Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Bloodbeat

holiday experience that I think you enjoyed. If it's not your thing, yeah, yeah, let's skip this one because this week is the rare week where we're doing I think two Weird House Cinema rewind So if you're not crazy about this selection, well then tune in tomorrow when we really run another holiday selection from the previous year. 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 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 it is.

It is. It is a film that takes place during the holidays. Um. Now, and 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 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 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 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 is one of the most copied movies of all time, that the Christmas horror slasher film arose as one of the many how Queen copycats like Friday thirteen. 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, 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

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 in Halloween. It makes sense at Halloween, right, And and that's that's when we get into the kind of the enigma of the Christmas

horror film. Um. I think that just the the just the idea of it 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, especially stuff like Black Christmas and Silent Night Deadly Nine, but even stuff like Grimlin's 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, 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 and 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 acts 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 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, sort 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 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 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, you still believe in Santa Claus. Seeing the concept 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 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 watch some of them, and I appreciate. I mean, it's the interest 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 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 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 for and in a way almost more honest explorations of that and sometimes 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's 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 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 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 that might be that, you know, we can look back on those films as being kind of like a almost kind of 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 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, 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 monster or Mayhem, blood or even you know, in an action movie situation like die Hard. Um, 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

very serious or takes itself very seriously. Well, this brings to mind Ridley Scott's Prometheus movie, which had 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 genuinely trying to like make a connection there. You know, it's like, um and maybe trying a bit too hard. I totally 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 rains this misremembering that I believe that Prometheus is a Christmas movie. Let's go to the tape Consus shapes with high colorion. M hmm, what the hell is that? It's Christmas? Need Holidays? So time is still moving. Mission briefing is about to start. Captain, I want to make your way down. Well I haven't had a breakfaste 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 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? This movie is so weird it made my toenails curl. What where did you find this? I believe earlier in the year, I was looking through just like a database. Maybe it was it was on Internet movie database, of course, but

it might have been something like a Wikipedia. I 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 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 the sort of neutral listings where he didn't. He didn't passionately promoted, But he also didn't say it was bad. 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 thought longer and harder about the meaning, the true meaning of this film, 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 and 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, 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 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 though, 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 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 subgenre of

horror would you put it in? Maybe? Um, uh, psychic slashers, Yes, I think psychic slasher would be Uh, 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 or 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 it can be

um kind of liberating, like I love, you know, making these connections to other films and you know, thinking about, oh, what were they in? What were they And you go in to it too at times and you're like, well, if nothing else, I know, well Peter laure is 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 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 phenomenon like projected thermography, people just printing their dreams and imagery on

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, and you know, this would probably be worth looking at even if it was just like a just a whole much of non sequitors. It was just like one weird dream sequence after the other. You know, their 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 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

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. Uh, it just gets worse when they're just like a psychically projected

ghost 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 grindhalcy like echo

vibe to it. A devil, a devil, I'm torning what you worn, what you lives, lives, breaves held, paralyzed with fears, with fears, it kills as skill as mutilates, mutila anyone, and it's us one, and it's tormented by a psychic house. Bloody, bloody, horrileful press is blood blood ready, blood lunch blood set. 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 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 it made eighty 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 boot out and cracking it open in the 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, uhland 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 Freman The Large Farm. 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 directed and Road and was very active in the reasonably active

in the six season seventies. But this is a 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.

I don't know. Um, But anyway, this film Blood Beat, for better or Worse is Zapharatos 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, though with varying degrees of success. Now I mentioned that he has a music credit, so I just want to

add quick note on the music. The score here varies from works of classical music, including very well known pieces like Karl Orff's Carmina burana Is is used during the finale for example. Uh, And I just have 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 that feels like nobody else would select

this this music to go with this scene. 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 glassondi. 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 feels kind of off about the scene. Yeah, and then they'll other times

they'll throw in Gregorian chant. There's definitely a bit that, uh. 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 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 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 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 we have a limited cast in this because it basically a cerns a boyfriend bringing his girlfriend home to meet his family at Christmas. Let's start with the mom. The mom is Kathie and she is played by Helen bent Tone Uh. Dates unknown for her. This is her only film role, but I thought she was mostly pretty good. Is the 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 going to 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 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 that seems to work, all right. And then we also have Gary, whose mom's boyfriend than this, and Darry 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 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

that Joe Esteves seal u um. And also he pops up in a movie from titled My Samurai, So there's to two Samurai films and and what is you know very much a small filmography. That film, by the way, had Mako and Tario Quinn in it, Teryo Quinn. Yeah, 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 Bloody 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, 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 laid 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 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 kd played by James Fitzgibbons. Dates unknown, one of only two screen credits, and he looks kind of like a cross between Bennedict Cumberbatch and Don Jr. Yeah, uh, 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 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, uh 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, whose Ked's poor girl friend who has to come out here into the middle of nowhere and was Anson and visit this family at Christmas,

and she is played by Claudia Peyton. Claudia Peyton 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 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 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 the sounds like it should be accompanied by a vocalization, kind of like like she just 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 hard this is a film about feeling awkward at your your boyfriend's parents house. And I think you know, we we've all been in some version of this scenario before. Many of us have been in some version of this scenario. Um where you know, the awkwardness that this film is 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 motion picture. Sure enough. No, now what happens here? Are we going to try to explain the plot? I guess there will be spoilers. There probably have already been spoilers, but I don't know if it makes a difference. No, No, 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 Boying 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 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 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, and 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 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 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, I mean what one imagines it's Aureo Speedwagon playing on the walkman, I don't know why. No, I think it's diagetic music. He's listening to the boing boying music. That's where I was coming from. And so we see him. You know, he catches sight of something, he kneels, he draws back an arrow, he's shoots at something, and then

