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Blood Diner
[Vestron Video]
1987; color
Directed by Jackie Kong
Starring: Rick Burks, Carl Crew, Roger Dauer, LaNette La France, Lisa Elaina & Max Morris
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This past weekend I was kind of under the weather so all three of our weekend nights were basically spent the same way: eating dinner and watching movies. Saturday evening, while the husband was making turkey pot pie (one of his specialties; he also makes a really good vegetarian version) I gave the On Demand offerings a once-over, looking for potential victims... ooops, I mean, subjects. Um... no, wait... let's go back to victims. The makers of this film certainly wouldn't pass up an opportunity to crack an obvious, bad or obviously bad joke so perhaps we should do the same during the course of this review, in a sort of homage to the film. Which, by the way, really isn't much more than a sort of homage to Blood Feast; and by sort of I mean barely. But, as usual, I'm getting ahead of myself. Anywhoo, I was browsing the FearNet channel when I came across the following description: "Today's menu: hot young women; an ancient Sumerian goddess; naked karate; and a few extra portions of downright silliness. It's a tongue-in-cheek-tribute to Herschell Gordon Lewis' 1963 splatter classic Blood Feast." Obviously I had found our evening's entertainment but I had to question why I'd never heard of this particular film. I figured that, based on the first sentence and the fact that the Kommandant worked in a video store during this period of the '80s, he was familiar with this flick, and after a visit to the kitchen I learned I was right. Apparently, the husband loves the Blood Diner; and now that I've seen it what can I say except, bless his heart. (Someone's gotta love the Blood Diner right? Besides the people who made it?) I wouldn't necessarily say I did not enjoy this movie but I also would not say it didn't annoy me in parts. In fact it had kind of an interesting pattern of periods of annoyance, followed by periods of enjoyment, followed by more periods of annoyance. (Wash, rinse, repeat.) As far as the cable box description, it definitely had young women (and I guess if you like twenty-something strippers with bad Farrah Fawcett-eqsue hairdos, hot young women); an ancient Sumarian goddess (or, at least another twenty-something stripper dressed up like one) and many extra portions of downright silliness. I'm not sure if I missed the naked karate or what but I don't remember that part; maybe they were referring to the naked aerobics. (I'm sure no one renting this would care too much about that though, as long as it features naked something.) I would also like to add that a more accurate assertion would be to say Blood Diner was inspired by Blood Feast - in the sense that HG Lewis proved anyone with a friend and an inquisitive mind can make a gore movie.. Ooops, sorry, that's what you need to solve a Nancy Drew mystery. I meant to say anyone with a friend with access to a lot of karo syrup and red food coloring and a friend with a barely plausible screenplay can make a silly gore movie people will still watch many decades later. And Blood Diner director Jackie Kong certainly proved that theory right.
—Bunny
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