Weirdhouse Cinema: Bloodbeat

In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe consider their first holiday horror film selection: 1983’s “Bloodbeat.” Filmed in Wisconsin, the film explores the complexity of holiday family time, while also wondering what might happen if mom had to battle a Samurai ghost with her psychic powers. Plus, Rob and Joe will discuss holiday horror films in general.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of
My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This
is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And this
is Weird House Cinema's second holiday season. But this is

(00:23):
gonna be the first time we're actually going to be
talking about a holiday film. I don't Robot Jocks is
a holiday film. Well it Robot Jocks feels like Christmas.
And we've we've had a few films like that that
feel like Christmas, but they're not really a Christmas movie.
They're not set at Christmas. And I mean, and to
be clear, like this movie is not about Christmas, but

(00:47):
it is. It is. It is a film that takes
place during the holidays. Um now, now I should well wait,
does the does the die hard logic apply? I know
people like arguing about this on the internet. I've never
actually gotten into it about that, but yeah, I'm mean,
I don't have a strong opinion about that, but I
guess it depends on what the holiday is doing in
the film, right, and um and and I don't even

(01:09):
care whether people decide to label this that or the
other a holiday film. But of course you have you
have films that are very much about the holiday things,
like you know, adaptations of the Christmas Carol, Miracle on
thirty four Street, all that that kind of stuff, And
of course those are holiday films. And I should say
that some of some of my favorite holiday movies are

(01:30):
are certainly weird and prime contenders for the weird House treatment.
But but I thought we might go with an entry
this week from that surprisingly large subgenre of holiday horror,
with a strong emphasis on Christmas time horror films in
American cinema. You know, I would have assumed, because Halloween

(01:52):
is one of the most copied movies of all time,
that the Christmas horror slasher film a rose as one
of the many Halloween copycats like Friday thirte I mean,
I think that was pretty clearly an inspiration behind Friday
the thirteenth. It was like, hey, here's a real you know,
here was a successful movie about a guy with a knife,

(02:13):
and it's named after a day. Let's do another movie
about a knife wheelder running around named after a day.
So you would think that was true for Christmas films,
But actually the first Christmas slasher film predates Halloween um
or at least as far as I know, right, because
Black Christmas came out in nineteen four. Yeah. Yeah, it's

(02:34):
one of those early days slasher films. I think that's
considered it sort of almost a proto slasher film. Things
were just getting started. Um, I gotta say, I don't
love it, though I watched it years ago and just
found it kind of boring and unpleasant. I much prefer Halloween,
even if it came later. It's it's the real uh,
it's the true progenitor here, right, and in Halloween. It

(02:56):
makes sense at Halloween, right, And and that's that's where
to get into the kind of the enigma of the
Christmas horror film. Um. I think the just the the
just the idea of that even fascinates me because I
have a very strong memory of being a child wandering
the halls of the local VHS rental store and seeing
the posters and box art for various Christmas horror films,

(03:18):
especially stuff like Black Christmas and Silent Night, Deadly Night,
but even stuff like Gremlins, um, and seeing that stuff
and just feeling like, well, this, this is wrong. This
these films should not be Because even though my family
made a big deal about uh, you know about Halloween.
We did all sorts of Halloween stuff. But then when
you know, we got into Christmas, and as a child especially,

(03:40):
you know, Christmas is a special time and I just
I wanted it to be this like, you know, this
pure good thing, and it just felt wrong that there
were these movies jumping in there and trying to make
it grim or nasty. You know. Oh wow, I don't
remember having that feeling at all. I definitely remember being
both intrigued and actually, I think I could be wrong

(04:02):
in having this memory, but I sort of recall finding
it humorous, like looking at the cover of Silent Night,
Deadly Night and seeing like the Santa suit arm with
the axe and thinking that is funny. My my little
seven year old brain doesn't quite know why it's funny.
But I'm prowling through the R rated section of the
Turtles video or I'm probably not supposed to be, and

(04:22):
this this is funny. I wonder if part of it
for me, anyway, maybe for other folks out there, is
that at Christmas time, you know, are of the typical
American holiday season, you have this um you know, there's
this this increased um emphasis on the mythology and the
fiction of the holiday, and in this, uh, this idea

(04:45):
that especially children should be allowed and encouraged to believe
in it, and even past the point where their reason
has actually kicked in and they're seeing the truth for
what it is. And and so you know, therefore, perhaps
these these these obvious horror inventions, they kind of mess
with it, you know, because you're already having this crisis
of belief in your own little head about the existence

(05:07):
of Santa Claus. And if Santa Claus is perhaps not real,
then then what about the baby Jesus? What about the
rest of it? Is only half of it fake? You know,
so you're going out, you're having this big crisis of belief,
and then here's somebody else's is making up this, uh,
this story about killer Santa's or whatnot. Well, the other
way to frame it is, when you're seven years old
and you still believe in Santa Claus, seeing the concept

(05:30):
of a horror movie where Santa Claus is wielding a
bloody axe seems vaguely blasphemous, or at least carries some
kind of blasphemic weight. Yeah, I would definitely say so
that that was exactly how I felt about these films
growing up is that these these this just blasphemy. It
should not be. I mean they didn't try and like

(05:51):
you know, destroy the boxes or anything, but I was like, Nope,
not for me. And I have to say some of
these films are still not from me, but I've gone
back and watched some of them and I appreciate. I mean,
it's the interesting thing about it is that it has
not stopped, and when it will not stop, you're gonna
keep having horror related uh, Christmas movies and holiday films

(06:12):
coming out. And I I think maybe we've gotten better
at it because I think we've had maybe an awakening
in American culture anyway regarding like how are Christmas stories
and wintertime traditions work? That you know, the realization that
that the sort of department store Santa Claus vision of
the holidays is one that was highly sanitized, and it

(06:35):
had you had things like you know, child eating trolls
and crampus removed from it. You had you'd removed the
hostile winter aspects of the of these holiday traditions. And
so the more that you realize that, yes, this is
supposed to be a time in which there is darkness
and the promise of light. Uh, it makes more room

(06:56):
for and in a way almost more honest explorations of
that and some and I think more fun you know,
things like what's the Santa Claus monster film Rare Exports
that came out several years ago. That's a great one. Yeah,
like like that's that, that's fun and yeah, yeah, and
watching that didn't like trigger any like Childhood Santa Claus
blasphemy warnings for me. You know, it just felt like

(07:18):
a fun monster flick. Yeah, I see what you're saying.
And I will say, of that early crop of Christmas
or you know, any general Solstice horror themed movies, the
only one I really love is Gremlins. Like Black Christmas,
Silent Silent Night, Deadly Night, all that stuff didn't really
do it for me. Yeah, I mean, Gremlins has its
own problems, but but at least it was trying in

(07:42):
on the whole to be fun, whereas I think some
of these earlier films were just kind of like like
here here it comes nasty Christmas, it comes here, here
comes your horror Christmas. You like your Christmas will how
about some murder in your Christmas? You know? Um, and
I think it's just it's progressed as a as an
art form since those days. And part of it might
be that, you know, we can look back on those
films as being kind of like a almost kind of

(08:04):
a you know, an anti establishment statement, you know, sort
of striking against the the corporate purity of the traditional
American holiday season. And uh, and I think that's that
kind of leads into another reason why we keep having
these films Because on one hand, yes, the darkness has
always been a part of our winter festivals, and therefore

(08:24):
there's a desire I think in us to have it
in our our modern festivities. But on the other end
of things, I feel like, if if Christmas and the holidays,
if it's all feeling too fake, too purified, too forced upon, you, um,
a Christmas horror film is a way of sort of
releasing the pressure. It feels like a way to rebalance everything,

