After last week’s review of a summer blockbuster, your portly is undertaking a complete reversal to an obscure horror film.  In fact, it’s an obscure Welsh horror film, in the incomprehensible Welsh language, and funded by the short-lived Welsh Film Board.  The Welsh Film Board, it seems, was a body dedicated to the revival and preservation of Welsh language—in other words, the preservation of cramming as many consonants together as possible (today, there exists Ffilm Cymru Wales; why is it that every nationalist movement and/or organization in the British Isles is inevitably just woke internationalist globohomo garbage in a language that pre-dates the Roman Empire?).

The film in question is Blood on the Stars (1975), which one reviewer on Letterboxd called “a fever dream.”  That is an apt description of this weird little relic of the glorious Welsh 1970s.

Blood on the Stars is a promo for obscure Welsh “celebrities” masquerading as a horror film.  It definitely has a folk horror vibe, although the only “folk” element is that it takes place in a village in rural Wales.  Basically, the local lecherous choirmaster, Shadrach Smith, employs his unruly young choristers to eliminate all of the celebrities intended to perform at a local concert, so that his tiny choir will be the only show in town.  Somehow, this concert will then catapult this mediocre local choir to Wales-wide fame, as the five or six other Welsh stars will be dead.

It’s a classical example of the stakes being so low, everyone must suffer.  I’ve observed this phenomenon in many small-scale arenas, especially countywide political party politics.  I witnessed more back-biting and double-dealing in a county Republican party organization than anywhere else, in an organization in which virtually nothing was at stake beyond the players’ egos.  If I hadn’t observed such irrationally cruel behavior, I would have never found the premise of Blood on the Stars plausible.

But, then, what realm of competition is more needlessly petty and theatrical than the arts?  We’ve all known the insufferable theatre kid who would sashay and slashay his way to loafer-lightened fame given half a Pride Month.  Perhaps in the comparatively tiny world of 1970s Welsh stardom, eliminating controversial rugby player Barrie John with an exploding soccer ball isn’t so far-fetched.

The film is basically a twist on the “murderous children” trope that was big at the time, coupled with a bizarre, doll-loving choir master.  The kids are totally out-of-control, and mock and terrorize both citizens and law enforcement in turn.

The flick also has some humor, much of which I suspect is lost to anyone who didn’t live in Wales in the 1960s and 1970s.  That said, one Welsh harpist overstuffs and overserves an affable police constable to the point that he is unable to warn her of the threat on her live; she then dies when she plays her harp, which is electrified.

Blood on the Stars is definitely one you can skip, but it does mount an appropriately creepy and tense atmosphere in its opening moments.  After that, it is pretty much a madcap dash around a tiny Welsh town.  I’m personally not a fan of the Welsh language, which sounds incredibly jarring to my English ears, but I started to tune it out after awhile.