Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Weird House Cinema Rewind. This is Rob
Speaker 1: Lamb and this is Joe McCormick, and we are out
Speaker 1: this week for a holiday break, but we've got some
Speaker 1: great vault episodes for you. This today is going to
Speaker 1: be a Weird House Cinema rewind for a for a
Speaker 1: holiday episode from previous years. This is going to be
Speaker 1: about blood Beat, the Samurai Christmas slasher film. This episode
Speaker 1: originally published on December ten. Uh, enjoy if you can.
Speaker 1: You know, there's if this is your type of of
Speaker 1: holiday experience that I think you enjoyed. If it's not
Speaker 1: your thing, yeah, yeah, let's skip this one because this
Speaker 1: week is the rare week where we're doing I think
Speaker 1: two Weird House Cinema rewind So if you're not crazy
Speaker 1: about this selection, well then tune in tomorrow when we
Speaker 1: really run another holiday selection from the previous year. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is
Speaker 1: Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And this is
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema's second holiday season, but this is gonna
Speaker 1: be the first time we're actually going to be talking
Speaker 1: about a holiday film. I don't Robot Jocks is a
Speaker 1: holiday film. Well it Robot Jocks feels like Christmas. And
Speaker 1: we've we've had a few films like that that feel
Speaker 1: like Christmas, but they're not really a Christmas movie. They're
Speaker 1: not set at Christmas. And I mean, and to be clear,
Speaker 1: like this movie is not about Christmas, but it is.
Speaker 1: It is. It is a film that takes place during
Speaker 1: the holidays. Um. Now, and now I should well wait,
Speaker 1: does the does the die hard logic apply? I know
Speaker 1: people like arguing about this on the internet. I've never
Speaker 1: actually gotten into it about that, but yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't have a strong opinion about that, but I
Speaker 1: guess it depends on what the holiday is doing in
Speaker 1: the film, right and um and and I don't even
Speaker 1: care whether people decide to label this that or the
Speaker 1: other a holiday film. But of course you have you
Speaker 1: have films that are very much about the holiday things
Speaker 1: like you know, adaptations of the Christmas Carol, Miracle on
Speaker 1: thirty four Street, all that that kind of stuff, And
Speaker 1: of course those are holiday films. And I should say
Speaker 1: that some of some of my favorite holiday movies are
Speaker 1: are certainly weird and prime contenders for the weird House treatment.
Speaker 1: But but I thought we might go with an entry
Speaker 1: this week from that surprisingly large subgenre of holiday horror,
Speaker 1: with a strong emphasis on Christmas time horror films in
Speaker 1: American cinema. You know, I would have assumed, because Halloween
Speaker 1: is one of the most copied movies of all time,
Speaker 1: that the Christmas horror slasher film arose as one of
Speaker 1: the many how Queen copycats like Friday thirteen. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that was pretty clearly an inspiration behind Friday
Speaker 1: the thirteenth. It was like, hey, here's a real you know,
Speaker 1: here was a successful movie about a guy with a knife,
Speaker 1: and it's named after a day. Let's do another movie
Speaker 1: about a knife wheelder running around named after a day.
Speaker 1: So you would think that was true for Christmas films.
Speaker 1: But actually, the first Christmas slasher film predates Halloween, um
Speaker 1: or at least as far as I know, right, because
Speaker 1: Black Christmas came out in nineteen four. Yeah. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: one of those early days slasher films. I think that's
Speaker 1: considered it sort of almost a proto slasher film things
Speaker 1: were just getting started. Um, I gotta say, I don't
Speaker 1: love it, though, I watched it years ago and just
Speaker 1: found it kind of boring and unpleasant. I much prefer Halloween,
Speaker 1: even if it came later. It's it's the real uh,
Speaker 1: it's the true progenitor here right in Halloween. It makes
Speaker 1: sense at Halloween, right, And and that's that's when we
Speaker 1: get into the kind of the enigma of the Christmas
Speaker 1: horror film. Um. I think that just the the just
Speaker 1: the idea of it even fascinates me because I have
Speaker 1: a very strong memory of being a child wandering the
Speaker 1: halls of the local VHS rental store and seeing the
Speaker 1: posters and box art for various Christmas horror films, especially
Speaker 1: stuff like Black Christmas and Silent Night Deadly Nine, but
Speaker 1: even stuff like Grimlin's um and seeing that stuff and
Speaker 1: just feeling like, well, this, this is wrong. This these
Speaker 1: films should not be because even though my family made
Speaker 1: a big deal about, uh, you know, about Halloween, we
Speaker 1: did all sorts of Halloween stuff. But then when you know,
Speaker 1: we got into Christmas, and as a child especially, you know,
Speaker 1: Christmas is a special time and I just I wanted
Speaker 1: it to be this, like, you know, this pure good thing,
Speaker 1: and it just felt wrong that there were these movies
Speaker 1: jumping in there and trying to make it grim or nasty.
Speaker 1: You know. Oh wow, I don't remember having that feeling
Speaker 1: at all. I definitely remember being both intrigued and actually,
Speaker 1: I think I could be wrong and having this memory,
Speaker 1: but I sort of recall finding it humorous, like looking
Speaker 1: at the cover of Silent Night, Deadly Night and seeing
Speaker 1: like the Santa suit arm with the acts and thinking
Speaker 1: that is funny. My my little seven year old brain
Speaker 1: doesn't quite know why it's funny. But I'm prowling through
Speaker 1: the R rated section of the Turtles video or I'm
Speaker 1: probably not supposed to be, and this this is funny.
Speaker 1: I wonder if part of it for me anyway, maybe
Speaker 1: for other folks out there, is that at Christmas time,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of the typical American holiday season, you
Speaker 1: have this um you know, there's this this increased um
Speaker 1: emphasis on the mythology and the fiction of the holiday,
Speaker 1: and in this uh, this idea that especially children should
Speaker 1: be allowed and encouraged to believe in it, and even
Speaker 1: past the point where their reason has actually kicked in
Speaker 1: and they're seeing the truth for what it is. And
Speaker 1: and so you know, therefore, perhaps these these these obvious
Speaker 1: horror inventions, they kind of mess with it, you know,
Speaker 1: because you're already having this crisis of belief in your
Speaker 1: own little head about the existence of Santa Claus. And
Speaker 1: if Santa Claus is perhaps not real, then then what
Speaker 1: about the baby Jesus? What about the rest of it?
Speaker 1: Is only half of it fake? You know, So you're
Speaker 1: going out, You're having this big crisis of belief, and
Speaker 1: then here's somebody else's is making up this, uh, this
Speaker 1: story about killer Santa's or whatnot. Well, the other way
Speaker 1: to frame it is, when you're seven years old, you
Speaker 1: still believe in Santa Claus. Seeing the concept of a
Speaker 1: horror movie where Santa Claus is wielding a bloody axe
Speaker 1: seems vaguely blasphemous or at least carries some kind of
Speaker 1: blasphemic weight. Yeah, I would definitely say so that that
Speaker 1: was exactly how I felt about these films growing up,
Speaker 1: is that these these this just blasphemy. It should not be.
Speaker 1: I mean, they didn't try and like you know, destroy
Speaker 1: the boxes or anything, but I was like, Nope, not
Speaker 1: for me. And I have to say, some of these
Speaker 1: films are still not from me. But I've gone back
Speaker 1: and watch some of them, and I appreciate. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's the interest thing about it is that it has
Speaker 1: not stopped, and when it will not stop, you're gonna
Speaker 1: keep having horror related uh, Christmas movies and holiday films
Speaker 1: coming out. And I I think maybe we've gotten better
Speaker 1: at it because I think we've had maybe an awakening
Speaker 1: in American culture anyway regarding like how are Christmas stories
Speaker 1: and wintertime traditions work? That you know, the realization that
Speaker 1: that the sort of department store Santa Claus vision of
Speaker 1: the holidays is one that was highly sanitized, and it
Speaker 1: had you had things like you know, child eating trolls
Speaker 1: and crampus removed from it. You had you'd removed the
Speaker 1: hostile winter aspects of the of these holiday traditions. And
Speaker 1: so the more that you realize that, yes, this is
Speaker 1: supposed to be a time in which there is darkness
Speaker 1: and the promise of light, uh, it makes more room
Speaker 1: for and in a way almost more honest explorations of
Speaker 1: that and sometimes and I think more fun. You know,
Speaker 1: things like what's the Santa Claus monster film Rare Exports
Speaker 1: that came out several years ago. That's a great one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like like that's that's that's fun. And yeah. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: watching that didn't like trigger any like Childhood Santa Claus
Speaker 1: blasphemy warnings for me. You know, it just felt like
Speaker 1: a fun monster flick. Yeah, I see what you're saying.
Speaker 1: And I will say, of that early crop of Christmas
Speaker 1: or you know, any general Solstice horror themed movies, the
Speaker 1: only one I really love is Gremlins. Like Black Christmas,
Speaker 1: Silent Silent Night, Deadly Night, all that stuff didn't really
Speaker 1: do it for me. Yeah, I mean, Gremlins has its
Speaker 1: own problems, but but at least it was trying on
Speaker 1: the whole to be fun, whereas I think some of
Speaker 1: these earlier films were just kind of like like here
Speaker 1: here it comes nasty Christmas, it comes here, here comes
Speaker 1: your horror Christmas. You like your Christmas? Will how about
Speaker 1: some murder in your Christmas? You know? Um. And I
Speaker 1: think it's just it's progressed as a as an art
Speaker 1: form since those days. And part of that might be that,
Speaker 1: you know, we can look back on those films as
Speaker 1: being kind of like a almost kind of you know,
Speaker 1: an anti establishment statement, you know, sort of striking against
Speaker 1: the the corporate purity of the traditional American holiday season.