(08:45):
you know, a ninety minute hot topic t shirt of
rebellion against norms and society. Yeah, and that's also like
a huge reason I think that you see the Christmas
thrown into the movies like this, you know, because the
juxtaposition of Christmas alongside monsters or Mayhem blood or even
you know, in an action movie situation like die Hard. Um,

(09:08):
you know, it can it can just be a way
to get a reaction out of the audience and to
make everything a little more novel. Now. I feel like
that's especially the case of the more I don't know,
irreverent or maybe at least latently satirical Christmas horror films.
I guess it's a kind of different beast altogether. If
you make a Christmas horror movie that itself take is

(09:30):
very serious or takes itself very seriously. Well, this brings
to mind Ridley Scott's Prometheus movie, which has some very uh,
you know, serious minded themes in it that it was
trying to to bring across and then also had Christmas
stuff in it, and they seem to be commuinely trying
to like make a connection there. You know, it's like,
um and maybe trying a bit too hard. I totally

(09:51):
forgot about Christmas being in there. What what? What's Christmas
about it? It's just it is Christmas on the spaceship
and they have like a Christmas tree or something. What
misremembering that, I believe that Prometheus is a Christmas movie.
Let's go to the tape as use shapes with high
colo mm hmm, what the hell is that about? It's Christmas,

(10:22):
neither holidays sometimes still moving. Mission briefing is about to start, Captain,
I want to make it way down. Well. I haven't
had been break to see yet. But but we're not
talking about Prometheus today. We're talking about a different film entirely.
We had a number of holiday horror films to consider,
but we ended up going with the one that neither

(10:42):
of us had seen before but had built up something
of a reputation for weirdness, and that's Three's blood Beat.
Where did you find this thing? This movie is so
weird it made my toenails curl. What where did you
find this? I believe even earlier in the year, I
was looking through just like a database. Maybe it was

(11:03):
it was on Internet movie database, of course, but it
might have been something like a Wikipedia. Was just looking
at different genre films from different decades, and I noted
that this one had been flagged as being a holiday
or Christmas movie. Uh, so I was like, okay, holiday
Christmas slasher. I'll put it in and uh and maybe
we'll come back to it when we get closer to

(11:23):
the holidays themselves. And then when I started looking into
a little bit more, I well, I watched the trailer,
which we'll get to and that that kind of sold me.
And uh. And then also Michael Weldon in one of
his psychotronic books, he had it listed. He was one
of these sort of neutral listings where he didn't he
didn't passionately promoted, but he also didn't say it was bad.

(11:43):
He just said it was a confusing movie with quote
dream sequences, magical powers, nudity, and blood. Well, I'd say
that's a mostly correct description, especially on the confusing part,
because I paid close attention to this film and I
do not understand what it was about. Yeah, yeah, I
have a feeling you and I've thought longer and harder
about the meaning of the true meaning of this film,

(12:06):
more than than most people. But but blood Beat one word,
by the way, blood Beat, UH has a lot of
things going for it. For starters, it's it's not nearly
as all in on holiday sacrilege as most Christmas films are,
So this one's not about making you feel bad about
the about the holidays or anything. So I don't know.

(12:26):
I liked it a little more for that. Uh. Secondly,
it's a Wisconsin movie, and I think that makes for
our first Wisconsin movie. Yeah, this movie has a fair
quotient of of dub Bears type guys wearing flannel and
trucker hats and and having uh, you know, good mustaches.
It's uh, it's this movie. It's it's got bratt verst

(12:48):
and uh and you know cheese kurd just kind of
flowing through its veins and it's enough to make you think, wow,
this must be you know, Wisconsin indie film everybody, and
it's from Wisconsin. The director, who will get to in
a bit, uh is French. But I'm not going to
allow this to be considered our first French movie that
we've watched on weird how cinema We've got. There are

(13:08):
better choices to to to really represent French weird cinema. Okay,
So what we've established so far is this is a
Franco wisconsinite indie Christmas horror film that what sub genre
of horror would you put it in? Maybe? Um, uh,
psychic slashers, Yes, I think psychic slasher would be uh,

(13:29):
it would be accurate and uh. And I'll tell you
another fun thing about this is that in similar to
films like Troll two and Spooky's that we've we've looked
at on the show before. Uh, it involves mostly people
who really didn't do anything at all or or or
anything else besides this picture in terms of you know,
other film appearances, which which can be in a way

(13:52):
it can be um kind of liberating, like I love,
you know, making these connections to other films and you know,
the thinking about oh what were they and what were they?
And you go into it too at times and you're like, well,
if nothing else, I know, well Peter Laure's in it,
so he's going to do something interesting. That that sort
of thing. But with a movie like this, it can
feel like it just came from another universe. Or maybe

(14:13):
that's like it's not a film at all, but something real,
you know. In keeping with the psychic theme, I would
say this movie feels like a dream somebody had about
a movie that didn't exist, except they managed to project it,
like psychic photography or that what was that we talked.
We did an episode on the supposed a phenomena like
projected thermography, people just printing their dreams and imagery on

(14:35):
on on photographic plates um. I don't think people can
actually do that, by the way, but but yeah, I
just imagine that happened for somebody's dream, and it was
the kind of thing where while you're watching it, you
just accept because it's a dream that oh, yeah, these
are actors I would know, But then of course when
you wake up, you're like, oh, wait a minute, those
aren't people that they came out of my subconscious Yeah,

(14:57):
and you know, this would probably be worth looking even
if it was just like a just a whole bunch
of non sequitors. It was just like one weird dream
sequence after the other. You know. They're films like that
that I have enjoyed over the years. But this movie
does have a plot, and even better than that, it
seems weirdly ambitious. It's it's kind of punching above its
weight a little bit and trying to say something, which

(15:21):
is always the Kuda gras with a good D film, right.
I mean, so most slasher films, you know the people involved, No,
they're making trash. And and so the question is are
do they know how to make fun trash or do
they end up making just boring, miserable trash. But no,
in this case, you can. It's quite clear that somebody

(15:42):
involved at least thought they were making art. Yes, all right, well,
let's let's talk elevator pitch for this film. I was
thinking holidays with family are rough, especially when mom is
psychic and your girlfriend is possessed by a samurai. Yeah.
Holiday family gatherings can be awkward enough already. It just
gets worse when there's like a a psychically projected ghost

(16:05):
samurai running around slashing everybody's throat. Yeah. Yeah, and Mom's
constantly eavesdropping on you through her psychic paintings that are
hung all over the house. Yes, all right, Well, let's
go ahead and listen to the trailer here, and I
think we're gonna we may be playing the trailer in
full because it has a wonderful, grind Holsey like echo
vibe to it. I'm a devil, a devil to what

(16:39):
you want, what you lives, lives, breath reeves. He'll be
paralyzed with fears, with fear as it killed, as he killed,
as utilates, utilate anyone, And it's unnis one and it's
tinted by a psychouse. Bloody blood beat, horriful hofine share

(17:13):
is blood blood ready bloody blood. Yeah, just sounds grimy.
Was this the one that everything it says it says twice? Yes,
at least twice. There's like this weird echo thing. And
it's like, even even though you're you're out there listening

(17:35):
to this podcast and you could not see the footage,
you probably had like audible cigarette burns inside your your skull,
you know, like you can imagine that sort of gritty
uh you know, snad eight three film, but still that
you would get that kind of like nineteen seventies grit
on the footage this trailer has the sound of somebody
getting a like beer that they snuck in in their

(17:57):
boot out and cracking it open and dark. Absolutely all right,
Well let's talk about the people. And again I'm just
gonna remind everyone that the connections on this are not
gonna be as robust as some of our other films,
but it's still worth looking at at who these folks were,

(18:21):
uh and or are. Uh. So let's start at the top.
The director, the writer. Also credits for music, film editing,
and camera operation go to Fabrice on gay zafaratos Um.
This is a French director who prior to this made
the nineteen seventy seven film La grand Fremen The Large Farm.

