmaking wasn't bad at all (except for the cheesy effects), but the acting, although horrendous, was probably intentional. Nothing made sense at all, but it was highly entertaining.

While many people left the theater, about thirty of us remained, and we laughed, loudly expressed our happiness or anger, and ultimately had a blast. I have never screamed out "WHAT?!" in the theater so many times in my life. It was so weird and made no sense, but it was totally enjoyable.

I would highly recommend this to anyone who wants to enter a cinematic void, and escape the mass amounts of horrendous blockbusters that consume every AMC theater. Also, if you enjoy female orgasms from ghost samurais stabbing people with their sword, then here you go.

PS: Despite how horrendous the special effects were, I will rest my case that it beats a lot of modern CGI, especially in Justice League.

When i used to live in a crappy room in a crappy flat in London, me and my girlfriend (now my wife) sat down to watch this video (which my mate picked up in a cheap cash exchange shop) one lazy Sunday afternoon. We both really enjoyed this minimal but captivating little tale, but i have no idea why and still find it hard pushed to find a reason to recommend it. Might make a good double-bill with the equally diverting NINJA 3: THE DOMINATION.