Speaker 1: And uh, and I think that's that kind of leads
Speaker 1: into another reason why we keep having these films Because
Speaker 1: on one hand, yes, the darkness has always been a
Speaker 1: part of our winter festivals, and therefore there's a desire
Speaker 1: I think in us to have it in our our
Speaker 1: modern festivities. But on the other end of things, I
Speaker 1: feel like, if if Christmas and the holidays, if it's
Speaker 1: all feeling too fake, too purified, too forced upon you, um,
Speaker 1: a Christmas horror film is a way of sort of
Speaker 1: releasing the pressure. It feels like a way to rebalance everything,
Speaker 1: you know, a ninety minute hot topic t shirt of
Speaker 1: rebellion against norms and society. Yeah, and that's also like
Speaker 1: a huge reason I think that you see the Christmas
Speaker 1: thrown into the movies like this, you know, because the
Speaker 1: juxtaposition of Christmas alongside monster or Mayhem, blood or even
Speaker 1: you know, in an action movie situation like die Hard. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it can it can just be a way
Speaker 1: to get a reaction out of the audience and to
Speaker 1: make everything a little more novel. Now. I feel like
Speaker 1: that's especially the case of the more I don't know,
Speaker 1: irreverent or maybe at least latently satirical Christmas horror films.
Speaker 1: I guess it's a kind of different beast altogether. If
Speaker 1: you make a Christmas horror movie that itself take is
Speaker 1: very serious or takes itself very seriously. Well, this brings
Speaker 1: to mind Ridley Scott's Prometheus movie, which had some very
Speaker 1: uh you know, serious minded themes in it that it
Speaker 1: was trying to to bring across and then also had
Speaker 1: Christmas stuff in it, and they seem to be genuinely
Speaker 1: trying to like make a connection there. You know, it's like,
Speaker 1: um and maybe trying a bit too hard. I totally
Speaker 1: forgot about Christmas being in there. What what? What's Christmas
Speaker 1: about it? It's just it is Christmas on the spaceship
Speaker 1: and they have like a Christmas tree or something. What
Speaker 1: rains this misremembering that I believe that Prometheus is a
Speaker 1: Christmas movie. Let's go to the tape Consus shapes with
Speaker 1: high colorion. M hmm, what the hell is that? It's Christmas?
Speaker 1: Need Holidays? So time is still moving. Mission briefing is
Speaker 1: about to start. Captain, I want to make your way down.
Speaker 1: Well I haven't had a breakfaste yet, but but we're
Speaker 1: not talking about Prometheus. Today we're talking about a different
Speaker 1: film entirely. We had a number of holiday horror films
Speaker 1: to consider, but we ended up going with the one
Speaker 1: that neither of us had seen before but had built
Speaker 1: up something of a reputation for weirdness, and that's Three's
Speaker 1: blood Beat. Where did you find this thing? This? This
Speaker 1: movie is so weird it made my toenails curl. What
Speaker 1: where did you find this? I believe earlier in the year,
Speaker 1: I was looking through just like a database. Maybe it
Speaker 1: was it was on Internet movie database, of course, but
Speaker 1: it might have been something like a Wikipedia. I was
Speaker 1: just looking at different genre films from different decades, and
Speaker 1: I noted that this one had been flagged as being
Speaker 1: a holiday or Christmas movie. Uh. So I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: holiday Christmas slasher, I'll put it in and uh, and
Speaker 1: maybe we'll come back to it when we get closer
Speaker 1: to the holidays themselves. And then when I started looking
Speaker 1: into a little bit more, I well, I watched the trailer,
Speaker 1: which we'll get to and that that kind of sold me.
Speaker 1: And uh. And then also Michael Weldon, in one of
Speaker 1: his psychotronic books, he had it listed. He was one
Speaker 1: of the sort of neutral listings where he didn't. He
Speaker 1: didn't passionately promoted, But he also didn't say it was bad.
Speaker 1: He just said it was a confusing movie with quote
Speaker 1: dream sequences, magical powers, nudity, and blood. Well, I'd say
Speaker 1: that's a mostly correct description, especially on the confusing part,
Speaker 1: because I paid close attention to this film and I
Speaker 1: do not understand what it was about. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: have a feeling you and I thought longer and harder
Speaker 1: about the meaning, the true meaning of this film, more
Speaker 1: than than most people. But but blood Beat one word,
Speaker 1: by the way, blood Beat, uh has a lot of
Speaker 1: things going for it for starters. It's it's not nearly
Speaker 1: as all in and on holiday sacrilege as most Christmas
Speaker 1: films are. So this one's not about making you feel
Speaker 1: bad about the about the holidays or anything. So I
Speaker 1: don't know, I liked it a little more for that. Uh. Secondly,
Speaker 1: it's a Wisconsin movie, and I think that makes for
Speaker 1: our first Wisconsin movie. Yeah, this movie has a fair
Speaker 1: quotient of of dub Bears type guys wearing flannel and
Speaker 1: trucker hats and and having uh you know, good mustaches.
Speaker 1: It's uh, it's this movie it's it's got bratt Verst
Speaker 1: and uh and you know cheese kurd just kind of
Speaker 1: flowing through its veins and it's enough to make you think, wow,
Speaker 1: this must be you know, Wisconsin indie film everybody, and
Speaker 1: it's from Wisconsin. The director, who will get to in
Speaker 1: a bit though, uh is French. But I'm not going
Speaker 1: to allow this to be considered our first French movie
Speaker 1: that we've watched on Weird how Cinema. We've got there
Speaker 1: are better choices to to to really represent French weird cinema. Okay,
Speaker 1: so what we've established so far is this is a
Speaker 1: Franco Wisconsinite indie Christmas horror film that what subgenre of
Speaker 1: horror would you put it in? Maybe? Um, uh, psychic slashers, Yes,
Speaker 1: I think psychic slasher would be Uh, it would be
Speaker 1: accurate and uh and I'll tell you another fun thing
Speaker 1: about this is that, in similar to films like Troll
Speaker 1: two and Spooky's that we've we've looked at on the
Speaker 1: show before, uh, it involves mostly people who really didn't
Speaker 1: do anything or at all, or or or anything else
Speaker 1: besides this picture in terms of you know, other film appearances,
Speaker 1: which which can be in a way it can be
Speaker 1: um kind of liberating, like I love, you know, making
Speaker 1: these connections to other films and you know, thinking about, oh,
Speaker 1: what were they in? What were they And you go
Speaker 1: in to it too at times and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: if nothing else, I know, well Peter laure is in it,
Speaker 1: so he's going to do something interesting. That that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. But with a movie like this, it can
Speaker 1: feel like it just came from another universe. Or maybe
Speaker 1: that's like it's not a film at all, but something real,
Speaker 1: you know. In keeping with the psychic theme, I would
Speaker 1: say this movie feels like a dream somebody had about
Speaker 1: a movie that didn't exist, except they managed to project it,
Speaker 1: like psychic photography or that. What was that we talked.
Speaker 1: We did an episode on the supposed a phenomenon like
Speaker 1: projected thermography, people just printing their dreams and imagery on
Speaker 1: on on photographic plates. Um. I don't think people can
Speaker 1: actually do that, by the way, but but yeah, I
Speaker 1: just imagine that happened for somebody's dream, and it was
Speaker 1: the kind of thing where while you're watching it, you
Speaker 1: just accept because it's a dream that oh, yeah, these
Speaker 1: are actors I would know. But then of course when
Speaker 1: you wake up, you're like, oh, wait a minute, those
Speaker 1: aren't people that they came out of my subconscious Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, this would probably be worth looking at
Speaker 1: even if it was just like a just a whole
Speaker 1: much of non sequitors. It was just like one weird
Speaker 1: dream sequence after the other. You know, their films like
Speaker 1: that that I have enjoyed over the years. But this
Speaker 1: movie does have a plot, and even better than that,
Speaker 1: it seems weirdly ambitious. It's it's kind of punching above
Speaker 1: its weight a little bit and trying to say something,
Speaker 1: which is always the kuda gras with a good D film, Right.
Speaker 1: I mean, so most slasher films, you know, the people involved, No,
Speaker 1: they're making trash. And and so the question is are
Speaker 1: do they know how to make fun trash or do
Speaker 1: they end up making just boring, miserable trash. But no,
Speaker 1: in this case, you can it's quite clear that somebody
Speaker 1: involved at least thought they were making art. Yes, all right, well,
Speaker 1: let's let's talk elevator pitch for this film. I was
Speaker 1: thinking holidays with family are rough, especially when mom is
Speaker 1: psychic and your girlfriend is possessed by a samurai. Yeah,
Speaker 1: holiday family gatherings can be awkward enough already. Uh, it
Speaker 1: just gets worse when they're just like a psychically projected
Speaker 1: ghost samurai running around slashing everybody's throat. Yeah. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: Mom's constantly eavesdropping on you through her psychic paintings that
Speaker 1: are hung all over the house. Yes, all right, Well,
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and listen to the trailer here, and
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna we may be playing the trailer
Speaker 1: in full because it has a wonderful grindhalcy like echo
Speaker 1: vibe to it. A devil, a devil, I'm torning what
Speaker 1: you worn, what you lives, lives, breaves held, paralyzed with fears,
Speaker 1: with fears, it kills as skill as mutilates, mutila anyone,
Speaker 1: and it's us one, and it's tormented by a psychic house. Bloody, bloody,
Speaker 1: horrileful press is blood blood ready, blood lunch blood set. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just sounds grimy. Was this the one that everything it
Speaker 1: says it says twice? Yes, at least twice. There's like
Speaker 1: this weird echo thing, And it's like, even even though
Speaker 1: you're you're out there listening to this podcast and you
Speaker 1: could not see the footage, you probably had like audible
Speaker 1: cigarette burns inside your your skull, you know, like you
Speaker 1: can imagine that sort of gritty uh you know it
Speaker 1: made eighty three film, but still that you would get
Speaker 1: that kind of like nineteen seventies grit on the footage
Speaker 1: this trailer has the sound of somebody getting a like
Speaker 1: beer that they snuck in in their boot out and
Speaker 1: cracking it open in the dark. Absolutely. All right, Well
Speaker 1: let's talk about the people. And again I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: remind everyone that the connections on this are not gonna
Speaker 1: be as robust as some of our other films, but
Speaker 1: it's still worth looking at at who these folks were,
Speaker 1: uhland or are. Uh So let's start at the top.
