Taylor Swift's utterly confusing "Bad Blood" does mad business on Vevo

Anyone else slightly confused by what Taylor Swift is trying to pay homage to in her brand-spanking new video for “Bad Blood”? Right after the Sin City–style opening credits have rolled, it’s anybody’s guess. Over the course of four explosive minutes, America’s Sweetheart kicks, punches, and blows up a whole lot of shit.

Whether intentional or not, there seems to be nods to the office building in Die Hard, the motorcycle races from Tron, and boxing sequences right out of Girl Fight. Later on, asskicking supervixens don’t even flinch as a Machete Kills–brand fireball detonates in the background, and, there’s an artificial-snowfall battle that looks suspiciously indebted to Kill Bill, Vol. 1.

What’s it all mean? Who the hell knows? And, more importantly, no one seems to care. The plot of “Bad Blood” may be impossible to follow, but that didn’t stop 20.1 million viewers from watching the clip on Vevo in the first 24 hours of its release. That’s right, just under two millions eyeballs per hour, which smashed the previous Vevo blockbuster record set by Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda”, which garnered 19.6 views in its first 24 hours.

And, no, “Anaconda” wasn’t inspired by the snake-in-a-river B-movie Anaconda—at least not in a way that anyone could tell.