Synopsis
A force of evil!
A family in rural Wisconsin is stalked by the spirit of a Japanese samurai warrior.
1983 Directed by Fabrice A. Zaphiratos
A family in rural Wisconsin is stalked by the spirit of a Japanese samurai warrior.
Bloodbeat, Sortilèges, Blood Beat - Pulsschlag des Schreckens
Watched it again cuz it’s Christmas time and it’s still just as batshit beautiful as ever. Love the snowy rural Wisconsin setting and that house is so cozy looking. Wood paneling all over the place but not that awful trailer park ugly kind. Love the mood. Love the random interludes of Eurohorror violence. Love the bananas finale with those faces everyone makes. Fighting evil spirits with the powers shooting out of your hands makes you look like someone shoved a dildo up your backside with absolutely no warning. Good times!
I’m not sure I ever realized this before, but did bad 80’s hair girl’s orgasms awaken samurai demon?? There’s only one answer I want to hear on this question.
95
Finally, some honest Wisconsin representation.
Imagine a rural Midwestern translation of Hausu but edited and scored like Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. That is this bewildering, enthralling WTF oddity.
Rewatched this for an article I’m working on and damn it is just completely my type of bananas.
A samurai spirit demon in the middle of northeastern rural ‘murrica in the dead of winter with some European inspired kills and camerawork, horrible acting, animated special effects, and wonderful 80’s atmosphere. This movie is a f*cking TREASURE and Vinegar Syndrome has wisely treated it as just that.
Bananameter: 🍌 100% PURE 🍌
It's amazing what a decent transfer can do for your perception of a movie you've only seen in terrible quality, when I watched Blood Beat 4 years ago [closer to 5], I complained about the incessant classical music that plays over a majority of the movie, but on this watch I found it complimentary, even beneficial to the slower portions, Vinegar Syndrome did this singular, visual spectacle of a Christmas experience proud.
The Vietnamese/French director, Fabrice A. Zaphiratos brought a Samurai ghost to rural Wisconsin and turned it into a slasher villain and we're not even really questioning why, while it's strange--it's also memorable, where it's maybe slightly confusing--it's also enchanting, listening to the beating pulse of psychic energy, watching the flashes of a supernatural glow, Blood Beat is a movie you won't soon forget.
a no-budget regional slasher shot in someone's backyard in wisconsin that by the time it reaches its credits is a full-blown experimental, surreal and doom-laden synth dreamscape involving samurai ghosts and telepathic battles. absolutely fucking insane lol
🍬Daily Horror Hunt #28 (Oct. 2020)🍬
🎃Hooptober Se7en🎃
An orgasmic howl reaching far beyond the spiritual void, grasping a dead soul and bringing it back to life under the hazy glow of a moon lit sky. The more she bellows and moans (and almost levitates, holy shit!), the more the redneck blood sprays in gratuitous fashion. This movie has a real rhythm, a pulse, a beat, it feels alive. The way the classical music is constantly at war with the dreary synth drone, the hauntingly isolated atmosphere lost deep in the woods of the Wisconsin back country, so alone, and the eerie nature of our POV samurai slayer mixed with the supernatural forces brewing in this little farmhouse. What a…
rapid onset migraine aura making already weird efforts at having sex in your college paramour's childhood home while their new agey but way uptight psychic mom you just met for the first time today which is xmas eve is in the next room over aggro-trancing post-hippie art fair art utterly impossible now has its own movie and has since at least the early 1980s! sure, i mean, why not???
ps: there is a lot of deer hunting in this movie a lot a lot of deer hunting like fall break levels of deer hunting and like, actual dead deers so if that is the kind of thing which freaks you out you are not going to be about this although…
A cerebral and psychedelic nightmare filled with evil samurai possessions, a plethora of mind melting electricity and laser effects, a perfect isolated setting and an artistically abstract style that is the only one of its kind. This is obscure 80s horror at its finest.
This film washes over you like a trance, keeping your focus and drawing you in to all the surreal imagery and bizarre tones. The obnoxious classical music bombards your brain and the creepy old house and desolate countryside provide the perfect atmosphere.
A somewhat of a slow burn that does a great job of slowly building into an all out hallucinogenic mind melt. When this film picks up it evolves into a whirlwind of bright lightning…
Blood Beat: where high art meets lowbrow.
I read beforehand about the woman orgasming everytime the samurai warrior killed someone. Maybe it's because I have seen quite a few Jess Franco movies in the last couple of days, or I am just a lewd person in general (very likely,) but I expected more from those scenes; it was a bit too tame for my taste!
But I digress..
This was really just magnificent! It makes me wonder what kind of genius thinks up this kind of stuff (and make no mistake, this is definitely a work of genius.)