(18:45):
I believe that translates to which may or may not
involve a motorcycle based on the cover art. Blood Beat
was his second film and his last film. He has
some connection to um Ri Zafaratos, who produced and uh
directed and wrote and was very active in the reasonably
active in the six season seventies. But this is a

(19:07):
figure that I could not find any English translations regarding like.
There seems to be like a French Wikipedia article about him,
but I don't know that he's widely known outside of that.
And I'm not even sure that this is in fact
our director of Blood Beats father. But there seems to
be some family connection there matter. Maybe it's an uncle.

(19:28):
I don't know, um. But anyway, this film blood Beat,
for better or Worse, is Zaparatos the younger's vision, and
his vision is weird. The film is certainly confusing. Um,
it's ambitious, it's kind of it's all over the place
in some respects. But he was trying to say something,
or at least was trying to rope all this together
into a narrative that made sense and said something. Uh,

(19:51):
though with varying degrees of success. Now I mentioned that
he has a music credit, so I just want to
add a quick note on the music. The score here
varies from works of class school music, including like very
well known pieces like Karl Orff's Carmina Burana is used
during the finale for example. Uh. And I just have

(20:12):
to say that the use especially of classical music, but
of all the music, is actually one of the funniest
and weirdest things about this movie. There are a number
of scenes that are already strange, but they're pushed over
the line by having music. It feels like nobody else
would select this this music to go with this scene.

(20:33):
So like a scene of characters sitting around on a
couch just sort of being awkward, but it's playing these
like fast classical strings, like all these glissandi. It's like,
what is going on? Just the music frequently does not
match the tone of the scene, or to the extent
that it does, it's just heightening something, uh that that

(20:55):
feels kind of off about the scene. Yeah, and then
they'll other times they'll throw and Gregorian chant. There's definitely
a bit of that U. But then other times it
gives you exactly what you might expect and hope for
with the film of this caliber, and that is kind
of amateur esque electronic music, um, which at times I

(21:16):
think worked pretty well, especially when you've got this kind
of pulse pounding electronic vibe going UM. At least in
a few scenes that it it worked pretty well. A
lot of the electronic music in this movie is what
I would refer to maybe there's another name for this
that already exists, but what I would call boying boying music. Uh.
This movie, actually it contains a lot of synthesizers that

(21:37):
sound like cartoons, spring sound effects, you know, bl blont
blant and then uh and then of course usually offset
with the sound of heartbeats, which are used frequently in
the soundtrack throughout the whole film. Now you said heartbeats,
I think you'll find that those are blood beats. Oh
excuse me, yes, I stand corrected. All right. So we

(21:59):
we have a limited cast in this because it basically
concerns a boyfriend bringing his girlfriend home to meet his
family at Christmas. Let's start with the mom. The mom
is Kathy and she is played by Helen Bentone. Uh.
Dates unknown for her. This is her only film role
but I thought she was mostly pretty good. It's the

(22:20):
distracted art mom who also has the shinning, Yeah, heavy shinning.
I don't know what an actor should have done with
this role, but you know what, I'm gonna give credit
to Helen Mintone because I mean, what's off about this
role is all in the script. I mean, unless the
actor was improvising, I don't think she was. So. Uh

(22:41):
So this is a very weird character. But but I
think Helen Bentone does does the best that could be
done with it. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's not one
of those where you're you're gawking at her performance or
anything and and wondering what you're doing, Like she's doing
the best you can clearly, and uh, a lot of
the time it seems to work all right. And then
we also have Gary, whose mom's boyfriend in this and

(23:03):
Gary is played by Terry Brown. This is a guy
that's he's cut from the same raw block of masculinity
that such figures as Ross Dour roused Our rather from
the final sacrifice was cut from. Yes, he's a he's
a hunter, he's an outdoorsman. He's uh, he's weathered by
the northern planes. And then the harsh winds. But at

(23:25):
the same time there's like a scene where he's laying
shirtless in a bed and his skin is surprisingly smooth
and youthful looking. It's very funny. So the dates are
unknown for the actor Terry Brown as well, but Brown
actually pops up in some other films, generally in much
smaller roles. He followed up Blood Beat with Dark Rider
starring Joe Estevez. You know it's good if it's got

(23:49):
that Joe Steves seal u um. And also he pops
up in a movie from titled My Samurai, So there's
to to samur Eye films and and what is you know,
very much a small filmography. That film, by the way,
had Mako and Tario Quinn in it. TERRYO Quinn. Yeah,

(24:09):
Brown also pops up I think just bit parts copycat.
He shows up on Nash Bridges and also the Princess Diaries, okay,
and playing Gary from Blood in the Princess Diaries as Gary.
He's pretty good. Um, he's believable as as this Hunter guy.
Though there are times I don't know if you've noticed this,

(24:30):
but there are times where he has like he suddenly
has to be emotional and he just to my eyes,
he just ratches it up way too far. Like suddenly
he's just like he's like really animated and angry, when
the rest of the time he's he's pretty chill and
like back. I don't know if i'd say he's a
good actor, but he's quite likable. Yeah. Yeah, there's there's
something naturally likable about the guy playing this role, uh

(24:53):
that that shines through and also makes his um his
moments of being kind of unreasonable and upset not all
that believable. All right, let's get back to the sun.
The sun is ted played by James Fitzgibbons dates unknown,
one of only two screen credits, and he looks kind
of like a cross between Benedict Cumberbatch and Don Jr. Yeah, uh,

(25:18):
he he's got to look he Early in the movie,
there's a scene where he's wearing a black sweater tucked
into his jeans, and I was like, well, yeah, that's
how I would just that's what I used to describe
his character. Yeah, um, And you know I could, but
I think this actor is fine in this role. Like

(25:39):
I bought into him being this this character and did
not think much about this as a performance, And I
guess the same could be said for his sister Dolly.
The character's sister Dolly played by Dana Day. Dates unknown
for her as well, and this is her only film role.
And then finally we have Sarah, who's Ted's poor girl
friend who has to come out here into the middle

(26:01):
of nowhere in Wisconsin and visit this family at Christmas,
and she is played by Claudia Peyton. Claudia Payton lived
nineteen fifty six through two thousand and twelve. This is
her only film role. Um, but uh, you know, I
think she was quite good in this as the psionically
and spiritually sensitive girlfriend having to visit her boyfriend's family
in rural Wisconsin. Her obituary reveals that she was actually

(26:24):
a pretty highly trained with an m A and several
certificates in the Alexander technique, which I'm to understand is
an alternative therapy based in acting for actors. Uh. She
attended Drama Studio London and seems to have taught acting
in New York City and in Chicago for a large
part of her life. You know, Also, I don't I

(26:45):
don't know what she should have done with this character,
but but what she did was enjoyable. I guess, like
in almost every shot of the movie, I mean literally,
i'd say nine percent plus of the shots, including her face,
she's making an expression that sounds like it should be
accompanied by a vocalization, kind of like like she just

(27:10):
looks perpetually in a in a state of uh, near
paralysis with awkward anxiety. Yeah, yeah, and and it and it.
I think it largely works because at heart, this is
a film about feeling awkward at your your boyfriend's parents house.
And I think you know, we've we've all been in
some version of this scenario before. Many of us have

