Saturday, November 23, 2019

Blood Diner


    

   
Blood Diner
1987
Director- Jackie Kong
Cast- Rick Burks, Carl Crew, LaNette LaFrance, LaNette LaFrance, Lisa Guggenheim, Max Morris, Drew Godderis, Tanya Papanicolas, Michael Barton
           
     As children Michael and George (Rick Burks and Carl Crew) watched their uncle Anwar get gunned down by the police after he chopped up a bunch of co-eds. Before he died, he exhorted them to follow the goddess Sheetar, an ancient goddess with sorceress powers.
            
     Fast forward 20 years and the brothers are all grown up and running a health food restaurant. They have, in fact, been studying Sheetar and have a plan to bring her to life in an avatar. They dig up their uncle’s corpse, remove his brain and he guides them as they set out to build her a body. They must construct the vessel from the dismembered bodies of wanton, immoral ladies. They begin by shooting up a studio where a bunch of girls are filming a topless aerobics video (hey it was the 80s). They ransack the fresh bodies for parts. Meanwhile, they are serving up the leftovers they don’t use to the customers in their restaurant. They make a veggie burger that tastes just like meat and there is a good reason why.
            

     Once they have the vessel for Sheetar ready, they must prepare for a “Lumerian Feast” the ritual that will bring their goddess to life. This involves capturing a virgin for Sheetar to eat once she arrives (obviously) and a “Blood Buffet” where the attendees are all turned into flesh eating zombies.
            
      The movie is utterly crazy. Its silliness level is about on par with Troma. It has strange characters like a rival restaurant owner that has an ugly dummy as his only customer, a police chief that gut punches his detectives, a wrestler named Little Jimmy Hitler and more. If you’re not sure whether to take the movie seriously, it begins with the disclaimer that  “All of the mutilations, bodily dismemberments and cannibal rituals were performed by seasoned professionals.”  So while the movie doesn’t take itself seriously, neither was it made lazily. There is an obvious effort to make something different and entertaining. It has an excellent soundtrack of mostly classic doowop but also with some punk and new wave.
           

    It was originally intended as a sequel the 1963 movie, Bloodfeast. There are a lot of similarities, but somewhere in the production stage, they decided to let it be its own film. When it comes to cannibal movies, Blood Diner isn’t scary like Texas Chainsaw Massacre or clever like Motel Hell, but it’s original and isn’t afraid to be weird, which goes along way with me.





No comments:

Post a Comment