Blödaren (1983)

Never has 80 minutes felt soooooo long. So drawn out and boring. But still, Blödaren, is unique because it's probably one of the first shot-on-video slashers (Sledgehammer came the same year, but I haven't seen it yet - recommended?) ever made - and also the first (I think) slasher ever produced in Sweden. That doesn't mean it's good - actually, it's the total opposite in every f**king little detail. "Directed" and produced by publisher Hans G Hatwig, who also used his extremely popular magazine OKEJ to promote the movie. The story? Well...

An all-female rock band, Rock Cats, is out on a tour through the Swedish countryside. After a not-so-spectacular concert at something that looks like the smallest park (we call it "folkpark" in Sweden) ever they hit off to the next destination - but of course their van breaks down and they're stuck out in nowhere! Lucky for us, because they're a crappy band, a crazy killer, Blödaren, takes care of what we all want to do - and kills them one by one!!!! Surprise!

Yeah, Blödaren is one of the most primitive slashers ever made - Mats Helge's Blood Tracks is a damn masterpiece in comparison. It's shot on cheap-looking video with just the classic point-the-camera-at-the-actor and nothing else approach of directing. To be fair, the locations are nice and I would have appreciated the movie a lot more if it just was a cheap vintage documentary about a crappy girl band. But no one can act and the complete lack of gore and blood makes it a quite boring mess to watch. The killer, played by talented drummer Åke Eriksson, acts like he's in an amateur movie shot by some school kids - but I guess he didn't get much direction to work with anyway. He more comes off like someone who really doesn't want to do the part and have a problem not laughing in some scenes.

So isn't there anything good with the movie? No, not really. But I still think the girls has some charm and it's fun to listen to their improvisations, which rarely sounds realistic - but is fun if you appreciate non-acting for such a long time. Blödaren (which literary means "The Bleeder") could have been much more fun if the director didn't want so act serious and skip the gore and blood. When making a simple slasher movie it's never smart to pretend to be Alfred Hitchcock.

To boost the interest of the movie Hatwig started to spread the rumour that Gene Simmons was the guy playing Blödaren, which he also used in his magazine. I found these two scans from Farbror Punk's blog and I decided to steal these for your viewing pleasure. The first is about the Gene Simmons rumour and then about the real actor, Åke Eriksson.

Thank heavens Blödaren isn't commercially available with English subs, but I guess that if you want to you can find it. But don't blame it on me please, don't shoot the messenger - shoot the movie makers instead!