Speaker 1: The director, the writer. Also credits for music, film editing,
Speaker 1: and camera operation go to Fabrice on Gay Zafaratos. Um
Speaker 1: This is a French director who prior to this, made
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventy seven film La Grand Freman The Large Farm.
Speaker 1: I believe that translates to which may or may not
Speaker 1: involve a motorcycle based on the cover art. Blood Beat
Speaker 1: was his second film and his last film. He has
Speaker 1: some connection to um Ri Zafaratos, who produced and directed
Speaker 1: and Road and was very active in the reasonably active
Speaker 1: in the six season seventies. But this is a figure
Speaker 1: that I could not find any English translations regarding like.
Speaker 1: There seems to be like a French Wikipedia article about him,
Speaker 1: but I don't know that he's widely known outside of that.
Speaker 1: And I'm not even sure that this is in fact
Speaker 1: our director of Blood Beats Father. But there seems to
Speaker 1: be some family connection there matter. Maybe it's an uncle.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Um, But anyway, this film Blood Beat,
Speaker 1: for better or Worse is Zapharatos the younger's vision, and
Speaker 1: his vision is weird. The film is certainly confusing. Um,
Speaker 1: it's ambitious, it's kind of it's all over the place
Speaker 1: in some respects. But he was trying to say something,
Speaker 1: or at least was trying to rope all this together
Speaker 1: into a narrative that made sense and said something. Uh,
Speaker 1: though with varying degrees of success. Now I mentioned that
Speaker 1: he has a music credit, so I just want to
Speaker 1: add quick note on the music. The score here varies
Speaker 1: from works of classical music, including very well known pieces
Speaker 1: like Karl Orff's Carmina burana Is is used during the
Speaker 1: finale for example. Uh, And I just have to say
Speaker 1: that the use especially of classical music, but of all
Speaker 1: the music is actually one of the funniest and weirdest
Speaker 1: things about this movie. There are a number of scenes
Speaker 1: that are already strange, but they're pushed over the line
Speaker 1: by having music that feels like nobody else would select
Speaker 1: this this music to go with this scene. So like
Speaker 1: a scene of characters sitting around on a couch just
Speaker 1: sort of being awkward, but it's playing these like fast
Speaker 1: classical strings, like all these glassondi. It's like, what is
Speaker 1: going on? Just the music frequently does not match the
Speaker 1: tone of the scene, or to the extent that it does,
Speaker 1: it's just heightening something, uh that that feels kind of
Speaker 1: off about the scene. Yeah, and then they'll other times
Speaker 1: they'll throw in Gregorian chant. There's definitely a bit that, uh.
Speaker 1: But then other times it gives you exactly what you
Speaker 1: might expect and hope for with the film of this caliber,
Speaker 1: and that is kind of amateur esque electronic music um,
Speaker 1: which at times I think worked pretty well, especially when
Speaker 1: you've got this kind of pulse pounding electronic vibe going um.
Speaker 1: At least in a few scenes that it worked pretty well.
Speaker 1: A lot of the electronic music in this movie is
Speaker 1: what I would refer to. Maybe there's another name for
Speaker 1: this that already exists, but what I would call boying
Speaker 1: boying music. Uh. This movie, actually it contains a lot
Speaker 1: of synthesizers that sound like cartoons, spring sound effects, you know,
Speaker 1: bl blont blant and then uh and then of course
Speaker 1: usually offset with the sound of heartbeats, which are used
Speaker 1: frequently in the soundtrack throughout the whole film. Now you
Speaker 1: said heartbeats, I think you'll find that those are blood beats.
Speaker 1: Oh excuse me, yes, I stand corrected. All right. So
Speaker 1: we we have a limited cast in this because it
Speaker 1: basically a cerns a boyfriend bringing his girlfriend home to
Speaker 1: meet his family at Christmas. Let's start with the mom.
Speaker 1: The mom is Kathie and she is played by Helen
Speaker 1: bent Tone Uh. Dates unknown for her. This is her
Speaker 1: only film role, but I thought she was mostly pretty good.
Speaker 1: Is the distracted art mom who also has the shinning, yeah,
Speaker 1: heavy shinning. I don't know what an actor should have
Speaker 1: done with this role, but you know what, I'm going
Speaker 1: to give credit to Helen Mintone because I mean, what's
Speaker 1: off about this role is all in the script. I mean,
Speaker 1: unless the actor was improvising. I don't think she was so.
Speaker 1: Uh So this is a very weird character. But but
Speaker 1: I think Helen Bentone does does the best that could
Speaker 1: be done with it. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's not
Speaker 1: one of those where you're you're gawking at her performance
Speaker 1: or anything and and wondering what you're doing. Like she's
Speaker 1: doing the best you can clearly, and uh A lot
Speaker 1: of the time that seems to work, all right. And
Speaker 1: then we also have Gary, whose mom's boyfriend than this,
Speaker 1: and Darry is played by Terry Brown. This is a
Speaker 1: guy that's he's cut from the same raw block of
Speaker 1: masculinity that such figures as Ross Dour roused Our rather
Speaker 1: from the final sacrifice was cut from. Yes, he's a
Speaker 1: he's a hunter, he's an outdoorsman. He's uh he's weathered
Speaker 1: by the northern planes and then the harsh winds. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, there's like a scene where he's
Speaker 1: laying shirtless in a bed and his skin is surprisingly
Speaker 1: smooth and youthful looking. It's very funny. So the dates
Speaker 1: are unknown for the actor Terry Brown as well, but
Speaker 1: Brown actually pops up in some other films, generally in
Speaker 1: much smaller roles. He followed up blood Beat with Dark Rider,
Speaker 1: starring Joe Estevez. You know it's good if it's got
Speaker 1: that Joe Esteves seal u um. And also he pops
Speaker 1: up in a movie from titled My Samurai, So there's
Speaker 1: to two Samurai films and and what is you know
Speaker 1: very much a small filmography. That film, by the way,
Speaker 1: had Mako and Tario Quinn in it, Teryo Quinn. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Brown also pops up I think just bit parts copycat.
Speaker 1: He shows up on Nash Bridges and also the Princess Diaries, okay,
Speaker 1: and playing Gary from Bloody in the Princess Diaries. As Gary,
Speaker 1: he's pretty good. Um, he's believable as as this hunter guy.
Speaker 1: Though there are times I don't know if you've noticed this,
Speaker 1: but there are times where he has like he suddenly
Speaker 1: has to be emotional and he just, to my eyes,
Speaker 1: he just ratches it up way too far. Like suddenly
Speaker 1: he's just like he's like really animated and angry, when
Speaker 1: the rest of the time he's he's pretty chill and
Speaker 1: laid back. I don't know if i'd say he's a
Speaker 1: good actor, but he's quite likable. Yeah. Yeah, there's there's
Speaker 1: something naturally likable about the guy playing this role, uh
Speaker 1: that that shines through and also makes his um his
Speaker 1: moments of being kind of unreasonable and upset not all
Speaker 1: that believable. All right, let's get back to the Sun.
Speaker 1: The Sun is kd played by James Fitzgibbons. Dates unknown,
Speaker 1: one of only two screen credits, and he looks kind
Speaker 1: of like a cross between Bennedict Cumberbatch and Don Jr. Yeah, uh,
Speaker 1: he he's got to look he Early in the movie,
Speaker 1: there's a scene where he's wearing a black sweater tucked
Speaker 1: into his jeans and I was like, well, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: how I would just that's what I used to describe
Speaker 1: his character. Yeah, um, And you know I could. But
Speaker 1: I think this actor is fine in this role. Like
Speaker 1: I bought into him being this this character and did
Speaker 1: not think much about this as a performance. And I
Speaker 1: guess the same could be said, uh for his sister Dolly.
Speaker 1: The character's sister Dolly played by Dana Day Dates unknown
Speaker 1: for her as well, and this is her only film role.
Speaker 1: And then finally we have Sarah, whose Ked's poor girl
Speaker 1: friend who has to come out here into the middle
Speaker 1: of nowhere and was Anson and visit this family at Christmas,
Speaker 1: and she is played by Claudia Peyton. Claudia Peyton lived
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty six through two thousand and twelve. This is
Speaker 1: her only film role. Um, but uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: think she was quite good in this as the psionically
Speaker 1: and spiritually sensitive girlfriend having to visit her boyfriend's family
Speaker 1: in rural Wisconsin. Her obituary reveals that she was actually
Speaker 1: a pretty highly trained with an m A and several
Speaker 1: certificates in the Alexander technique, which I'm to understand is
Speaker 1: an alternative therapy based in acting for actors. Uh. She
Speaker 1: attended Drama Studio London and seems to have taught acting
Speaker 1: in New York City and in Chicago for a large
Speaker 1: part of her life. You know. Also, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know what she should have done with this character,
Speaker 1: but but what she did was enjoyable. I guess. Like
Speaker 1: in almost every shot of the movie, I mean literally,
Speaker 1: i'd say nine percent plus of the shots, including her face,
Speaker 1: she's making an expression the sounds like it should be
Speaker 1: accompanied by a vocalization, kind of like like she just
Speaker 1: looks perpetually in a in a state of uh near
Speaker 1: paralysis with awkward anxiety. Yeah, yeah, and and it and it.