I actually thought the movie was competently made for such a no budget feature. Sure, the acting was amateurish but I didn't…
Blood Beat will crush your brain into lunch meat. A rare feat of a divine cinematic treat. A hypnotic fever dream that's much more than it may seem. Mind in a trance while your brain is set on prance. The soul is set free like initials carved in a tree. Endlessly for me. An everlasting drone distant in the background. Jarring electricity wihout a sound. The true essence of life is found. Dissonant and pure a force so profound. Submit today and drift away I have nothing left to say what are you waiting for? Let your brain soar!
It’s probably impossible to get more low-budget than this. Absolutely wacko concept-o - battle royale between a psychic family, some deer hunters, and a restless samurai in the open Midwest plains at Christmastime - further aided and abetted by the amateur acting, insane score which continuously runs throughout the film & the fantastic practical/pre-digital film effects (a la Hausu at some points). Do I also sense a Tourist Trap homage thrown in there in one particular scene involving flying kitchenware? Many reasons to love, the complete & total package is spectacular. Looking forward to my next rewatch soon!
Not really sure if I can give this a starred rating. It's beyond the realms of good and bad.
Fun Fact: The director was on so much coke when he made this that he titled it "Blood Beat" because of the accelerated heart beat he was feeling in his chest.
Giving this film a star review would put boundaries and physical limits to something that has come straight from one of Lovecrafts many nightmare dimensions. We must send this film back, pack from the planes of horror in which it came. Every second it stays longer it infects more of our space time.
Runtime: 1hr 26mins? It felt like three eternity upon my soul
I have to go, there’s an angry psychic samurai woman knocking on my door saying she’s my sister from Dresden or something- BLOODBEAT
WHAT? Yeah this was fucking awful. I watched it for the @batandspider podcast. A supernatural samurai in bumblefuck county Wisconsin... I don’t think there was a script, the score was all over the place, and the effects were less than even film school good. And is Blood Beat a Christmas movie now? Skip this turd at all costs.
Starring No one you will ever see again!
Satisfied my love of Evil Dead-style predator-vision, early computer fx ala video toaster & raw synthesizer scoring that sounds like it was recorded direct to cassette. An insane adventure that still doesn't quite make sense how everyone got magic energy powers, but whatever. Obsessed.
There's a sequence that goes on F O R E V E R where people get killed while the girl is either in bed by herself or having sex, and she keeps getting telekinetic sexual pleasure shockwaves from all the murders, if that conveys to you how fucking weird this movie is.
B is for Blood Beat on Prime Video
A really fun lo-fi bit of 90s insanity, batshit insanity but in a great way. Pairs pretty much amazingly well on a double-feature with Ninja 3 if you crave a night of sublime cinema.
#FilmAlphabet V55
AMAZON PRIME
What a weird bloody film!!!!
I dont no what i just watched??? A Psychic family, a woman possessed by a Samurai and kills happening during sex?
One hell of a weird trippy visual fim done on the cheap in the early 80's but hardly any gore???
Strange film!!!
A family in Wisconsin, his terrorized by the ghost of a samurai. How the spirit of a samurai found its way to Wisconsin we will never know. All I know is this plot didn’t make really any sense and I think poor stepdad Gary deserved a better ending than a samurai sword through the belly.
#coronabinge2021
"No Mama. Stop it.....STOP IT! Don't try to come into my mind."
-Dolly
This is a bit of a special review for me. I've been wanting to watch this movie for well over a decade now....ever since I first read about it in John Stanley's Creature Features film guide back in the late 90's or so. His three starred capsulized review hit all the right buttons for me: First of all, it's a regional horror film, which I love. There is just something so wonky and undeniably charming about regional horror films. Secondly, it's a holiday themed horror flick. Third, it's got a phantom Samurai as the bad guy. What more could you possibly ask for? So how does the…
Rose 23,294 films
A list that is trying to contain every horror film made that is not lost and is found on the…
Orestes 14,669 films
A few notes:
1) Films missing are mainly hardcore porn and TV shows (Hitchcock mysteries namely). There's a number of…
Hershey 20,417 films
I’m sick of sorting through concerts, series, and other non-movies. Anything with more than 1,000 views on Letterboxd (as of…
Rocky LaForge 18,754 films
As it reads on the tin.
Richard 634 films
It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of slasher films, and here I've tried to compile a list of…
João Monteiro 1,329 films
Andrew Liverod 11,869 films
100 Years of Exploitation!
All the films from my exploitation lists, bundled into one mega-super-list-to-rule-them-all!
I had to use a…
Waiching Liu 1,466 films
The nuttiest, craziest and most obscene movies to have ever existed
JulieC 4,722 films
I love love Christmas and Christmas movies!!
Movies set at, around or a scene at Christmas. Also some New Years…
transcendental and/or to the highest form. hyperactive, digital avatars/identity, veneration of pop and/or digital music. suggestions highly welcome.