(27:31):
been in some version of this scenario. Um where you know,
the awkwardness that this film is he is trying to
portray and is ultimately based entirely around you know, like
that is uh you know, they say, you know, go
with what you know. You know, make sure there's this
core of truth to your strange speculative story. Well this
is the this is the core of truth to this

(27:51):
motion picture. Sure enough. No, now what happens here? Are
we going to try to explain the plot? I guess
there will be spoilers, they're probably have already been spoilers,
But I don't know if it makes a difference. No, no,

(28:12):
I think you can. You can go into this one
spoiled and it's still gonna perplex you. Okay, well, are
you ready, let's do it? Okay. So the first thing
we get is Boing boying music like I was talking
about earlier, and you know the title. It looks like
it would be a nice logo for a board game,
don't you agree. Yeah, yeah, it's like blood Beat from

(28:32):
Milton Bradley. It's got it's got a nice font and
then blood dripping down the letters, and then it's got
a cartoon dagger stabbing into the d in the word blood. Uh. Though,
I wonder why it's a dagger. This dagger I'm pretty
sure does not feature in the movie. That this should
have been a katana. Yeah, it should. It should have been,
like that's the whole thing. It's a killer psychic samurai

(28:53):
with a real I think it's supposed to be real
or it becomes real katana. So when things actually get
going in the movie with with live action, we see
shots of a peaceful forest in winter and you've got
you know, the trees are bear dead leaves covering the land,
and we see an icy stream winding its way through
moss covered rocks and fallen limbs. It's very nice, but

(29:16):
then also really loud, intrusive synth melodies of a kind
of nursery rhyme music box of variety. And then we
see a hunter. So he's this figure creeping through the
forest at a rapid pace, and he's wearing camo heavy
leather boots. Uh. He's carrying a big compound bow, and

(29:37):
he's listening to a walkman, he's got like a portable
cassette player with headphones. Is that normal for hunters? Maybe?
I don't know. I mean what one imagines it's audio
Speedwagon playing on the walkman, I don't know why. No,
I think it's diagetic music. He's listening to the boing
boing music. That's where I was coming from. And so

(29:57):
we see him. You know, he catches sight of something,
he kneels, he draws back an arrow, he shoots at something,
and then you know the tot he clearly he made
the kill. Uh. So we cut straight to a pickup
truck arriving back home at a house kind of like
a farmhouse out in the the frozen waste land of Wisconsin.

(30:18):
And there's a woman in a colorful shawl standing in
the doorway. So this is Kathy, this is the mom.
And everything up to this point has had kind of
a strange, ominous tone, but it's very much broken when
the hunter, who turns out to be her boyfriend Gary,
starts talking. He gets out of the car and then
he's immediately he has the energy of a kid wanting

(30:41):
to show you the four they made in the woods.
He's like, all right, honey, I got one. Come look,
and he's like bent over and running around real fast.
And so Cathy comes to look at the deer in
the bed of the pickup truck. But then she immediately
has some kind of psychic reaction and you know, she's
like oh, and she backs up and and he's all,

(31:03):
you know, startled by this. He's like, hey, you know,
you've seen me show up with lots of dead deer before.
Is is this a migraine? And she seems to agree, um,
And they go back inside and there's a nice little
breakfast table scene, though in the first of many this
will be the scene will be strangely accented by classical
strings apparently playing on the radio. Uh. And then in

(31:26):
the foreground will get a strong performance by a box
of Kellogg's All Brand and a prominent tub of Skippy
which I think is peanut butter. Now, do you present
me with a still of this that this is a
complete breakfast he's about to have there, it looks like
two slabs of keech on a plate, multiple bowls are prepared,
multiple mugs and cups are arranged around him like this

(31:50):
is this is quite a spread. That's not even the
whole that's just at Gary's place at the table. So yeah,
it looks like Gary is having waffles, keysh tu, bowls
of cereal, two cups of coffee, maybe a bowl of
peanut butter. I'm not sure, but so anyway, this is
Kathy and Gary the hunter is is the boyfriend Gary?

(32:10):
And uh that we we find out The situation is
they're about to have Kathy's kids up to visit the
house for Christmas, and Gary wants to surprise the kids
by telling them that he and Kathy are going to
get married. He's he's he's being all sweet, but Kathy
is not in favor. She's like, I've told you so
many times, I don't want to get married again. And
then This makes Gary upset, and he goes outside to

(32:33):
gutt a deer. Warning by the way, I mean, obviously
this is an orated movie with all kinds of content,
but if you're bothered by realistic looking depictions of animal gutting,
this looks like a real deer gutting. To me, yeah, yeah,
this this looks like a real dead deer. So he's
out doing that, and then some kids arrive. Now at
first I could not tell who was who. Who were

(32:53):
Kathy's kids? Um, but so Kathy's kids are the son
named Ted and then the daughter named Dolly. And then
there's also Sarah in the car, who is Ted's He
introduces her as his friend. She's his girlfriend. And so
they arrived to find Gary gutting the deer. And then
he's all excited to see them arrive and he just

(33:14):
hugs him without washing his hands. He's just got deer
guts everywhere and he's just grabbing them. Um. I've got
multiple stills of that for you to look at. Here
Rob with the deer hanging in the background and him
being like, oh so good to see you, just getting
blood on their coats, and from like I said, from
the moment we meet Sarah, she seems totally uncomfortable. She

(33:35):
she's making the face and uh, it's kind of Marge
Simpson noise. Uh energy and uh and oh boy, just
from from the first moment of contact between Sarah and Cathy,
there is some kind of psychic friction, like they meet
face to face and then these Geiger counter sound effects

(33:56):
start firing off. So so at this point I was, Okay,
it looks like we have at least two psychic characters here,
or at least the mom is psychic and senses something
about the new girlfriend. Right, And then this is great too,
because it's like the movie is saying mom does not
trust your girlfriend and and it's also saying your girlfriend

(34:18):
is highly suspicious of your mom and uh. And I
think these two feelings and vary variations on them will
ring true to a lot of people, you know, especially
when you're dealing with a first of family meeting like this.
It's what this movie lacks in many kinds of very similitude.
It does achieve awkward family gathering very similitude. So they

(34:42):
go inside and Gary's washing the mammal guts off his
hands after he's touched like four people at least. And
then uh, Ted is showing Sarah around the house and
he's like, oh, you know, you've got the Christmas tree,
You've got his gun. He's like, here's my gun. And
then you've got Cathy's unsettling abstract paintings all over the
walls that look like, you know, bloodstains and and uh

(35:05):
rifts in the subconscious and uh you know, fissures out
of which demons erupt. And again we see some kind
of intangible mind connection between Kathy and Sarah, because Sarah
looks at Kathy's paintings and she's she's kind of spacing
out staring at them. Yeah, and there's some nice, almost
like Dario Argento esque shots of her, like staring with

(35:29):
the painting frame behind her. Um, you know. And I
guess it's accentuated too by this kind of like early
eighties hairstyle, etcetera. Right, And so Ted's over here obliviously
fiddling with his rifle. I don't know why he's doing that,
and he's complaining that he doesn't get to do any
hunting when he's away at school. So I guess he's
supposed to be in college. I think, yeah, And he's

(35:50):
just you know, he's excited to be home where with
Gary anyway, it seems like it's just hunting, Like he's
been out hunting all morning and he's gonna go do
it again. You know, there's those shirts that say I'd
rather be fishing. Ted's would say I'd rather be hunting
with mom's boyfriend. But then things start getting strange because
there is a present waiting for Sarah under the Christmas tree.

