AKA: Blood Beat
Directed by Fabrice-Ange Zaphiratos
Featuring Helen Benton, Terry Brown, James Fitzgibbons, Claudia Peyton, Dana Day and Peter Spelson
A brother and sister return to their isolated rural home to visit their mother and her boyfriend over Christmas, bringing the brother’s girlfriend along with them. Things get off to an uncomfortable start, with tension between the mother and girlfriend being felt right from the beginning. A further bad omen occurs when the girlfriend freaks out during a hunting trip. She startles away the deer the party were hunting, and as she runs away she stumbles upon the corpse of a recently dead man who has clearly died from wounds to his abdomen.
Things only get worse after the girlfriend discovers a samurai sword and armour in an old trunk… all of which vanishes when she tries to tell the others about it. More mysterious, bloody murders start to occur, which seem to have something to do with the sword and armour.
This is a very odd film, mostly due to its confusing plot and inconsistent style. It sometimes manages to bring about a real sense of dread, and includes some unexpectedly arty touches. It contains a mishmash of various elements that make it unique, but has so much going on that it adds to the confusion: there are slasher-style deaths, a psychic artist mother, the ghost(?) samurai, the girlfriend seemingly orgasming(?!) when the supernatural samurai kills, cheap-looking animated special effects (like glowing hands when the family suddenly develop their own supernatural powers), poltergeist activity, and an unusual musical score, including cool minimalist synth music in some scenes but overbearing classical music that drowns out the dialogue in others. Plus there are moments of unintentional hilarity, my favourite of which is when a character is knocked out after being hit by cans of Pepsi and Tab during a poltergeist attack.
Overall it is a fairly incomprehensible mess. But it is genuinely unusual, sometimes creepy, and somehow manages to be fairly entertaining due to how insane it all is.
Worth watching? Despite its confusing plot, it’s not bad for a weird little piece of regional horror.
Truth in advertising? There is blood involved, given the nature of the killings, but I’m not sure what ‘bloodbeat’ is even supposed to mean: 1/5.
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