Speaker 1: I think it largely works because at hard this is
Speaker 1: a film about feeling awkward at your your boyfriend's parents house.
Speaker 1: And I think you know, we we've all been in
Speaker 1: some version of this scenario before. Many of us have
Speaker 1: been in some version of this scenario. Um where you know,
Speaker 1: the awkwardness that this film is is trying to portray
Speaker 1: and is ultimately based entirely around you know, like that
Speaker 1: is uh you know, they say, you know, go with
Speaker 1: what you know, you know, make sure there's this core
Speaker 1: of truth to your strange speculative story. Well, this is
Speaker 1: the this is the core of truth to this motion picture.
Speaker 1: Sure enough. No, now what happens here? Are we going
Speaker 1: to try to explain the plot? I guess there will
Speaker 1: be spoilers. There probably have already been spoilers, but I
Speaker 1: don't know if it makes a difference. No, No, I
Speaker 1: think you can. You can go into this one spoiled
Speaker 1: and it's still gonna perplex you. Okay, Well, are you ready?
Speaker 1: Let's do it? Okay. So the first thing we get
Speaker 1: is Boying Boying music like I was talking about earlier,
Speaker 1: and you know, the title it looks like it would
Speaker 1: be a nice logo for a board game, don't you agree. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like blood Beat from Milton Bradley. It's got it's
Speaker 1: got a nice font and then blood dripping down the letters,
Speaker 1: and then it's got a cartoon dagger stabbing into the
Speaker 1: d in the word blood. Uh, though, I wonder why
Speaker 1: it's a dagger. This dagger I'm pretty sure does not
Speaker 1: feature in the movie. That this should have been a katana. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it should. It should have been, like that's the whole thing.
Speaker 1: It's a killer psychic samurai with a real I think
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be real or it becomes real katana.
Speaker 1: So when things actually get going in the movie with
Speaker 1: with live action, and we see shots of a peaceful
Speaker 1: forest in winter and you've got you know, the trees
Speaker 1: are bear dead, leaves covering the land, and we see
Speaker 1: an icy stream winding its way through moss covered rocks
Speaker 1: and fallen limbs. It's very nice, but then also really loud,
Speaker 1: intrusive synth melodies of a kind of nursery rhyme music
Speaker 1: box of variety. And then we see a hunter. So
Speaker 1: he's this figure creeping through the forest at a rapid
Speaker 1: pace and he's wearing camo heavy leather boots. Uh. He's
Speaker 1: carrying a big compound bow and he's listening to a walkman.
Speaker 1: He's got like a portable cassette player with headphones. Is
Speaker 1: that normal for hunters? Maybe? I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean what one imagines it's Aureo Speedwagon playing on
Speaker 1: the walkman, I don't know why. No, I think it's
Speaker 1: diagetic music. He's listening to the boing boying music. That's
Speaker 1: where I was coming from. And so we see him.
Speaker 1: You know, he catches sight of something, he kneels, he
Speaker 1: draws back an arrow, he's shoots at something, and then
Speaker 1: you know the to he clearly he made the kill. Uh.
Speaker 1: So we cut straight to a pickup truck arriving back
Speaker 1: home at a house kind of like a farmhouse out
Speaker 1: in the the frozen waste land of Wisconsin. And there's
Speaker 1: a woman in a colorful shawl standing in the doorway.
Speaker 1: So this is Kathy. This is the mom. And everything
Speaker 1: up to this point has had kind of a strange,
Speaker 1: ominous tone, but it's very much broken when the hunter,
Speaker 1: who turns out to be her boyfriend Gary, starts talking.
Speaker 1: He gets out of the car, and then he's immediately
Speaker 1: he has the energy of a kid wanting to show
Speaker 1: you the four they made in the woods. He's like,
Speaker 1: all right, honey, I got one. Come look, and he's
Speaker 1: like bent over and running around real fast. And so
Speaker 1: Cathy comes to look at the deer in the bed
Speaker 1: of the pickup truck. But then she immediately has some
Speaker 1: kind of psychic reaction, and you know, she's like oh,
Speaker 1: and she backs up and and he's all, you know,
Speaker 1: startled by this. He's like, hey, you know you've seen
Speaker 1: me show up with lots of dead deer before. Is
Speaker 1: is this a migraine? And she seems to agree, um,
Speaker 1: And they go back inside and there's a nice little
Speaker 1: breakfast table scene, though in the first of many this
Speaker 1: will be the scene will be strangely accented by classical
Speaker 1: strings apparently playing on the radio. Uh. And then in
Speaker 1: the foreground will get a strong performance by a box
Speaker 1: of Kellogg's All brand and a prominent tub of Skippy,
Speaker 1: which I think is peanut butter. Now do you present
Speaker 1: me with a still of this thing? This is a
Speaker 1: complete breakfast he's about to have there. It looks like
Speaker 1: two slabs of keish on a plate, multiple bowls are prepared,
Speaker 1: multiple uh mugs and cups are arranged around him like
Speaker 1: this is this is quite a spread. That's not even
Speaker 1: the whole, that's just at Gary's place at the table.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it looks like Gary is having waffles, keysh tu,
Speaker 1: bowls of cereal, two cups of coffee, maybe a bowl
Speaker 1: of peanut butter. I'm not sure, but so anyway, this
Speaker 1: is Kathy and Gary the hunter is is the boyfriend
Speaker 1: Gary and uh that we we find out. The situation
Speaker 1: is they're about to have Kathy's kids up to visit
Speaker 1: the house for Christmas, and Gary wants to surprise the
Speaker 1: kids by telling them that he and Kathy are going
Speaker 1: to get married. He's he's he's being all sweet, but
Speaker 1: Kathy is not in favor. She's like, I've told you
Speaker 1: so many times, I don't want to get married again.
Speaker 1: And then this makes Gary upset and he goes outside
Speaker 1: to gutt a deer. Warning by the way, I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously this is an O rated movie with all kinds
Speaker 1: of content, but if you're bothered by realistic looking depictions
Speaker 1: of animal gutting, this looks like a real deer gutting
Speaker 1: to me, Yeah, yeah, this this looks like a real
Speaker 1: dead dear. So he's out doing that. And then some
Speaker 1: kids arrive. Now at first I could not tell who
Speaker 1: was who. Who were Kathy's kids? Um, but so Kathy's
Speaker 1: kids are the son named Ted and then the daughter
Speaker 1: named Dolly. And then it's also Sarah in the car,
Speaker 1: who is Ted's. He introduces her as his friend. She's
Speaker 1: a girlfriend. And so they arrived to find Gary gutting
Speaker 1: the deer. And then he's all excited to see them
Speaker 1: arrive and he just hugs him without washing his hands.
Speaker 1: He's just got deer guts everywhere and he's just grabbing them. Um.
Speaker 1: I've got multiple stills of that for you to look
Speaker 1: at here Rob with the deer hanging in the background
Speaker 1: and him being like, oh so good to see. You're
Speaker 1: just getting blood on their coats. And from like I said,
Speaker 1: from the moment we meet Sarah, she seems totally uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: She she's making the face and uh, it's kind of
Speaker 1: Marge Simpson noise. Uh energy and uh and oh boy,
Speaker 1: just from from the first moment of contact between Sarah
Speaker 1: and Cathy, there is some kind of psychic friction, like
Speaker 1: they meet face to face, and then these Geiger counter
Speaker 1: sound effects start firing off. So so at this point
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, it looks like we have at
Speaker 1: least two I get characters here, or at least the
Speaker 1: mom is psychic and senses something about the new girlfriend. Right,
Speaker 1: And then this is great too, because it's like the
Speaker 1: movie is saying mom does not trust your girlfriend, and
Speaker 1: and it's also saying your girlfriend is highly suspicious of
Speaker 1: your mom. And uh And I think these two feelings
Speaker 1: and vary variations on them will ring true to a
Speaker 1: lot of people, you know, especially when you're dealing with
Speaker 1: a first of family meeting like this. It's what this
Speaker 1: movie lacks in many kinds of very similitude. It does
Speaker 1: achieve awkward family gathering very similitude. So they go inside
Speaker 1: and Gary's washing the mammal guts off his hands after
Speaker 1: he's touched like four people at least, and then uh
Speaker 1: Ted is showing Sarah around the house and he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, you've got the Christmas tree, You've got his gun.
Speaker 1: He's like, here's my gun. And then you've got Cathy's
Speaker 1: unsettling abstract paintings all over the walls that look like
Speaker 1: you know, bloodstains and and uh rifts in the subconscious
Speaker 1: and uh you know, fissures out of which demons erupt.
Speaker 1: And again we see some kind of intangible uh mind
Speaker 1: connection between Kathy and Sarah, because Sarah looks at Kathy's
Speaker 1: paintings and she's she's kind of spacing out staring at them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's some nice, almost like Dario Argento esque shots
Speaker 1: of her, like staring with the painting frame behind her. Um,
Speaker 1: you know. And I guess it's accentuated too by this
Speaker 1: kind of like early eighties hairstyle, etcetera. Right, And so
Speaker 1: Ted's over here obliviously fiddling with his rifle. I don't
Speaker 1: know why he's doing that. And he's complaining that he
Speaker 1: doesn't get to do any hunting when he's away at school.