(36:13):
But how could that be because Ted didn't tell anyone
about Sarah. They didn't know about her, they didn't know
she was coming. So how did Kathy know to get
her a present? Well, Kathy just says a mother knows everything,
and everybody's like, well, okay, is there ever any payoff
with that? Do we find out what the gift was?
I don't think so. No, unless it was the samurai

(36:34):
armor that shows up later. I mean, you know, I mean,
watching this film, I'm guessing it's just like Bath and
body Works soap. You know, some sort of just just
generic soap gift that mom had on hand, and she's
just covering it's like, oh yeah, I got your gift.
It's like a dull version of Sarah with a bunch
of needles stuck in it or that, yeah, one of
the two extremes. Things just keep getting weirder. Though. So

(36:55):
Ted is showing uh Sarah to the guest room, and well, so,
first of all, I got to say about this room.
This is something I never figured out the whole movie.
Is there just this narrow pole running from floor to
ceiling in the middle of this room. There are some
interesting um features in this house that become apparent in

(37:19):
some shots that make me wonder about like the era
idea in which this house was built, or just sort
of like older Wisconsin houses in general. Because there's one
where we clearly see some sort of event on the
floor that that I guess opens up into the room
beneath it, as if they were like events included to
make sure that heat rose like through the floor into

(37:40):
the upper floor. So I don't know, people who live
in old Wisconsin creepy houses right in and let us
know what some of this is about. I don't know
what this pole is because it doesn't look wide enough
to be a load bearing pole. It looks it's like
about the diameter of like a length of rebar, except
it goes from the floor to the ceiling right in

(38:01):
the middle of the room, like it looks like you
would run straight into it getting up to go to
the bathroom in the night. I mean, I only guess
there's some sort of like temporary support strut for a
ceiling that needs to be repaired. And maybe they were
shooting in an old house. I don't know. Yeah, Well, anyway,
once we're in the room, Sarah starts having hallucinations. She's
seeing everything in like in photo negative, these these rose

(38:23):
colored textures, and she's I think, hallucinating the sound of
a baby crying. Meanwhile, Ted is telling this weird story
in the background about how did you want so? I
think he says, there used to be a friend of
Cathy's who lived in this room, and he says, quote,
he was some psychoanalyst or something like that, meditation he

(38:44):
called it. One day he just packed up and left
just a few lines on a piece of paper and
that was it. Uh. And I don't think we ever
get any more explanation about that, or that it ever
comes up again. But it makes me wonder, what is
this guy connected to the samurai at all? This movie
loves to throw out cantalizing clues that are never enough

(39:05):
for us to form any kind of concrete hypothesis about
what's what's going on, you know, like it's just enough
to make you think, well, maybe maybe the director writer
here does know what all this connects to, but also
makes you suspect that perhaps he does not. Yeah. Uh,
so Ted and Sarah they get into an uncomfortable makeout session,

(39:27):
and then uh they start having a conversation in the
middle of that about how Sarah's like, your mom is
making me uncomfortable. It's like she's in the room right
now with us, and Ted's like, ah, that's ridiculous. She's
she's painting. She's off painting somewhere. And meanwhile, it keeps
hilariously cutting to Kathy in her art studio, just making

(39:48):
the psychic hour glass cursor face. You know, she's just
in an error message mode. I guess, presumably psychically spying
on that. I don't know. So I think one of
the lessons of this movie is that if your boyfriend
is ever like, don't worry, my mom is not spying
on us right now with Stargate brain, don't believe him.
That's right. Yeah, I mean, for all its pretensions of

(40:10):
this movie is about the fear that mom can hear
you and your girlfriend making out in your old room.
But I think this is the point where we cut
to some driving. Right Oh yeah, Beau. So it's just like, okay,
next day, how about next day? Uh? And the next
morning we see a truck. At first I thought this
was Gary, but it's not Gary. It's somebody else driving
a pickup truck with a camper top on it. Uh,

(40:33):
just flooring it. They're like on the radio. I think
they're on a CBE saying red baron a lone painter.
I don't know what any of this means, but we
see the truck is literally getting like air time going
over hills. It's like flying up off as if off
of a ramp. Yeah, it's just a totally unnecessary vehicular stunt,
just thrown in. Like there's I mean, we get that

(40:56):
that Uncle Pete is eager to get to the hunt,
like somewhere a deer is reading and it must be hunted,
um and and and hunting is all the fun in
these parts. But was it necessary for the truck to
be airborne? Very good? Yeah, I don't know. This movie
in general does a bizarre job of introducing the character
of Uncle Pete because you meet him without seeing his face.

(41:19):
You just hear his voice and you see his car,
and then you never see his face until minutes later.
Like the characters talk about him arriving, and he arrives,
but you never get a close shot of him, and
then in the next scene he's just sort of in it.
But like usually when there's a new character, you will
get a head on shot of it so you can
see their face and what they look like. This movie, Nope,
it's just okay, Uncle Pete's in the mix now. I

(41:41):
guess you'll figure out which one he is. Yeah, they
don't really make you, um anticipate Uncle Pete in any way.
You're not really looking forward to meeting him. There's not
you know, there's no stories about him. Um. I mean,
he clearly he really floors it when he's driving around,
but aside from that, there's nothing to really make you
want to meet him. And then when he shows up,
there's not really any fan fare either. But so you're right,
Uncle Pete is. He's he's obsessed with deer hunting apparently,

(42:05):
so they all want to go out hunting in the woods,
and they do. I think basically everybody except Kathie the
mom goes deer hunting, um. And there were some I
gotta admit, I don't know much about hunting. I've never
been hunting, and so I clearly don't have any expertise.
But some things about this seemed implausible to me, like
is it normal to go bow hunting on horseback in

(42:27):
the woods? And where did all the horses come from?
And uh, if there's a part where they have to
be like crawling on their bellies under barbed wire fences,
which makes me think, are they supposed to be there?
Maybe they're trespassing. Uh, And I could be wrong, but
it looked like one character is carrying a lever action rifle?
Is that normal for deer hunting? And I don't know. Yeah,

(42:48):
like they're they're doing a mix of of bow hunting
and rifle hunting for the deer, which yeah, I guess
could be a thing. But I always again, I I
grew up with bows and rifles around, but I never
went hunting. But I remember, you know, you would have
the like bow hunting season and yeah, musket ball season
or whatever, and then there's rifles, Like so I was
under the assumption that like that like bow and rifle

(43:11):
hunters would not just mix like this that you're either
going to do one or the other. Well not just
they're not just in the same hunting party. There's when
they draw a bead on a deer. There's a scene
of all four hunters aiming at the same deer. So
two bows and two rifles all drawing down on this
one dough. It's it's enough to it's it's enough to

(43:31):
make you wonder, like if this is a case of
like an outsider, you know, in this case, a French
director trying to figure out what would be the authentic Wisconsin, um,
you know, slice of life scenario and getting some things right,
but maybe getting some things wrong just because you know,
just coming at it from a from an outsider perspective. Well,

(43:52):
I mean, I gotta admit again, I'd like, I don't
really know anything about hunting. Maybe you would do this,
but it certainly looked weird having this like four person
firing squad for deer. Yeah, yeah, so I don't know
hunters right in and let us know. But but we're
focusing on the you know, the details of the hunt here.
But this is also one of the best sequences in
the film. Uh, at least it genuinely building up suspense

(44:16):
because poor Sarah has been brought on this this trip.
I think a lot of us can can sympathize with her.
You know, here she's she's she's hanging out with um,
with this family that she's only just met, and they've
brought her now on a hunting trip, and she's she's uncomfortable. Uh,
she doesn't want to be there. She she definitely does

