Worse than a brain freeze: Blodaren (1983)

Blodaren (The Bleeder) (Sweden, 1983)
Rating: *
Starring: Åke Eriksson, Sussi Ax, Eva Danielsson

What the hell did I just watched?

A supposed cult fave to some people due it being the first slasher to have come out of the Swedish market, what I see here rather is a hour and twenty something minutes shit-on-video about an all-girl rock band called The Rock Cats (how...original?) who, after their tour bus broke down in the middle of the wilderness, sets on foot and take refuge in an abandoned house which, of course, is being resided by a sleazy looking killer (who I heard is played by some guy in a band called Attack) with an unusual condition of constantly bleeds from his eyes. Not too long after, these girls are running for their lives and their only help happens to be some random park ranger checking for mink traps.

Yeah, see, here's the thing; Blodaren is tame. And sluggish. And badly scripted. I'm actually tempted to press the fast-forward button a couple of times to see where all of this is leading to, but all I saw was dumb people being killed, then other dumb people separating from the group to look for said murdered dumb people, only to be murdered him/herself, and then repeat process until only one of them is left. Not very exciting at all.

Yeah, do that rock star look! Least you have that!

With no nudity and all the murders being as tame as an afterschool Church special on a Sunday morning, this film fails as a slasher in almost every level. Almost, since as silly and cheesy the killer is, he has his comical charm. But other than that, Blodaren is an effin' chore to watch.

From what I read, too, the film is supposed to be of a sizable budget, which is odd cuz it never shows. Were they holding back? I have no idea. All I can tell is that this is far from the better titles I've seen that came out of Sweden and no amount of cheap shots of gothic mansion, scenes of killer hobos chasing talentless fem-rockers, and infamous ripping of John Carpenter's Halloween score can save it.

Now, if you would excuse me, I need to find my woodchipper to throw this film in. The big guy ran away from me after I fed it too many bad films...

Bodycount:
1 male killed, method unknown
1 female killed, method unknown
1 baby's skeleton found
1 elderly female found hanged
1 female knifed to death
1 female killed, method unknown
1 female had neck broken
1 female strangled
1 male shot
Total: 9