You’d be forgiven for wondering how on earth a movie about a woman going on a killing spree after being possessed by the spirit of a murderous Japanese samurai warrior could ever reasonably be considered a ‘Christmas film’, but please bear with me. I’ll freely admit that 1983’s Blood Beat is absolutely bonkers and defies any sort of easy description, seeing as it involves ghost samurais, psychic powers, possession and more, with no firm explanation for why any of this is happening. However, it is established that this all goes down during the holidays and there are Christmas trees and stuff in it, so I’m having it, if only to spread word of the existence of this wildly odd little film to the world.
I’ve no idea what the film’s title means, but director Fabrice-Ange Zaphiratos’s movie is low budget with big dreams. It starts out festive enough, with some family bonding over Monopoly round the Christmas tree after Sarah (Claudia Peyton) accompanies new boyfriend Ted (James Fitzgibbons) to his family's farmhouse in pastoral Wisconsin for the holidays. It's implied that Ted's flaky artist mum Cathy (Helen Benton) has some psychic gift as she immediately senses a weird, unexplainable connection with Sarah, but it’s awkward as hell as they don’t really get on. After a bit of family deer-hunting, Sarah freaks out and runs off into the woods then freaky stuff starts to go down. Dead bodies start to appear after Sarah finds a sword and samurai armour in the house, which may or may not be a dream, then an actual ghostly samurai turns up and starts hunting everyone.
It's never explained what a samurai has to do with anything, but it’s that sort of film. Not much is explained, like the neighbours getting chopped up and inanimate objects flying off shelves Poltergeist-style. When Sarah and Ted have sex, we keep cutting to the spooky swordsman chopping folk up, while Sarah writhes orgasmically, implying there’s some sort of magical psycho-sexual thing going on. It’s confusing but enthralling in its deliberate obliqueness. It all feels like a deranged, arty fever dream, dressed up as an early ‘80s slasher video nasty. It's not so much ‘so bad it’s good’ as ‘so weird it’s fascinating’ and it’s all done stylishly and ambiguously, encouraging the audience to use their imagination to fill in the gaps.
For a low-budget film, it’s got loads of special effects, including a bit of early ‘80s ‘optical printing’ effects that make things look like they’re glowing bright blue. It's all very dated-looking which only adds to the freaky appeal, though it is a bit amateurish, with bits where corpses can clearly be seen blinking. Otherwise, it's largely a good-looking film, with some wonderful shots of the wintery Wisconsin wilderness, slightly let down a bit by some questionable acting.
There’s possibly some sort of deep Freudian message hidden somewhere in here, but for me it remains buried. It’s packed with ideas, but very little coherence and by the end, when blue power bolts start shooting out of everyone’s hands, I’m scratching my head, though thoroughly entertained. The Christmas theme seems to have been forgotten halfway through, but there’s definitely some sort of message about festive family togetherness in there amongst the telekinesis and blades and things.
I watch Blood Beat on a dreary Bank holiday Monday after a night on the couch and basically no sleep (the kid had a crazy fever dream of her own), which really adds to the messed up, abstract, illusory quality of the experience. As the credits roll I struggle to process what I’ve just seen. Did touching the sword unleash a demon spirit? Was the sword even real? Did something happen to Cathy as a kid? And what does any of this have to do with dropping a nuke on Japan in WW2? I need a lie down.
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