(44:36):
not want to shoot a deer. Uh. But yet here
she is, and we hear that music building up, right,
and we hear that heartbeat, that blood beat. Uh, and
it I felt like it genuinely built up tension in
a nice way. Yeah, she well, she's gone from This
is one of her few scenes where she's not extremely
apprehensive and instead she here, I would say, she looks

(44:58):
soul annihilatingly board Uh, just like she's staring into space
with uh. You know, the expression of of having been
waiting in line at a bank for seven hours. Well,
I think that's and that's probably what hunting is like
if you're not really into it, right, It is a
lot of waiting around. I understand. Yes, I can imagine

(45:19):
if you're not into it. It would be quite boring.
But but she goes from the boredom to like you're saying,
when they're drawing down on this this deer, you know, yeah,
it builds up the tension. There's the heartbeat sound effect
and and uh and and like you say this, the
sequence is quite good. But then right before they shoot,
Sarah suddenly stands up. She turns green and red. She screams,

(45:41):
and they all miss and then she runs away. So
immediately everybody is like, Uncle Pete's mad. And then Ted
goes running off after her, and she sort of meanders
through the woods until I had to rewind this part.
I was like, did I miss something? But no, she
just randomly collides with another guy that we have not
met before. Am I correct? This is a totally new character, right,

(46:03):
I had to do the same thing. I thought I'd
missed something that I was looking down at my screen
or something, so I backed it up as well. But no,
she just suddenly runs into a guy, a totally new character,
but but very much dressed like all the other locals. Yes,
but he but this guy, but he's not like a
new character we're about to meet. He's dying, so he's
been gutted, but somebody turned his stomach into a jack
O lantern and he's covered in blood. And I guess,

(46:26):
for the second time today, Sarah is going to get
a man with bloody hands just like grabbing her jacket
and uh. And then so this guy just dies there.
He just kind of looks like a blonder Robert Redford
ish kind of guy. Uh, and he's dead there on
the fourth floor. Oh and then there's a there's a
scene with the cops that I thought was funny because

(46:46):
really the only thing that happens in it is they
just repeatedly established that nobody knew who this guy was,
which seems weird, right, Like that just raises more questions. Um,
I guess maybe it's you don't have to spend as
much die log establishing the fact. But so anyway, they
get back home and then uh, there there is mounting
tension with the family because, as with the earlier scenes,

(47:09):
Sarah is bothered by uh, well by the experience in
the woods, but then also by Ted's mother. He's you know,
he's like, uh, He's like, oh, don't worry about anything,
but she's like, no, your mother. She makes me uncomfortable,
and I think she thinks that Kathy is spying on
her through the paintings in the bedroom, like that the
paintings function like psychic CCTV cameras, and so she has

(47:34):
Ted removed the paintings from the bedroom. But then we
find out that the apprehension goes both ways because Ted
goes down to Kathy's painting studio and there Ted is
having this conversation with his mom and she warns him
about Sarah. She's like, I just want you to be careful.
There's something about her. I've seen her before. I don't
understand it, but I know her. Meanwhile, Gregorian Chance in

(47:58):
the background, and as an other case of hint set
connections that are never fully established but but keep us
watching now. Somewhere around here is where there's a scene
where Ted and Dolly are playing monopoly, but there's a

(48:20):
cat lying on the monopoly board and just flopping all
around on it, which is excellent, YEP, solid slice of
life right there. But I think here is the scene
where the movie just starts to really escalate the weirdness
and sort of never stops until the end. So here, uh,
Sarah is lying in bed and Cathy's painting, and simultaneously

(48:42):
they start having psychic experiences, Like Cathy starts having a
Danny Torrence red Rum style psychic episode. She's like, uh,
sort of groaning and and wiggling and uh and drawing
uncontrollably on her on her on her canvas, I guess,
with her non dominant hand. And then meanwhile, Sarah up

(49:05):
in the bedroom finds a treasure chest full of samurai
armor and a katana next to the bed and does
the thing that people always do in movies when they
find a blade, test to see if it's sharp and
cut their fingers. Why every movie? Why do people do this?
People don't do this very often in real life. Yeah,
it's uh, I mean, I think obviously from the movie perspective,

(49:29):
it's because you get to have a little blood in there,
and because it's the little things that we can feel.
Someone gets their arm lopped off with a samurai sword,
we can't compare to that. But if somebody like touches
the edge of it too much, um, you know, or
it gets a paper cut, uh, you know, that can
eck us out. And so you know, from in a
way of like keeping the audience engaged and physically invested

(49:49):
in the film. It's a solid choice. But yeah, who
does this? Who picks up the sword and starts running
their finger across it? Well, I mean I can even
touch the blade of a knife to see how sharp
it is without cutting myself. This is like I would
assume a skill anybody who can handle a knife has.
But we have to remember, as as will soon be established,
this is a suit of armor that nobody knew was

(50:10):
in the house. Perhaps wasn't in the house, perhaps has
been physically manifested by stuff that's happening now involving these
two psychic characters, or psychic storms going on in the
general vicinity, I don't know. And and then the sequence
just goes on for minutes at a time of NonStop weirdness. Uh,

(50:31):
there's some strange I don't even remember what's going on.
There's a confrontation between Gary and Cathy where he's like,
what do you think I am? Some piece of plastic? Uh?
He says, I'm a simple man. I need love and affection. Yeah,
this is the section of the film where they decided
we need to explore their characters more. We need to
get into uh Mom and Gary's relationship uh yeah. And

(50:54):
then and this is also one of those moments where
he's he's he's playing he's a bit over the top
in his anger that goes out of keeping with his
character as well as his what he does afterwards, because
he basically is like, have a nice life, Kathy. Um.
And then he storms out. And you assume if you
say something like that, like you're gonna you're gonna get
in the car and go, but no, he goes into

(51:14):
the living room, puts his headphones on and what starts
playing a video game or watching TV or watching TVs,
like watching a small TV with headphones plugged into it. Like, like,
is that I think you have to leave the house
after you say those things? Gary? I don't think you
can just go watch television. Not only did, he doesn't
even leave, He doesn't even go into a room by himself.
He goes into the room where everybody is sitting, and

(51:35):
then everybody sitting in the same room just doing their
own thing, and and there are shots of them just
sitting around on the couches and stuff and playing this
drange string music. Yeah. Oh, and then Kathy comes into
It's like, so, whatever this blow up was between them,
I guess it wasn't that big a deal. Maybe this
is just this is just a Tuesday for them. Yeah.
And then also with in one of the extremely abrupt cuts,

(51:59):
we cut to Uncle Pete has wrecked his truck on
the side of the road. Had no idea what Uncle
Pete was doing before this, but this is our first
murder scenes. Suddenly he's just there, he's like radio ing
for help. Uh. And then I think he's trying to
change a tire and we get this movie's uh. Of
course the movies that Kike uh is just synth drowne
and the heartbeat excuse me, blood beat sound effects, and

(52:23):
so he's doing that, he's doing his tire and his
throat gets slashed, so the movie has shifted into slasher mode. Uh.
So then we randomly cut to two new characters who
I'm pretty sure we have never met before. Uh, both
in bathrobes. The dude of this couple is very dub airs.

(52:43):
He's uh, he's wearing a trucker hat in bed and
they're on a water bed and he demands he demands
his wife bring him tea. He wants hot tea on
the water bed, which and then she actually puts the
tray down on the waterbed, and I was like yelling
at the screen. You know that is a scalding waiting
to happen, doesn't He also then request orange juice. She

(53:06):
she's like it, do you want anything else? He's like, no,
just the tea, and then she brings it and then
he's like, hey, what about my orange juice? I mean,
I get it that it's winter in Wisconsin and perhaps
they have gas furnace going here, and you know you
need to be hydrated, but but who's having orange juice
and tea in bed in a water bed at night? Yeah?