Speaker 1: So I guess he's supposed to be in college, I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: And he's just you know, he's excited to be home
Speaker 1: where with Gary. Anyway, it seems like it's just hunting,
Speaker 1: Like he's been out hunting all morning and he's gonna
Speaker 1: go do it again. You know, there's those shirts that
Speaker 1: say I'd rather be fishing. Ted's would say, I'd rather
Speaker 1: be hunting with mom's boyfriend. But then things start getting
Speaker 1: strange because there is a present waiting for Sarah under
Speaker 1: the Christmas tree. But how could that be because Ted
Speaker 1: didn't tell anyone about Sarah. They didn't know about her,
Speaker 1: they didn't know she was coming. So how did Kathy
Speaker 1: know to get her a present? Well, Kathy just says
Speaker 1: a mother knows everything, and everybody's like, well, okay, is
Speaker 1: there ever any payoff with that? Do we find out
Speaker 1: what the gift was? I don't think so. No, unless
Speaker 1: it was the samurai armor that shows up later. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean watching this film, I'm guessing it's
Speaker 1: just like Bath and body Works soap, you know, some
Speaker 1: sort of just just generic soap gift that mom had
Speaker 1: on hand, and she's just covering it's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I got your gift. It's like a dull version of
Speaker 1: Sarah with a bunch of needles stuck in it. That yeah,
Speaker 1: one of the two extremes. Things just keep getting weirder though.
Speaker 1: So Ted is showing uh Sarah to the guest room,
Speaker 1: and well, so, first all I gotta say about this room,
Speaker 1: this is something I never figured out The whole movie.
Speaker 1: Is there just this narrow pole running from floor to
Speaker 1: ceiling in the middle of this room. There are some
Speaker 1: interesting um features in this house that become apparent in
Speaker 1: some shots that make me wonder about like the era
Speaker 1: idea in which this house was built, or just sort
Speaker 1: of like older Wisconsin houses in general. Because there's one
Speaker 1: where we clearly see some sort of event on the
Speaker 1: floor that that I guess opens up into the room
Speaker 1: beneath it, as if they were like vents included to
Speaker 1: make sure that heat rose like through the floor into
Speaker 1: the upper floor. So I don't know, people who live
Speaker 1: in old Wisconsin creepy houses right in and let us
Speaker 1: know what some of this is about. I don't know
Speaker 1: what this pole is because it doesn't look wide enough
Speaker 1: to be a load bearing pole. It looks it's like
Speaker 1: about the diameter of like a length of rebar, except
Speaker 1: it goes from the floor to the ceiling right in
Speaker 1: the middle of the room like it like he would
Speaker 1: run straight into it getting up to go to the
Speaker 1: bathroom in the night. I mean, I only guess is
Speaker 1: some sort of like temporary support strut for a ceiling
Speaker 1: that needs to be repaired, and maybe they were shooting
Speaker 1: in an old house. I don't know. Yeah. Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: once we're in the room, Sarah starts having hallucinations. She's
Speaker 1: seeing everything in like in photo negative, these rose colored textures,
Speaker 1: and she's I think, hallucinating the sound of a baby crying. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Ted is telling this weird story in the background about
Speaker 1: how did you want? So? I think he says, there
Speaker 1: used to be a friend of Cathy's who lived in
Speaker 1: this room, and he says, quote, he was some psychoanalyst
Speaker 1: or something like that meditation he called it. One day
Speaker 1: he just packed up and left just a few lines
Speaker 1: on a piece of paper and that was it. Uh
Speaker 1: And I don't think we ever get any more explanation
Speaker 1: about that, or that it ever comes up again. But
Speaker 1: it makes me wonder, what is this guy connected to
Speaker 1: the samurai at all? This movie loves to throw out
Speaker 1: cantalizing clues that are never enough for us to form
Speaker 1: any kind of concrete hypothesis about what's what's going on,
Speaker 1: you know, like it's just enough to make you think, well,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe the director writer here does know what all
Speaker 1: this connects to, but also makes you suspect that perhaps
Speaker 1: he does not. Yeah, uh so Ted and Sarah they
Speaker 1: get into an uncomfortable makeout session, and then uh, they
Speaker 1: start having a conversation in the middle of that about
Speaker 1: how Sarah's like, your mom is making me uncomfortable. It's
Speaker 1: like she's in the room right now with us, and
Speaker 1: Ted's like, ah, that's ridiculous. She's she's painting. She's off
Speaker 1: painting somewhere. And meanwhile, it keeps hilariously cutting to Kathy
Speaker 1: in her art studio, just making the psychic hour glass
Speaker 1: cursor face. You know, she's just in an error message mode.
Speaker 1: I guess, presumably psychically spying on that. I don't know.
Speaker 1: So I think one of the lessons of this movie
Speaker 1: is that if your boyfriend is ever like, don't worry,
Speaker 1: my mom is not spying on us right now with
Speaker 1: Stargate brain, don't believe him. That's right. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: for all its pretensions, of this movie is about the
Speaker 1: fear that mom can hear you and your girlfriend making
Speaker 1: out in your old room. But I think this is
Speaker 1: the point where we cut to some driving. Right, oh yeah, beauty.
Speaker 1: So it's just like, okay, next day, how about next day? Uh?
Speaker 1: And the next morning we see a truck. At first,
Speaker 1: I thought this was Gary, but it's not Gary. It's
Speaker 1: somebody else driving a pickup truck with a camper top
Speaker 1: on it. Uh, just flooring it. They're like on the radio.
Speaker 1: I think they're on a CBE saying red baron the
Speaker 1: lone Painter. I don't know what any of this means,
Speaker 1: but we see the truck is literally getting like air
Speaker 1: time going over hills. It's like flying up off as
Speaker 1: if off of a ramp. Yeah, it's just a totally
Speaker 1: unnecessary vehicular stunt, just thrown in. Like there's I mean,
Speaker 1: we get that that Uncle Pete is eager to get
Speaker 1: to the hunt, like somewhere a deer is breathing and
Speaker 1: it must be hunted. Um and and hunting is all
Speaker 1: the fun in these parts. But was it necessary for
Speaker 1: the truck to be airborne? Very good? Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: This movie in general does a bizarre job of introducing
Speaker 1: the character of Uncle Pete because you meet him without
Speaker 1: seeing his face. You just hear his voice and you
Speaker 1: see his car, and then you never see his face
Speaker 1: until minutes later, Like the characters talk about him arriving,
Speaker 1: and he arrives, but you never get a close shot
Speaker 1: of him. And then in the next scene. He's just
Speaker 1: sort of in it. But like usually when there's a
Speaker 1: new character, you will get a head on shot of
Speaker 1: it so you can see their face and what they
Speaker 1: look like. This movie, nope, it is just okay, Uncle
Speaker 1: Pete's in the mix. Now. I guess you'll figure out
Speaker 1: which one he is. Yeah, they don't really make you
Speaker 1: anticipate Uncle Pete in anyway. You're not really looking forward
Speaker 1: to meeting him. There's not you know, there's no stories
Speaker 1: about him. Um. I mean, he clearly really floors it
Speaker 1: when he's driving around, but aside from that, there's nothing
Speaker 1: to really make you want to meet him. And then
Speaker 1: when he shows up, there's not really any fan fare either.
Speaker 1: But so you're right, Uncle Pete is. He's he's obsessed
Speaker 1: with deer hunting apparently, so they all want to go
Speaker 1: out hunting in the woods, and they do. I think
Speaker 1: basically everybody except Kathie the mom goes deer hunting. Um.
Speaker 1: And there were some I gotta admit, I don't know
Speaker 1: much about hunting. I've never been hunting, and so I
Speaker 1: clearly don't have any expertise. But some things about this
Speaker 1: seemed implausible to me, Like is it normal to go
Speaker 1: bow hunting on horseback in the woods, and where did
Speaker 1: all the horses come from? And uh, if there's a
Speaker 1: part where they have to be like crawling on their
Speaker 1: bellies under barbed wire fences, which makes me think are
Speaker 1: they supposed to be there? Maybe they're trespassing. Uh And
Speaker 1: I could be wrong, but it looked like one character
Speaker 1: is carrying a lever action rifle. Is that normal for
Speaker 1: deer hunting? And I don't know, Yeah, like they're they're
Speaker 1: doing a mix of of bow hunting and rifle hunting
Speaker 1: for the deer, which yeah, I guess could be a thing.
Speaker 1: But I always again, I grew up with bows and
Speaker 1: rifles around, but I never went hunting. But I remember,
Speaker 1: you know, you would have the like bow hunting season
Speaker 1: and yeah, musket ball season or whatever, and then there's rifles.
Speaker 1: Like so I was under the assumption that like that,
Speaker 1: like bow and rifle hunters would not just mix like this,
Speaker 1: that you're either going to do one or the other.
Speaker 1: Well not just they're not just in the same hunting party.
Speaker 1: There's when they draw a bead on a deer. There's
Speaker 1: a scene of all four hunters aiming at the same deer.
Speaker 1: So two bows and two rifles all drawn down on
Speaker 1: this one dough. It's it's enough to it's it's enough
Speaker 1: to make you wonder, like if this is a case
Speaker 1: of like an outsider, you know, in this case, a
Speaker 1: French director trying to figure out what would be the
Speaker 1: authentic Wisconsin, um, you know, slice of life scenario and
Speaker 1: getting some things right, but maybe getting some things wrong
Speaker 1: just because you know, just coming at it from a
Speaker 1: from an outsider perspective. Well, I mean, I gotta admit again,
Speaker 1: I like, I don't really know anything about hunting. Maybe
Speaker 1: you would do this, but it certainly looked weird having
Speaker 1: this like four person firing squad for deer. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I don't know hunters right in and let us know.
