スティーブン·ホーキングは、武士である!!!: Bloodbeat (1983)

Bloodbeat (1983)
Rating: **1/2
Starring: Helen Benton, Terry Brown and Dana Day

Glowing Samurai? Psychic powers? Oatmeal faces? Oh dear, what the hell did I stumble upon?

A family of four (plus one) gathers together one holiday season in rural Wisconsin; Mum's an artist, her boyfriend's a deer hunter, her two kids, Ted and Dolly, are coming home from college, with bro's girlfriend Sarah on tow. Of course, a holiday gathering isn't without its usual gut feelings and unexplained discontent, evident as mum and Sarah can't seem to talk with one another without being weird.

But, as a way to bond with the family, Sarah joins the clan for a deer hunting session in the woods, but messes up when she scares the deer away. (Accompanied, for some reason, with random cartoon strobe light effects) Said deer-hugger then ran into the woods and later found next to a random man dying from an open wound. Is it too early to say this is gonna be the worst holiday break ever? Nah, that's just the icing of the whole effin' cupcake!

So, after that disastrous attempt to kill Bambi's mum, the family begins to feel sour after all these mishaps. But then, the worse happens; mum's epilepsy struck!

-Oh wait, that's the supernatural attacking. Weird, I swore it looked like epilepsy.

Something otherworldly is now harassing the family; canned goods are seen flying, mum's hand gets possessed and forces her to paint red and black, Sarah finds an old Samurai armor and sword in a trunk next to her bed that disappears as soon as the light goes on, and there's an evil glowing samurai who starts to make mince meat out of the town folks. (Well, some of them)

And what's worse? This ain't even the climax of the movie!

Bloodbeat is really an odd film to start with; not only does it look utterly cheap, but it's also unapologetically strange enough to make a lot of scenes look too convenient or out of place. I mean, what's the symbolism under a randomly placed psychic samurai in the middle of rural Wisconsin? Or the weirdly sleazy subplot of said samurai being linked to Sarah's orgasms? Tell me and I'll offer you ten pints of my Shirley Temple stash, a copy of my Halloween II (1981) paperback and my tiny Alice Cooper figurine (still in package), which is everything valuable I have for the moment. It's corny enough to sport awful acting, poor scripting, embarrassing visual effects and lazy rippings of movie soundtracks (O Fortuna? In a slasher flick?! Really?),  but the worst of it all is that the movie just have to ruin a completely cool villain by making him talk like a friggin' alien!

Entertainment-wise though, Bloodbeat can be considered a dairy delight that calls for some cheesy laughs and massive headscratchers that are bound to leave bloody gaping holes on yer heads by the time it is over. Sure it doesn't make a lot of sense, but those easily persuaded by cheesy charms will sure find a hoot from this movie's surrealistic and often cartoonish offering that is a Christmas Holiday with a ghostly Japanese medieval warrior and flying cans. And so long as the movie provides blood, I guess I'm up for it, too. (Though, I'm still couldn't find the point of oatmeal faces...)

So, there you have Bloodbeat, a holiday horror that doesn't really fit in but deep inside, it knows the stalk-and-slash route all too well that very open and patient slasher fans can at least acknowledge its efforts. Not entirely sure how to feel about it myself but yeah, couldn't say I regret seeing it, couldn't say I like enough to recommend it either. I believe the real question here is: can yer curiosity resist?

Bodycount:
1 male found with stomach wound
1 male gets a throat cut with a sword
1 female gets a sword ran through her chest
1 male pinned to the wall with a shot arrow
1 male slashed to death with a sword
1 male killed, method not seen
1 male stabbed to death with a sword
1 male stabbed on the gut with a flying sword
1 female stabbed with a sword (and later seen with oatmeal face)
1 female disappears, presumably killed
Total: 10

Seriously, what the fuck is this?