(53:28):
This see or maybe he was topping off the water
bed it maybe it's full of hot tea. And then
the dog joins him on the bed. Oh yeah, well,
I gotta admit it does look super cozy. So he's
there in his flannel robe with his hat on in
bed in the water bed with his dog like literally
he's like spooning his dog with his arm around it,

(53:49):
reading a newspaper with a tray of hot tea and cookies.
And uh, it does look extremely cozy. I don't know
where she's going to fit into the bed though. Um.
But then while she's in the kitchen getting his orange juice. Suddenly, Uh,
she gets attacked by a random, unseen figure. But I
guess it's not gonna be random, It's gonna be our
our movie slasher. So she gets her throat slashed. And

(54:11):
then that bears dude is trying to figure out what happens,
so he goes into the kitchen, finds her dead. Then
he has chased. Uh. He this is a strangely extended
chase sequence, like he jumps through a glass window, runs
through a giant barn, gets in a van, drives to
a service station, finds no help, is pursued, still drives away,

(54:36):
runs out of gas, ends up running up at Kathy's house. Um.
And then meanwhile inside Kathy is having more of her
psychic error message face and uh, Sarah is having some
kind of bizarre erotic experience while hallucinating about the Samurai murders.
Very weird, but she's having an erotic reaction to the

(54:59):
psychic energy of samurai ghost thing killing people, or her
erotic energy is feeding the psychic samurai. I don't know.
I can just imagine audiences in nineteen eighty two being like,
oh see, this is a sophisticated, artistic French thing. I
have to throw in something else about the Bears guy here.

(55:20):
I did not include information on the actor who plays him.
But it's kind of a tour de force, especially when
he's running, because most of this this, this this sequence
is him in an open bathrobe, like wearing you know,
just like tidy, whitey underwear and I think some sort
of like small t shirt or undershirt. Oh yeah, yeah.
And then when he finally gets to the house, of course,

(55:42):
the samurai kills him right outside. But then he's poking
his head through the door and he's covered in blood,
and he's like and and this is actually the first
time where we we see that the slasher is in
fact wearing samurai armor. It's a samurai with the sword
and a bow. Yeah. And at this point things just
go completely off the rails. It's full Poltergeist. The pantry

(56:03):
doors are flapping mad, the dirty dishes are dancing, Quaker
oats and butternut containers are shaking violently in the cupboard. Uh,
the telephone catches on fire. Gary in the kitchen is
hilariously pelted with food stuffs and kitchen utensils until unconscious,
like he takes one too many packets of ramen to

(56:25):
the head and he falls over. Uh, just conked out.
And then, uh, what else is it? Oh? Yeah, Ted
and Dolly are upstairs. They're trying to, I think, see
what's going on with Sarah, but her room is glowing blue,
so I guess they decided they can't get in. And
then they get like psychically blasted into a closet and
the windows are raising up and down, like the windows

(56:47):
are laughing and uh, and Cathy is having some kind
of psychic exorcism thing going on. She's going like, who
are you? What do you want here? And and red
light is shooting out of her hands, and I think
she's successful exercises the Samurai ghost for the time being.
I think. So there are a couple of moments where
they kind of get temporary victories over the Samurai ghost

(57:08):
before it comes back and forth right, and and things
just get more and more confusing, Like so in the
aftermath of this whole attack, they're talking about what's going on,
and Cathy says, um, he would never take me away
from you, and he would never take you and Dolly
away from me, But did you understand who she was?
Talking about. I don't think the movie makes that clear

(57:29):
at all. At first I thought maybe she just she
meant like God or something, But I think she was
supposed to be referring to an unseen character, but no
clue who it's supposed to be. Yeah, at this point
in the film, they're I think there are a couple
of times where they allude to like him or in
a way that indicates that they might be referring to
the to the same person, like as if the Samurai

(57:52):
or the thing behind the Samurai or something something is
somebody that they would all know or had a history of,
but they never actually dish out enough information for us
to piece it together. Now, somehow, from here we get
to Hunters in the Woods sitting around a campfire, playing
the harmonica with a case of Budweiser, and of course,

(58:12):
even however unusual this movie is, the logic of the
horror genre holds true, which is that a group of
guys sitting around a campfire in a horror movie that
you've never met before, they are doomed. They will definitely die,
almost certainly, beginning with one who walks away from the
fire to urinate, which in fact holds true in this case,

(58:34):
every time it's a guarantee. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what happens.
H And I guess part of it like you're building
up your your your character, You're building up your your
slash your enemy. Uh. They you just you realize, well,
he needs more kills. We need to you know, power
him up here. So let's just throw in three new
characters for him to mask here. Now, I think that
the director was still trying to play with some weird

(58:56):
like uh, sex death thing here. So this is like
inter cut with a sex scene with with Ted and
Sarah and then uh, and then and then things just
keep esc like it just gets weirder and weirder, like
every ten seconds from this point on. Yeah, the last
twenty minutes or so this film, it's like approaching the
speed of light. You feel like you might not actually

(59:18):
ever get there, and everything just breaks down as far
as logic and reason go. There's some kind of brief
psychic battle between Dolly and Cathy. No indication so far
that Dolly had psychic powers, but she like goes in
to talk to her mom and she's like, don't come
into my mind. Stop it. And they're they're going like
at each other's heads, Yeah, making scanner face a bit.

(59:39):
They're yes, scanner facing at each other. Um. And then
uh oh, there's a scene of Ted in the woods
with the rifle crying, and then Gary's riding a horse,
and then Dolly's in the woods and she turns into
some kind of blue and red nightmare. And then the
samurai appears and is like reaching out to Allie and

(01:00:00):
talking to her. I didn't quite understand what was happening there. Yeah,
and then they what they're able to actually bash the
physical samurai, right Gary. Yeah. So Gary's got a mall
that he was splitting wood with and he swings the
mall at the samurai's head and hits it, but it
just collapses into a pile of armor like it was empty,

(01:00:21):
the physical set of armor that just manifested in the house.
And and Dolly reacts to this by saying, Mom was right,
but I was like about what yeah, again alluding to something. Um,
but I'm not sure how to put these puzzle pieces together.
But then back at the house, it's just it's difficult

(01:00:43):
to convey how weird the energy of this scene is.
So Gary's got the samurai armor and he's taking it
to show it to Cathy and she's just like, burn it.
It's evil, and he's like, no, I have to take
it to the police, and Dolly saying, bring me some
candy bars. And then there's a photo on a desk
of a child and I don't know who it's supposed

(01:01:05):
to be, and and Sarah burns the photo with pyro kinesis,
and then basically the movie from here escalates into a
series of psychic power fights. Remember, the only person who
we had any indication before this part was psychic was
the mom and and Sarah maybe Sarah, but now it's

(01:01:25):
like everybody but Gary has psychic powers. So Sarah appears
in samurai armor, and then this is inner cut with
stock footage of World War Two, and meanwhile Carl Orth
is just blaring yes Kari, Karmie Hipperona. And there's a
psychic battle between between Kathy and the the Sarah in

(01:01:49):
samurai form. The Samurai wins. She like stabs Kathy and Gary,
and then there's another psychic battle between Ted and Dolly
and the Samurai and they win. So I guess Ted
and Dolly had psychic powers all along, and we just
never that was never mentioned before. And then Ted and
Dolly walked out of the house and that's the end. Yeah,