Speaker 1: But but we're focusing on the you know, the details
Speaker 1: of the hunt here. But this is also one of
Speaker 1: the best sequences in the film, uh, at least a
Speaker 1: genuinely building up suspense because poor Sarah has been brought
Speaker 1: on this this trip. I think a lot of us
Speaker 1: can can sympathize with her, you know. Here she's she's
Speaker 1: she's hanging out with um, with this family that she's
Speaker 1: only just met, and they've brought her now on a
Speaker 1: hunting trip, and she's she's uncomfortable. Uh, she doesn't want
Speaker 1: to be there. She she definitely does not want to
Speaker 1: shoot a deer. Uh. But yet here she is, and
Speaker 1: we hear that music building up, right, and we hear
Speaker 1: that heartbeat, that blood beat. Uh, and it I felt
Speaker 1: like it genuinely built up tension in a nice way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she well, she's gone from This is one of her
Speaker 1: few scenes where she's not extremely apprehensive and instead she
Speaker 1: here I would say she looks soul annihilating, lee bored Uh,
Speaker 1: just like she's staring into space with uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the expression of having been waiting in line at a
Speaker 1: bank for seven hours. Well, I think that's and that's
Speaker 1: probably what hunting is like if you're not really into it, right,
Speaker 1: It is a lot of waiting around. I understand. Yes,
Speaker 1: I can imagine if you're not into it, it it would
Speaker 1: be quite boring. But but she goes from the boredom
Speaker 1: to like you're saying, when they're drawing down on this
Speaker 1: this deer, you know, yeah, it builds up the tension.
Speaker 1: There's the heartbeat sound effect and and uh and and
Speaker 1: like you say this, the sequence is quite good. But
Speaker 1: then right before they shoot, Sarah suddenly stands up. She
Speaker 1: turns green and red. She screams, and they all miss
Speaker 1: and then she runs away. So immediately everybody is like
Speaker 1: Uncle Pete's mad. And then Ted goes running off after her,
Speaker 1: and she sort of meanders through the woods until I
Speaker 1: had to rewind this part. I was like, did I
Speaker 1: miss something? But no, she just randomly collides with another
Speaker 1: guy that we have not met before. Am I correct?
Speaker 1: This is a toe rely new character, right, I had
Speaker 1: to do the same thing. I thought I'd missed something
Speaker 1: that I was looking down at my screen or something,
Speaker 1: so I backed it up as well. But no, she
Speaker 1: just suddenly runs into a guy, a totally new character,
Speaker 1: but but very much dressed like all the other locals. Yes,
Speaker 1: but he but this guy but he's not like a
Speaker 1: new character we're about to meet. He's dying, so he's
Speaker 1: been gutted, but somebody turned his stomach into a jack
Speaker 1: O lantern and he's covered in blood. And I guess,
Speaker 1: for the second time today, Sarah is going to get
Speaker 1: a man with bloody hands just like grabbing her jacket
Speaker 1: and uh. And then so this guy just dies there.
Speaker 1: He just kind of looks like a a blonder Robert
Speaker 1: Redford ish kind of guy. Uh, and he's dead there
Speaker 1: on the fourth floor. Oh and then there's a there's
Speaker 1: a scene with the cops that I thought was funny
Speaker 1: because really the only thing that happens in it is
Speaker 1: they just repeatedly established that nobody knew who this guy was,
Speaker 1: which seems weird, right, Like that just raises more questions. Um,
Speaker 1: I guess maybe it's you don't have to spend as
Speaker 1: much dialogue establishing the fact. But so anyway, they get
Speaker 1: back home and then uh, there there is mounting tension
Speaker 1: with the family because, as with the earlier scenes, Sarah
Speaker 1: is bothered by uh, well by the experience in the woods,
Speaker 1: but then also by Ted's mother. He's you know, he's like, uh,
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, don't worry about anything, But she's like, no,
Speaker 1: your mother. She makes me uncomfortable. And I think she
Speaker 1: thinks that Kathy is spying on her through the paintings
Speaker 1: in the bedroom, like that the paintings function like psychic
Speaker 1: CCTV cameras, and so she has Ted removed the paintings
Speaker 1: from the bedroom. But then we find out that the
Speaker 1: apprehension goes both ways. Because Ted goes down to Kathy's
Speaker 1: painting studio and there Ted is having this conversation with
Speaker 1: his mom and she warns him about Sarah. She's like,
Speaker 1: I just want you to be careful. There's something about her.
Speaker 1: I've seen her before. I don't understand it, but I
Speaker 1: know her. Meanwhile, Gregorian chance in the background, and it's
Speaker 1: another case of the hints set connections and never fully established,
Speaker 1: but that keep us watching. Somewhere around here is where
Speaker 1: there's a scene where Ted and Dolly are playing Monopoly,
Speaker 1: but there's a cat lying on the monopoly board and
Speaker 1: just flopping all around on it, which is excellent. Yep,
Speaker 1: solid slice of life right there. But I think here
Speaker 1: is the scene where the movie just starts to really
Speaker 1: escalate the weirdness and sort of never stops until the end.
Speaker 1: So here, uh, Sarah is lying in bed and Cathy's painting,
Speaker 1: and simultaneously they start having psychic experiences. Like Cathy starts
Speaker 1: having a Danny Torrence red Rum style psychic episode. She's like, uh,
Speaker 1: sort of groaning and and wiggling and uh and drawing
Speaker 1: uncontrollably on her on her on her canvas. I guess
Speaker 1: with non dominant hand. And then meanwhile, uh, Sarah up
Speaker 1: in the bedroom finds a treasure chest full of samurai
Speaker 1: armor and a katana next to the bed and does
Speaker 1: the thing that people always do in movies when they
Speaker 1: find a blade, test to see if it's sharp and
Speaker 1: cut their fingers. Why every movie? Why do people do this?
Speaker 1: People don't do this very often in real life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh, I mean, I think obviously from the movie perspective,
Speaker 1: it's because you get to have a little blood in there,
Speaker 1: and because it's the little things that we can feel.
Speaker 1: Someone gets their arm lopped off with a samurai sword,
Speaker 1: we can't compare to that. But if somebody like touches
Speaker 1: the edge of it too much, um, you know, or
Speaker 1: it gets a paper cut. Uh, you know, that cannick
Speaker 1: us out. And so, you know, from is in a
Speaker 1: way of like keeping the audience engaged and physically invested
Speaker 1: in the film. It's a solid choice. But yeah, who
Speaker 1: does this? Who picks up the sword and starts running
Speaker 1: their finger across it? Well, I mean I can even
Speaker 1: touch the blade of a knife to see how sharp
Speaker 1: it is without cutting myself. That this is like I
Speaker 1: would assume a skill. Anybody who can handle a knife.
Speaker 1: Has but we have to remember, as as will soon
Speaker 1: be established, this is a suit of armor that nobody
Speaker 1: knew was in the house, perhaps wasn't in the house,
Speaker 1: perhaps has been physically manifested by stuff that's happening now
Speaker 1: involving these two psychic characters, or psychic storms going on
Speaker 1: in the general vicinity, I don't know. And and then
Speaker 1: the sequence just goes on for minutes at a time
Speaker 1: of NonStop weirdness. Uh there's some strange I don't even
Speaker 1: remember what's going on. There's a confrontation between Gary and
Speaker 1: Cathy where he's like, what do you think I am?
Speaker 1: Some piece of plastic? Uh? He says, I'm a simple man.
Speaker 1: I need love and affection. Yeah. Yeah. This is the
Speaker 1: section of the film where they decided we need to
Speaker 1: explore their characters more. We need to get into uh
Speaker 1: mom and Gary's relationship. Uh yeah. And then and this
Speaker 1: is also one of those moments where he's he's he's
Speaker 1: playing he's a bit over the top in his anger.
Speaker 1: That feels out of keeping with his character as well
Speaker 1: as his what he does afterwards, because he basically is like,
Speaker 1: have a nice life, Kathy. Um. And then he storms out,
Speaker 1: and you assume if you say something like that, like
Speaker 1: you're gonna you're gonna get in the car and go.
Speaker 1: But no, he goes into the living room, puts his
Speaker 1: headphones on, and what starts playing a video game or
Speaker 1: watching TV or just watching TVs, like watching a small
Speaker 1: TV with headphones plugged into it. Like, like, is that
Speaker 1: I think you have to leave the house after you
Speaker 1: say those things? Gary, I don't think you can just
Speaker 1: go watch television. Not only did he doesn't even leave,
Speaker 1: He doesn't even go into a room by himself. He
Speaker 1: goes into the room where everybody is sitting, and then
Speaker 1: everybody sitting in the same room just doing their own thing,
Speaker 1: and and there are shots of them just sitting around
Speaker 1: on the couches and stuff and playing this derange string music. Yeah. Oh,
Speaker 1: and then Kathy comes into It's like, so, whatever this
Speaker 1: blow up was between them, I guess it wasn't that
Speaker 1: big a deal. Maybe this is just this is just
Speaker 1: a Tuesday. Yeah. And then also with in one of
Speaker 1: the extremely abrupt cuts, we cut to Uncle Pete as
Speaker 1: rectors truck on the side of the road. Had no
Speaker 1: idea what Uncle Pete was doing before this, but this
Speaker 1: is our first murder scenes. Suddenly he's just there. He's
Speaker 1: like radio ing for help. Uh. And then I think
Speaker 1: he's trying to change a tire and we get this
Speaker 1: movie's uh of course the movies that kikike uh is
Speaker 1: just synth drowne and the heartbeat excuse me, blood beat
Speaker 1: sound effects. And so he's doing that, he's doing his
Speaker 1: tire and his throat gets slashed, so the movie has
Speaker 1: shifted into slasher mode. Uh. So then we randomly cut
Speaker 1: to two new characters who I'm pretty sure we have
Speaker 1: never met before. Uh, both in bathrobes. The dude of
Speaker 1: this couple is very dub airs. He's uh, he's wearing
Speaker 1: a trucker hat in bed and they're on a water
Speaker 1: bed and he demands, he demands his wife bring him tea.
