Blood Beat (1983)

Interesting facts

Bloodbeat is a 1983 supernatural slasher film written and directed by Fabrice-Ange Zaphiratos and starring Helen Benton, Terry Brown, Claudia Peyton, James Fitzgibbons, and Dana Day. The plot focuses on a young couple attending a family gathering for Christmas in a rural home when a spirit wearing samurai armor begins killing members of the family—two of whom have psychic abilities—and their neighbors.

Production

Writer-director Fabrice-Ange Zaphiratos, a native of France, relocated to Chicago in the late 1970s, and began developing his first feature film after meeting Peter Spelson, a Chicago-based insurance agent for local film productions. During this period, Zaphiratos was living with Helen Benton, a local artist, as roommates in her remote farmhouse in Wisconsin; Benton was ultimately cast in the film.

Commenting on the concept of the film, Zaphiratos said he began to develop the idea for a supernatural-themed slasher film set on a rural farm: "Little by little, I began to write the screenplay. Why set the story at Christmas? Just because I love Wisconsin the winter, with three to four feet of snow everywhere, minus twenty degrees." Zapharitos admitted to smoking marijuana while writing the script, as the owners of the farmhouse grew cannabis i…

Bloodbeat was filmed on 35 mm in March 1981 over a period of approximately six to eight weeks. Filming took place in a rented farmhouse in Spring Green, Wisconsin, where the cast and crew also stayed. The screenplay had the film set during a heavy snowstorm, but because the film was shot in the early spring, there was little snowfall depicted.

Wladimir Maule, a then 24-year-old graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago, was hired as cinematographer. Maule believed that the film was being shot for television rather than for theaters, and thus framed the film in fullscreen rather than widescreen. Zaphiratos admitted was under the influence of drugs during filming; he has stated that the film's title, Bloodbeat, is a reference to the accelerated heartbeat experienced while high.

Zapharitos portrayed the samurai killer in the film, performing his own stunts. Because the production was unable to source sugar glass from California at the time, Zapharitos leapt through an actual glass window during the film's climactic scene, which broke into pieces and nearly resulted in him sustaining critical injuries.

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