(01:02:10):
that's the end of the movie. Yeah, and then we're
just left to to try and piece it together, which
which ultimately, you know, it's it's you know, there's something
about a film that sticks with you. There are a
lot of films there. There are a lot of arguably
better films than this that I've I've seen and I
immediately forget, Like I don't wake up the next morning
and ponder them. But I've I've been thinking on and

(01:02:33):
off about Blood Beat ever since I watched it the
other day, and um, and so I've been trying to
sort of put together answers for like, for the basic
question here, what the heck was the deal with that
samurai ghost? Why is there a samurai ghost in Wisconsin
haunting this family? Sort of? Yeah? Um, And I didn't
look long and hard for an official answer to this,

(01:02:54):
but according to Michael Gengold of Rue Morgue, the director's
answer to this in an interview on one of the
on the Vinegar Syndrome Blu Ray is essentially, um, why not,
Like why samurai gost in Wisconsin? Why not so um,
I don't know, that's that's not a great answer. Uh,
And I think we can go a lot, a lot deeper.
So on one hand, um, you know, I'm thinking like, Okay,

(01:03:16):
is this is Japanese Poulter guist? Is this the spirit
of a long dead warrior and he's somehow reincarnated through
Sarah or awakened by Mom's psychic powers or art? Uh?
Did Mom have some prior connection to the spirit um?
And then we can throw in all these additional questions
like who's the little girl we keep seeing? Where does
the physical armor come from? Is it actually hidden there
or did it just manifest? Why are we seeing these

(01:03:39):
flashes of World War two footage that seems to be important? Yeah,
I mean, I would say showing stock footage of a
of a war intercut with the scene that that seems
to be trying to make a connection. So I have
two theories one and I should drive home. Neither of
these is really supported by the text. So I'm really
I'm really going out there trying to make these work. So,
first of all, could this vengeful Japanese ghost be somehow

(01:04:02):
connected to the U S internment of Japanese Americans during
the Second World War. I would see no indication of
that in the movie. No indication in the movie, but
I believe Fort McCoy in Wisconsin was one of the
facilities used in this shameful chapter of American history. Uh.
And it also was used to house Japanese prisoners of war. So, um,

(01:04:24):
if we're going to really uh cut this film a
lot of slack, we might say, maybe that's what it
was going for. And I'll say, if that sounds even
remotely interesting, there's a much better supernatural treatment of of
of the subject matter in season two of AMC's The Terror.
My other theory or here is that the psychic Samurai
ghost is in fact on Edgregor, a powerful non physical

(01:04:49):
entity that arises from a group of people on occult
concept similar in some ways to that of a tulpa
that wasn't about this, Oh yeah, I wasn't familiar with
it to a is reading some Grant Morrison, Because Grant
Morrison makes use of this concept of this occult concept
in this DC supervillain character that he either created or

(01:05:10):
riffed heavily on, called the Candle Maker, who said to
be a powerful Edgregor born out of humanities collective unconscious
tensions surrounding twenty century anxieties over nuclear war. So along
those lines, could the psychic ghost Samurai and this picture
being Edgregor born out of American tension and shame uh

(01:05:33):
concerning Japanese in tournament and the use of atomic weaponry
during the Second World War. The only thing to indicate that, though,
would be the would be the like the inter cutting
with the scenes from the war in that very final scene,
Like there's nothing at all earlier in the movie to
point in that direction. Yeah, Like, there's no, there's nothing.

(01:05:53):
I don't think there's anything in the house that shows
any aside from the armor that again is implied to
just physically manifest and have no previous history in the house.
There's nothing in there to indicate the family has any
connections to Japanese culture, to Japanese history. You know, it's
not nothing like, oh well, that's that's grandpa's photo. He
fought in the war and was convicted of war crimes

(01:06:13):
or something. Right, this would be very loose, But there
are some what appear to be uh Buddhist or Buddhist
suggestive artworks in the house, Like there I think, am
I right about this weren't there, That is true. Yeah,
like Kathy a k Mom has kind of this um
you know, kind of like um or of a hippie, free,

(01:06:34):
free form, artistic spirit that's just kind of captured in
the wild, you know, it's kind of out of keeping
with the the the rural environment around her. Uh So,
I guess you could. I don't know what that would
mean either, unless like the statue was like there doesn't Yeah,
this stuff is just part of the backdrop. It doesn't
seem to play any real significant role in the subsequent

(01:06:55):
haunting or psychic explosion that occurs. I mean, all I
can say is that I think the intercutting with the
scenes of World War two is supposed to suggest something,
but I can't form anything coherent about it that really
connects with anything else in the movie. Yeah, but it
it all like there's it almost makes sense in a
way that is um that they really you know, pulls

(01:07:16):
that your your brain strings, you know, you can't quite
get out of mind, like, well was it. It's almost
saying something coherently or some my coherently, and I just
can't make out what it might be saying. Well, you know,
I I think I've said on the show before that.
I sometimes have a probably an unusually high tolerance for
unanswered questions in in fiction and movies. I mean, I

(01:07:36):
often think that it's a it's better to leave things
a mystery than to answer them in an unsatisfying way.
But I mean, sometimes you can just leave people hanging
too much. Like I feel like if if the director
truly had something like that in mind, you could have
put a few more pointers in there. Yeah. I guess
what we're trying to say is blood beat. It's a

(01:07:59):
Christmas miracle. Oh yeah, Christmas. I forgot about that part.
That's why you picked it. Yeah, yeah, it really didn't
do a lot of thinking about like what is this
saying about Christmas? I guess it's not really saying anything
about Christmas, but it takes place at Christmas. Christmas is
the reason, uh for these people coming together and psychically

(01:08:20):
manifesting a Samurai warrior to kill everybody. So yeah, I
gotta say I I on the whole, I enjoyed it.
I've certainly not board, but this is one of the
most befuddling films we have we have watched for this show,
yet I agree, So out there you might be wondering, well,
how can I get on this in on this holiday befuddlement. Well, um,

(01:08:42):
this movie is out there if you're looking for it.
I streamed it on shutter uh and I think it
may be available via some other online services as well.
It was also released on Blu ray by Vinegar Syndrome
a few years back. And Uh, like I mentioned earlier,
that actually includes an interview with the director. Uh So
if you're really curious, maybe you can you can get
your hands on that disk and maybe maybe even answer

(01:09:05):
some of these questions that we have. I I don't know,
but I'm guessing probably not. But yeah, I would say
still go back to what we said earlier. I am
I admire the ambition here because, you know, a lesser
you know, director and writer might have just said, Hey,
we're gonna have some crazy person in a samurai a
suit of samurai armor is gonna start killing people, and

(01:09:25):
that's all you need to know. Just somebody was crazy
and they put on some some you know, armor and
grab the sword and you know that that's it. But no,
this film went for something far more elaborate, and uh,
you know, it's one of the things that makes it interesting. Yeah, Yeah,
it is definitely the only Franco wisconsinite psychic art house

(01:09:46):
Christmas slasher movie I've ever seen. All Right, Well, if
you want to check out other episodes of Weird House Cinema,
you can catch it every Friday and the Stuff to
Blow Your Mind podcast feed were primarily a science and
culture podcast with episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but we
do listener mail on Mondays. We do a short form
artifact episode on Wednesdays and on Friday. That's our time

(01:10:09):
to set most serious matters of aside and just get
into a little Weird House Cinema. Huge thanks as always
to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you
would like to get in touch with us with feedback
on this episode or any other, to suggest topic for
the future, or just to say hello, you can email
us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

(01:10:37):
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