Speaker 1: He wants hot tea on the waterbed, which and then
Speaker 1: she actually puts the tray down on the waterbed and
Speaker 1: I was like yelling at the screen. That is a
Speaker 1: scalding waiting to happen. Doesn't He also then request orange juice.
Speaker 1: She She's like it, do you want anything else? He's like, no,
Speaker 1: just the tea, and then she brings it and then
Speaker 1: he's like, hey, what about my orange juice? I mean,
Speaker 1: I get it that it's winter in Wisconsin and perhaps
Speaker 1: they have gas furnace going here, and you know you
Speaker 1: need to be hydrated. But but who's having orange juice
Speaker 1: and tea in bed in a water bed at night? Yeah?
Speaker 1: This see or maybe he was topping off the water
Speaker 1: bed it maybe it's full of hot tea. And then
Speaker 1: the dog joins him on the bed. Oh yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I gotta admit it does look super cozy. So he's
Speaker 1: there in his flannel robe with his hat on, in
Speaker 1: bed in the water bed with his dog. Like literally,
Speaker 1: he's like spooning his dog with his arm around it,
Speaker 1: reading a newspaper with a tray of hot tea and cookies,
Speaker 1: and uh, it does look extremely cozy. I don't know
Speaker 1: where she's going to fit into the bed though. Um.
Speaker 1: But then while she's in the kitchen getting his orange juice, suddenly, uh,
Speaker 1: she gets attacked by a random, unseen figure. But I
Speaker 1: guess it's not gonna be random, It's gonna be our
Speaker 1: our movie slasher. So she gets her throat slashed, and
Speaker 1: then dab Bears dude is trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: happens so he goes into the kitchen, finds her dead.
Speaker 1: Then he has chased uh he this is a strangely
Speaker 1: extended chase sequence, like he jumps through a glass window,
Speaker 1: runs through a giant barn, gets in a van, drives
Speaker 1: to a service station, finds no help, is pursued, still
Speaker 1: drives away, runs out of gas, ends up running up
Speaker 1: at Kathy's house. Um And then meanwhile inside Kathy is
Speaker 1: having more of her psychic error message face and uh,
Speaker 1: Sarah is having some kind of bizarre erotic experience while
Speaker 1: hallucinating about the Samurai murders. Very weird, but she's having
Speaker 1: an erotic reaction to the psychic energy of Samurai go
Speaker 1: thing killing people, or her erotic energy is feeding the
Speaker 1: psychic the samurai. I don't know. I can just imagine
Speaker 1: audiences in nineteen eighty two being like, oh see, this
Speaker 1: is a sophisticated, artistic French thing. I have to throw
Speaker 1: in something else about the Bears guy here. I did
Speaker 1: not include information on the actor who plays him, but
Speaker 1: it's kind of a tour de force, especially when he's
Speaker 1: running because most of this this, this this sequence is
Speaker 1: him in an open bathrobe like wearing you know, just
Speaker 1: like tidy, whitey underwear and I think some sort of
Speaker 1: like small t shirt or undershirt. Oh yeah, yeah. And
Speaker 1: then when he finally gets to the house, of course,
Speaker 1: the samurai kills him right outside. But then he's poking
Speaker 1: his head through the door and he's covered in blood,
Speaker 1: and he's like and and this is actually the first
Speaker 1: time where we we see that the slasher is in
Speaker 1: fact wearing samurai armor. It's a samurai with the sword
Speaker 1: and a bow. Yeah. And at this point things just
Speaker 1: go completely off the rails. It's full Poultergeist. The pantry
Speaker 1: doors are flapping mad, the dirty dishes are dancing, Quaker
Speaker 1: oats and butternut containers are shaking violently in the cupboard. Uh,
Speaker 1: the telephone catches on fire. Gary in the kitchen is
Speaker 1: hilariously pelted with food stuffs and kitchen utensils until unconscious,
Speaker 1: like he takes one too many packets of ramen to
Speaker 1: the head and he falls over, Uh, just conked out.
Speaker 1: And then uh, what else is it? Oh? Yeah, Ted
Speaker 1: and Dolly are upstairs. They're trying to I think, see
Speaker 1: what's going on with Sarah, but her room is glowing blue,
Speaker 1: so I guess they decided they can't get in, and
Speaker 1: then they get like psychically blasted into a closet and
Speaker 1: the windows are raising up and down, like the windows
Speaker 1: are laughing and uh, and Cathy is having some kind
Speaker 1: of psychic exorcism thing going on. She's going like, who
Speaker 1: are you? What do you want here? And and red
Speaker 1: light is shooting out of her hands, and I think
Speaker 1: she successfully exercises the Samurai ghost for the time being.
Speaker 1: I think so there are a couple of moments where
Speaker 1: they kind of get temporary victories over the Samurai goes
Speaker 1: before it comes back and forth right, and and things
Speaker 1: just get more and more confusing. Like so, in the
Speaker 1: aftermath of this whole attack, they're talking about what's going on,
Speaker 1: and Cathy says, um, he would never take me away
Speaker 1: from you, and he would never take you and Dolly
Speaker 1: away from me. But it did you understand who she
Speaker 1: was talking about? I don't think the movie makes that
Speaker 1: clear at all. At first I thought maybe she just
Speaker 1: she meant like God or something, But I think she
Speaker 1: was supposed to be referring to an unseen character, but
Speaker 1: no clue who it's supposed to be. Yeah, at this
Speaker 1: point in the film, there I think there are a
Speaker 1: couple of times where they allude to like him or
Speaker 1: in a way that indicates that they might be referring
Speaker 1: to the to the same person, like as if the
Speaker 1: samurai or the thing behind the Samurai or something something
Speaker 1: is somebody that they would all know or had a
Speaker 1: history of, But they never actually dish out enough in
Speaker 1: from any for us to piece together. Now, somehow from
Speaker 1: here we get to Hunters in the Woods sitting around
Speaker 1: a campfire, playing the harmonica with a case of Budweiser,
Speaker 1: and of course, even however unusual this movie is the
Speaker 1: logic of the horror genre holds true, which is that
Speaker 1: a group of guys sitting around a camp fire in
Speaker 1: a horror movie that you've never met before, they are doomed.
Speaker 1: They will definitely die, almost certainly, beginning with one who
Speaker 1: walks away from the fire to urinate, which in fact
Speaker 1: holds true in this case every time. It's a guarantee. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's exactly what happens. And I guess part of it
Speaker 1: like you're building up your your your character, you're building
Speaker 1: up your your slash your enemy. Uh they you just
Speaker 1: you realize, well, he needs more kills. We need to
Speaker 1: you know, power him up here, so let's just throw
Speaker 1: in three new characters for him to ask here. Now,
Speaker 1: I think that the director was still trying to play
Speaker 1: with some weird like uh, sex death thing here. So
Speaker 1: this is like intercut with a sex scene with with
Speaker 1: Ted and Sarah and then uh and then and then
Speaker 1: things just keep es like it just gets weirder and weirder,
Speaker 1: like every ten seconds from this point on. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: last twenty minutes or so this film, it's like approaching
Speaker 1: the speed of light. You feel like you might not
Speaker 1: actually ever get there, and everything just breaks down as
Speaker 1: far as logic and reason go. There's some kind of
Speaker 1: brief psychic battle between Dolly and Cathy. No indication so
Speaker 1: far that Dolly had psychic powers, but she like goes
Speaker 1: in to talk to her mom and she's like, don't
Speaker 1: come into my mind, stop it. And they're they're going
Speaker 1: like at each other's heads, yeah, making scanner face a bit.
Speaker 1: They're yes, scanner facing at each other. Um, and then
Speaker 1: uh oh, there's a scene of Ted in the woods
Speaker 1: with the rifle crying, and then Gary's riding a horse,
Speaker 1: and then Dolly's in the woods and she turns into
Speaker 1: some kind of blue and red nightmare. And then the
Speaker 1: Samurai appears and is like reaching out to Dolly and
Speaker 1: talking to her. I didn't quite understand what was happening there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And then they what they're able to actually bash the
Speaker 1: physical samurai, right Gary. Yeah. So Gary's got a mall
Speaker 1: that he was splitting wood with and he swings the
Speaker 1: mall at the Samurai's head and hits it, but it
Speaker 1: just collapses into a pile of armor like it was empty,
Speaker 1: the physical set of armor that just manifested in the house.
Speaker 1: And and Dolly reacts to this by saying, Mom was right,
Speaker 1: but I was like about what, yeah, again, alluding to something, um,
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure how to put these puzzle pieces together.
Speaker 1: But then back at the house, it's just it's difficult
Speaker 1: to convey how weird the energy of this scene is.
Speaker 1: So Gary's got the samurai armor and he's taking it
Speaker 1: to show it to Cathy and she's just like, burn it.
Speaker 1: It's evil, and he's like, no, I have to take
Speaker 1: it to the police, and Dolly saying, bring me some
Speaker 1: candy bars. And then there's a photo on the desk
Speaker 1: of a child and I don't know who it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be. And and Sarah burns the photo with pyro kinesis,
Speaker 1: and then basically the movie from here escalates into a
Speaker 1: series of psychic power fights. Remember, the only person who
Speaker 1: we had any indication before this part was psychic was
Speaker 1: the mom and and Sarah maybe Sarah, but now it's
Speaker 1: like everybody but Gary has psychic powers. So Sarah appears
Speaker 1: in samurai armor, and then this is inner cut with
Speaker 1: stock footage of World War two, and meanwhile Carl Orth
Speaker 1: is just blaring yes Kara Karmie Hipperon. And there's a
Speaker 1: psychic battle between between Kathy and the the Sarah in
Speaker 1: samurai form. The Samurai wins. She like stabs Kathy and Gary.
