The Rock Cats, an all-girl hair metal ensemble, are touring the Swedish countryside in a van that probably smells like stale Oppigårds Golden Ale and Aquanet. When their engine gives up the ghost near a decaying manor, they do what any rational slasher protagonists do: they break in.
In real life, I ask you to never do this.
Unfortunately, the mansion isn’t empty. It’s the playpen of The Bleeder, a hulking, pulsating mass of practical effects and bad attitude. What follows is a SOV gauntlet of synth-heavy chases, creative use of musical instruments as murder weapons and enough stage blood to fill a Viking longship.
Prolific rock drummer Åke Eriksson (of Wasa Express and Boppers fame) puts his back into the role of The Bleeder. He moves with a rhythmic, percussive intensity, literally drumming out a beat on his victims’ skulls.
Was he the original choice for this role? Director Hans Hatwig used his position at Okej (the most influential Swedish pop/rock magazine of the 80s) to create hype. He published a photo of a monstrous, cloaked figure and claimed Simmons was under the mask. In reality, it was a local stuntman. When the film was released, and fans realized the God of Thunder was nowhere to be found, it caused a minor scandal among Swedish metalheads.
There are real rock stars, beyond Eriksson. The Rock Cats — Axet (Sussi Ax, who was also in the band Stitch), Eva (Eva Danielsson), Mia (Mia Hansson), Maria (Maria Landberg) and Eva (Eva Pettersson) — are the band Revansch and Danne Stråhed, who plays the forest ranger, was in the band Wizex.
If you like the music strings from Halloween, good news. You’ll hear them so many times in this. It really is kind of a formless slasher that meanders, but you can see that it inspired the much better Blood Tracks.
For decades, Blödaren was a “lost” film, available only on grainy, nth-generation VHS dubs traded by collectors. Its arrival on Cultpix marks the first time many fans have seen it in a watchable format. Despite its formless nature, it remains a crucial piece of Nordic cult cinema because it captures a time when Swedish youth culture shifted from ABBA-style pop to the aggressive hair metal of the 80s.
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