you know the to 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. 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 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, 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 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 thing? This is a complete breakfast he's about to have there. It looks like two slabs of keish on a plate, multiple bowls are prepared, multiple uh mugs and cups are arranged around him like this 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 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 gutt a deer. Warning by the way, I mean, obviously this is an O rated 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 dear. So he's out doing that. And then some kids arrive. Now at first I could not tell who

was who. Who were Kathy's kids? Um, but so Kathy's kids are the son named Ted and then the daughter named Dolly. And then it's also Sarah in the car, who is Ted's. He introduces her as his friend. She's a girlfriend. And so they arrived to find Gary gutting the deer. And then he's all excited to see them arrive and he just 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're just getting blood on their coats. And from like I said, from the moment we meet Sarah, she seems totally uncomfortable. She 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 start firing off. So so at this point I was like, Okay, it looks like we have at least two I get 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 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 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 rifts in the subconscious and uh you know, fissures out of which demons erupt. And again we see some kind of intangible uh 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 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 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. 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 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. That yeah, one of the two extremes. Things just keep getting weirder though.

So Ted is showing uh Sarah to the guest room, and well, so, first all I gotta 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 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 vents included to make sure that heat rose like through the floor into 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 the middle of the room like it like he would run straight into it getting up to go to the bathroom in the night. I mean, I only guess is 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 rose 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 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 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, 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 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 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, beauty. 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, just flooring it. They're like on the radio. I think they're on a CBE saying red baron the 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 that Uncle Pete is eager to get to the hunt, like somewhere a deer is breathing and it must be hunted. Um 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. 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 is just okay, Uncle Pete's in the mix. Now. I guess you'll figure out

which one he is. Yeah, they don't really make you anticipate Uncle Pete in anyway. 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 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, 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 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, 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 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 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 drawn down on

this one dough. It's it's enough to it's it's enough to 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, I mean, I gotta admit again,

I 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, 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 a genuinely building up suspense 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 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 soul annihilating, lee bored Uh, just like she's staring into space with uh, you know, the expression 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 if you're not into it, 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, 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 toe rely new character, right, 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, 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 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 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 dialogue 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, 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 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 the background, and it's another case of the hints set connections and never fully established, but that keep us watching. Somewhere around here is where there's a scene where Ted and Dolly are playing Monopoly, but there's a 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 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 non dominant hand. And then meanwhile, uh, Sarah up 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, 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 cannick

us out. And so, you know, from is in a way of like keeping the audience engaged and physically invested 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. That 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 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 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. 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 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 feels 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 the living room, puts his headphones on, and what starts playing a video game or watching TV or just 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 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 derange 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. Yeah. And then also with in one of the extremely abrupt cuts, we cut to Uncle Pete as rectors 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 kikike uh is just synth drowne and the heartbeat excuse me, blood beat sound effects. And 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. 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 waterbed, which and then she actually puts the tray down on the waterbed and I was like yelling at the screen. That is a scalding waiting to happen. Doesn't He also then request orange juice. She 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? 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, 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 then dab 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, 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 psychic energy of Samurai go thing killing people, or her erotic energy is feeding the psychic the 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. 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,

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 Poultergeist. The pantry 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 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 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 successfully 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 goes 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 it did you understand who she was talking about? I don't think the movie makes that clear 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, there 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 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 in

from any for us to piece 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, even however unusual this movie is the logic of the horror genre holds true, which is that a group of guys sitting around a camp fire 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 every time. It's a guarantee. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what happens. 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 ask here. Now, I think that the director was still trying to play

with some weird like uh, sex death thing here. So this is like intercut with a sex scene with with Ted and Sarah and then uh and then and then things just keep es 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 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. 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 Dolly and 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, 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 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 the desk of a child and I don't know who it's supposed 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

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 Kara Karmie Hipperon. And there's a psychic battle between between Kathy and the the Sarah in 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 Dully walked out of the house and that's the end. 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 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, But according to Michael Geingold of Rue Morgue, the director's answer to this in an interview on one of the on the Vine or Syndrome Blu Ray is essentially, um, why not? Like why samurai ghost 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, is this the Japanese Poulter guist, This is 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

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 inter cut with a 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 connected to the US 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, 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 entity that arises from a group of people on occult concept similar in some ways to that of a tulpa

that wasn't think I know about this? Oh yeah, I wasn't familiar with it till I was 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 riffed heavily on, called the candle Maker, who said to be a powerful Edgregor born out of humanities collective on conscious tensions surrounding twenty century anxieties over nuclear war.

So along those lines, could the psychic ghost Samurai in this picture being Edgregor born out of American tension and shame uh 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. 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 thing 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 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 more of a hippie, free 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 haunting or psychic explosion that occurs. I mean, all I can say is that I think the inter cutting 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 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 often think that it's, uh, 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 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 manifesting at 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, 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 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 that's all you need to know. Just somebody was crazy and they put on some some you know, armor and grabbed 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 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 Monday's. We do a short form

artifact episode on Wednesdays, and on Friday. That's our time 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. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.

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