Some interesting themes present regarding the male gaze and its influence on power structures, and they mostly thread the needle of combining together William Golding and Stephen King horror with Tim Robinson cringe workplace humor, but I was still left perplexed by what attracted Raimi and his talented stars to the material.
Just not particularly unique enough to warrant its pedigree or the audience’s time.
The biggest problem with Austin Snell’s spellbinding grindhouse revisionist splatter western They Call Her Death is that at a glance it may be written off by some and discarded in the rather large pile of low budget post-Tarantino pastiche genre movies of the past two decades. This would be a mistake; much like Anna Biller’s masterpiece The Love Witch, TCHD transcends the notion of “homage” by using techniques and aesthetics considered retrograde to make something worthy and sometimes superior to…
The rep for Blood Beat has grown over the years, seemingly due in no small part to an appreciation for its absolute refusal to explain the abstract goofiness that transpires throughout. Considering the arduous exposition in most 80s VHS horror, it’s a net positive.
Its enduring notoriety is a testament to its bizarre stew of European surrealism, American Midwest locales, and the most confusing exoticization of Japanese samurai iconography I’ve come across in a movie. It doesn’t totally work for me, but it’s compelling more often than it’s not.
