Blood Paradise Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		5.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Blood Paradise Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson August 28, 2019

The opening scene of Blood Paradise teases the viewer into thinking that the film will be about voyeurism, eroticism, and torture porn. A beautiful nude woman is strapped to a bed covered by a mosquito net. A figure clad in all black and a mask furtively enters the bedroom. The lady hears him and begs him not to hurt her. The intruder begins swatting her on the back with what looks like a crowbar. She actually enjoys the "punishment" as we've entered in an erotic game of sexual foreplay between two lovers. The bondage scene, in some ways, portends what will happen later in the story but perhaps not in the manner we'd expect.

Robin Richards (Andréa Winter) is a bestselling author of horror novels nestled in a comfortable suburban enclave with her boyfriend Teddy (Patrick Von Barkenberg), who doesn't really have much going for himself except for flexing his torso after a nice swim. His girlfriend, though, has been reeling of late after her recent novel, Return to Blood Paradise, was received indifferently and has been a commercial flop. One beautiful evening while boating in Spain, Robin's publishing agent and friend encourages her to get a change of scene so she can reinvigorate her literary gifts. The agent tells Robin about a remote farm resort in Sweden which she thinks would serve as an idyllic place for her to write her next novel. Robin reacts warmly to the trip but Teddy doesn't think it's a good idea. Robin goes anyway and is picked up by an eccentric driver named Hans Bubi (Christer Cavallius). (The namesake is probably a tribute to Die Hard [1988].) Hans claims that he's Robin's "number one fan" and proves it by showing her all the hardcovers he's bought of her novels, which he asks her to sign. The unassuming Robin seems to appreciate Hans' adulation but probably thinks he's an oddball, although she's kind of cold and tight-lipped.

The farm resort is bucolic and gorgeous--as Robin expected--but the cast of characters she meets are very alien. The farmer/owner Rolf (Rolf Brunnström) initially appears nice but he's not a very accommodating host. Rolf explains that his wife recently passed and he has her buried where she made her living--in the garden. But this is the Garden of Death. Rolf's mute sister-in-law (Ingrid Hedström) is even stranger and distant as she knits and braids the hairs of dolls all day long. As Robin grows increasingly more uncomfortable in her new environ, she receives good news that Teddy's changed his mind and will be joining her. But all is not peace and solitude on the farm as death starts to creep up on the visitors.

Blood Paradise is a fine Swedish horror indie headlined by Andréa Winter, who reminds me of a young Liv Ullmann or Julianne Moore. Winter not only starred in the movie but also produced it, co-wrote the screenplay with her real-life boyfriend and creative partner Patrick von Barkenberg (who directed it), and assisted with designing sets, costumes, and music. I look forward to seeing a lot more of her. Christer Cavallius plays Hans Bubi well as an idiosyncratic, would-be writer who wants to be the male equivalent of Robin Richards. But he's trapped in a strange relationship with his fiancée, Elsa (Ellinor Berglund). She's a controlling young woman and devout horticulturist. The couple literally have a garden of plants growing in their house. Von Barkenberg makes an appropriate intertextual reference to Stephen King's world when we see the spine of the Swedish edition of It on Hans's bookshelf. Blood Paradise indeed shares some similarities with Misery (novel and film) so this is a nice artistic nod by von Barkenberg.

In an interview with Danny Caprio of The Blog DC: Winter said that the original cut of the film was three hours long so a lot of tightening was made. The narrative is broken up into a series of vignettes and short chapters which introduce or expand on the characters. Von Barkenberg relies on the facial expressions and the temperaments of those characters without clinging to cheap jump scares. However, his script with Winter places the characters into situations that, while precarious, make us scratch our heads: Why did they do that? or She should have done that instead! Overall, Blood Paradise mixes offbeat and dark humor with some genuine horror that makes it live up to its oxymoronic title.

Please note: though BLOOD PARADISE is not rated, the movie contains fairly substantial frontal female nudity and some gore.

Blood Paradise Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Blood Paradise makes its first appearance on Blu-ray courtesy of Artsploitation Films on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-25. Patrick von Barkenberg's feature debut was shot by Thomas Rist using the Arri Alexa. The 2.35:1 framed image looks absolutely stunning. There are no compressional artifacts or traces of artificial sharpening by A.F. Characters are sometimes lit using soft artificial light. Landscapes are brightly illuminated by sunlight. Green, red, and magenta are wholly replicated with no crush. Close-ups and Extreme close-ups reveal tiny details and textures on the faces (see Screenshot #s 13 and 18).

According to Andréa Winter in the aforementioned interview, cast and crew spent two weeks filming July, 2018 on her family farm in Norrland, which located in the North of Sweden. Winter recalled that the sun usually didn't set for more than half an hour so there was a limited window to get in the "magic hour shots" before dusk. Check out SS #s 19 and 20. The filmmaking team had only three days in Spain and made the most of it at sundown (see capture #s 1 and 10). Artsploitation encodes the main feature at a healthy video bitrate, which averages 30002 kbps.

The studio has provided twelve chapter breaks for the 83-minute feature.

Blood Paradise Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Artsploitation has supplied two lossy sound tracks: a Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (448 kbps) and a Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo (192 kbps). Spoken dialogue is delivered primarily in English, although there are several lines uttered in Swedish. From my research, it seems that DCP prints of Blood Paradise didn't contain any subtitles for the Swedish dialogue. That's maintained here, although you can turn on English subtitles and words just spoken in Swedish are translated. If you switch on the English SDH, subs will play for all spoken words. The 5.1 mix is quite active on the surround channels as I could distinctly hear flies buzzing, raindrops falling, and "Maa! Maa!" chanted by goats. I had to turn the volume up a little from time to time for the dialogue. Winter's score employs both synths and high, pizzicati strings for effect. There's also a Swedish folk song from the Åland Islands heard on the non-diegetic track as well as "Chicken Waltz" performed by Jake Faulkner. I would have desired a DTS-HD MA but the 5.1 mix is solid.

Blood Paradise Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Artsploitation presents four deleted scenes shown in 2.35:1 anamorphic. They're all interesting to see but were cut for reasons of tone and pacing. Andréa Winter is an Electropop musician and performs on two of the music videos, although they appear like they could have been included on the original three-hour cut.

• Blood Sex Dream Deleted Scene (2:01, 1080p)

• Fly Deleted Scene (1:29, 1080p)

• Latex Dreams Deleted Scene (2:30, 1080p)

• Tractor and Sheep Deleted Scene (2:24, 1080p)

• Dreamer Music Video (4:20, 720p)

• You & Me Music Video (3:51, 1080p)

• Blood Paradise Trailer (1:26, 1080p)

Blood Paradise Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Blood Paradise is an aesthetically beautiful Swedish horror indie that while well-made, suffers from some weak characterizations and ill-conceived plotting. Still, I'm excited to see more from both Andréa Winter and Patrick von Barkenberg. Artsploitation Films delivers an excellent transfer and a lossy 5.1 sound track that mostly does the job but would benefited from the uncompressed treatment. (Why are we still getting lossy tracks from A.F. in 2019?) Extras are skimpy and I would have loved to get a commentary from Winter and von Barkenberg. The movie, while not that original, is fairly well-executed and should appeal to fans of Ari Aster's Midsommar. RECOMMENDED.