Speaker 1: And then there's another psychic battle between Ted and Dolly
Speaker 1: and the samurai and they win. So I guess Ted
Speaker 1: and Dolly had psychic powers all along, and we just
Speaker 1: never that was never mentioned before. And then Ted and
Speaker 1: Dully walked out of the house and that's the end.
Speaker 1: That's the end of the movie. Yeah, and then we're
Speaker 1: just left to to try and piece it together, which
Speaker 1: which ultimately you know, it's it's you know, there's something
Speaker 1: about a film that sticks with you. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of films there. There are a lot of arguably
Speaker 1: better films than this that I've I've seen and I
Speaker 1: immediately forget, Like I don't wake up the next morning
Speaker 1: and ponder them. But I've I've been thinking on and
Speaker 1: off about Blood Beat ever since I watched it the
Speaker 1: other day, and um, and so I've been trying to
Speaker 1: sort of put together answers for like, for the basic
Speaker 1: question here, what the heck was the deal with that
Speaker 1: samurai ghost? Why is there a samurai ghost in Wisconsin
Speaker 1: haunting this family? Sort of? Yeah? Um, And I didn't
Speaker 1: look long and hard for an official answer to this,
Speaker 1: But according to Michael Geingold of Rue Morgue, the director's
Speaker 1: answer to this in an interview on one of the
Speaker 1: on the Vine or Syndrome Blu Ray is essentially, um,
Speaker 1: why not? Like why samurai ghost in Wisconsin? Why not? So? Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know, that's that's not a great answer, uh,
Speaker 1: And I think we can go a lot a lot deeper.
Speaker 1: So on one hand, um, you know, I'm thinking, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: is this the Japanese Poulter guist, This is the spirit
Speaker 1: of a long dead warrior and he's somehow reincarnated through
Speaker 1: Sarah or awakened by Mom's psychic powers or art? Uh?
Speaker 1: Did Mom have some prior connection to the spirit um?
Speaker 1: And then we can throw in all these additional questions
Speaker 1: like who's the little girl we keep seeing? Where does
Speaker 1: the physical armor come from? Is it actually hidden there
Speaker 1: or did it just manifest? Why are we seeing these
Speaker 1: flashes of World War two footage that seems to be important? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I would say, showing stock footage of a
Speaker 1: of a war inter cut with a scene that that
Speaker 1: seems to be trying to make a connection. So I
Speaker 1: have two theories one and I should drive home. Neither
Speaker 1: of these is really supported by the text. So I'm
Speaker 1: really I'm really going out there trying to make these work. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, could this vengeful Japanese ghost be somehow
Speaker 1: connected to the US internment of Japanese Americans during the
Speaker 1: Second World War? I would see no indication of that
Speaker 1: in the movie. No indication in the movie, But I
Speaker 1: believe Fort McCoy in Wisconsin was one of the facilities
Speaker 1: used in this shameful chapter of American history. Uh, And
Speaker 1: it also was used to house Japanese prisoners of war. So, um,
Speaker 1: if we're going to really, uh, cut this film a
Speaker 1: lot of slack. We might say, maybe that's what it
Speaker 1: was going for, And I'll say, if that sounds even
Speaker 1: remotely interesting, there's a much better supernatural treatment of of
Speaker 1: of the subject matter in season two of AMC's The Terror.
Speaker 1: My other theory or here is that the psychic Samurai
Speaker 1: ghost is, in fact, on Edgregor, a powerful non physical
Speaker 1: entity that arises from a group of people on occult
Speaker 1: concept similar in some ways to that of a tulpa
Speaker 1: that wasn't think I know about this? Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: wasn't familiar with it till I was reading some Grant Morrison.
Speaker 1: Because Grant Morrison makes use of this concept of this
Speaker 1: occult concept in this DC supervillain character that he either
Speaker 1: created or riffed heavily on, called the candle Maker, who
Speaker 1: said to be a powerful Edgregor born out of humanities
Speaker 1: collective on conscious tensions surrounding twenty century anxieties over nuclear war.
Speaker 1: So along those lines, could the psychic ghost Samurai in
Speaker 1: this picture being Edgregor born out of American tension and
Speaker 1: shame uh concerning Japanese in tournament and the use of
Speaker 1: atomic weaponry during the Second World War The only thing
Speaker 1: to indicate that though, would be the would be the
Speaker 1: like the inter cutting with the scenes from the war
Speaker 1: in that very final scene. Like there's nothing at all
Speaker 1: earlier in the movie to point in that direction. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like there's no, there's nothing. I don't think there's anything
Speaker 1: in the house that shows any aside from the armor
Speaker 1: that again is implied to just physically manifest and have
Speaker 1: no previous history in the house. There's nothing thing in
Speaker 1: there to indicate the family has any connections to Japanese culture,
Speaker 1: to Japanese history. You know. It's not nothing like, oh well,
Speaker 1: that's that's grandpa's photo. He fought in the war and
Speaker 1: was convicted of war crimes or something. Right, this would
Speaker 1: be very loose. But there are some what appear to
Speaker 1: be uh Buddhist or Buddhist suggestive artworks in the house,
Speaker 1: like there I think, am I right about this? Weren't there?
Speaker 1: That is true? Yeah? Like Kathy a k Mom has
Speaker 1: kind of this um you know, kind of like um
Speaker 1: more of a hippie, free free form artistic spirit that's
Speaker 1: just kind of captured in the wild, you know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of out of keeping with the the the rural
Speaker 1: environment around her. Uh so, I guess you could. I
Speaker 1: don't know what that would mean either, unless, like the
Speaker 1: statue was like there doesn't Yeah, this stuff is just
Speaker 1: part of the backdrop. It doesn't seem to play any
Speaker 1: real significant role in the subsequent haunting or psychic explosion
Speaker 1: that occurs. I mean, all I can say is that
Speaker 1: I think the inter cutting with the scenes of World
Speaker 1: War two is supposed to suggest something, but I can't
Speaker 1: form anything coherent about it that really connects with anything
Speaker 1: else in the movie. Yeah, but it it all like
Speaker 1: there's it almost makes sense in a way that is
Speaker 1: um that they really you know, pulls that your your
Speaker 1: brain strings, you know, you can't quite get out of mind, like,
Speaker 1: well was it. It's almost saying something coherently or some
Speaker 1: my coherently, and I just can't make out what it
Speaker 1: might be saying. Well, you know, I I think I've
Speaker 1: said on the show before that I sometimes have a
Speaker 1: probably an unusually high tolerance for unanswered questions in in
Speaker 1: fiction and movies. I mean, I often think that it's, uh,
Speaker 1: it's better to leave things a mystery than to answer
Speaker 1: them in an unsatisfying way. But I mean, sometimes you
Speaker 1: can just leave people hanging too much. Like I feel
Speaker 1: like if if the director truly had something like that
Speaker 1: in mind, you could have put a few more pointers
Speaker 1: in there. Yeah. I guess what we're trying to say
Speaker 1: is blood beat. It's a Christmas miracle. Oh yeah, Christmas.
Speaker 1: I forgot about that part. That's why you picked it. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really didn't do a lot of thinking about like,
Speaker 1: what is this saying about Christmas? I guess it's not
Speaker 1: really saying anything about Christmas, but it takes place at Christmas.
Speaker 1: Christmas is the reason, uh for these people coming together
Speaker 1: and psychically manifesting at a samurai warrior to kill everybody.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I gotta say I I on the whole.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it. I've certainly not board, but this is
Speaker 1: one of the most befuddling films we have we have
Speaker 1: watched for this show yet, I agree. So out there
Speaker 1: you might be wondering, well, how can I get on
Speaker 1: this in on this holiday befuddlement. Well, um, this movie
Speaker 1: is out there if you're looking for it. I streamed
Speaker 1: it on shutter uh and I think it may be
Speaker 1: available via some other online services as well. It was
Speaker 1: also released on Blu Ray by Vinegar Syndrome a few
Speaker 1: years back, and uh, like I mentioned earlier, that actually
Speaker 1: includes an interview with the director. Uh so if you're
Speaker 1: really curious, maybe you can you can get your hands
Speaker 1: on that disk and maybe maybe even answer some of
Speaker 1: these questions that we have. I I don't know, but
Speaker 1: I'm guessing probably not. But yeah, I would say still
Speaker 1: go back to what we said earlier. I am I
Speaker 1: admire the ambition here because you know, a lesser you know,
Speaker 1: director and writer might have just said, Hey, we're gonna
Speaker 1: have some crazy person in a samurai a suit of
Speaker 1: samurai armor is gonna start killing people, and that's all
Speaker 1: you need to know. Just somebody was crazy and they
Speaker 1: put on some some you know, armor and grabbed the sword,
Speaker 1: and you know that that's it. But no, this film
Speaker 1: went for something far more elaborate, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's one of the things that makes it interesting. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is definitely the only Franco wisconsinite psychic art house
Speaker 1: Christmas slasher movie I've ever seen. All Right, Well, if
Speaker 1: you want to check out other episodes of Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 1: you can catch it every Friday, and the Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind podcast feed were primarily a science and
Speaker 1: culture podcast, with episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but we
Speaker 1: do listener mail on Monday's. We do a short form
Speaker 1: artifact episode on Wednesdays, and on Friday. That's our time
Speaker 1: to set most serious matters of aside and just get
Speaker 1: into a little weird house cinema. Huge thanks as always
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us with feedback
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other, to suggest topic for
Speaker 1: the future, or just to say hello, you can email
Speaker 1: us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.
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