BLOODBEAT

Bloodbeat Movie Review

Sarah (Claudia Peyton) and her boyfriend Ted (James Fitzgibbons) visit his family for Christmas. Soon after, the spirit of a samurai terrorizes the family. Loyal readers, believe me when I tell you the madness of this film does not end there, and trying to do justice to just how off the wall this movie truly is will be a challenge, but I will do my best. The first thing I will do is let you know I am not even going to attempt to explain the plot, as that is so nonexistent you will swear the movie makers were making everything up as they went along. Instead, I will just tell you what happens--insert spoiler alert here. We learn fairly early on there is some psychic connection between Sarah and Cathy (Helen Benton), Ted's mother. We're not sure why, but that doesn't really matter. The first act of this movie really drags, but we do see that Sarah has some also not fully explained connection with the samurai, and when he kills, she either feels pain or gets sexually excited. 

Judge for yourself

We also get to know the characters during this time...okay, not really. None have any depth at all, and each scene seems more random than the one that preceded it. What we do discover is the acting is almost equally bad across the board--I say almost because Benton is hands down the worst of the bunch, though it does seem her performance could have legitimately inspired Lin Shaye's in the Insidious movies. We also discover the technical aspects of this film are lacking just as much. This part of the movie is so inept, in fact, that the director didn't realize they were shooting in a 4:3 ratio (fullscreen) instead of the standard 16:9 (widescreen) until most of the film was shot--this happened because the director of photography thought they were shooting this mess for television. The special effects are wonderfully 1980's cheesy. The sound is atrocious, with the dialogue often being washed out by the noises of everything else...not that much is lost here. We also get a glorious view of the shadow of the camera in one chase scene. 

"Attack of the Killer Cameraman"

The bizarre really is just getting started. Around the time our blue-glow ghost samurai appears, the house briefly becomes...possessed? Whatever is happening, it looks like it was shot with both Poltergeist and The Evil Dead in mind, as the entire kitchen shook, items flew at the poor fella in the room, and I saw something that I had not thought of since I was a child, but recognized immediately.

My Mom had this canister set!

As quickly as this paranormal element is introduced it is removed, but we do have more surprises in store! It turns out Cathy has some powers of her own, and she uses them to fight...the spirits? Though very undefined, the powers do come equipped with the aforementioned special effects. 

Beware the power of the light!

There are several death scenes, though they all lack any truly gory elements. The shortage of blood is made up for in body count--we meet several characters who literally add nothing at all to the movie other than to be victims. Much of this happens in the woods, where Ted's sister Dolly (Dana Day) finds herself near the end. It is in these woods where we get more of those magnificent visuals. 

Samurai vision!

The oddity is really turned up in the end, when we are treated to ten of the greatest minutes in horrible horror history. It starts with Sarah's transformation into...

Yoshi Kwan?

This is followed by several stock footage shots of...a war. Sarah, now in full samurai costume, then goes on a tear, unleashing the fury and wrath, complete with the power of blue beam of doom.

Ted's blue, da ba dee da ba daa

After a couple killings, we get to the final battle, as Samurai Sarah faces off against siblings Ted and Dolly, who suddenly realize they not only have the ability to make some hilarious faces, but ALSO have some unclear psychic skills.

"Doin' that crazy hand jive"

It really is unfortunate that this movie crawls out of the gate. Had the first half of Bloodbeat been even remotely as entertaining as the second half, this could be in the "So Bad It's Good" hall of fame. As it is, the movie is good for one thing--it is the perfect movie for my final review of the year 2020.

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 5

Bloodbeat Movie Trailer