Blood Diner (1987)
Perhaps the best film ever made with nude kung-fu in Bronson Canyon, the lurid Blood Diner sports a premise that will be immediately familiar to horror fans of a certain age: two maniacs operate a diner where the secret ingredient is human flesh. This variation on Tom Swicegood's 1966 The Undertaker and His Pals also has the boys using "the body parts of many immoral girls" to construct a new, stitched-together female form. The ultimate goal, as dictated by the pickled brain and eyeballs of their long-dead Uncle Anwar, is to make a savory stew of the remaining organs and serve it in a ceremony that will enable the spirit of an Egyptian deity to reanimate the assembled corpse. H.G. Lewis fans will recognize the "Egyptian Feast" to resurrect the goddess Ishtar (here called Sheetar) from Blood Feast, and may also know that Blood Diner is an unauthorized sequel to Lewis' landmark splatter fest.
Director Jackie Kong's irreverent Blood Diner features much sick humor and gallons of gore, making it the rare horror comedy that strives to deliver on both counts. Inevitably, it lacks the grisly impact of Lewis' original ode to sacrificial slaughter from more than two decades earlier. The film's charmingly amateurish gore effects, though as bloody as Lewis' and often involving naked women, often seem equally indebted to Tex Avery (one victim is neatly decapitated with a broom). Though the lowbrow hijinks are consistently played for laughs, the transgressive nature of much of the humor may be unwatchable for those not inclined to enjoy Lewis' oeuvre.
To its detriment, strangely enough, Blood Diner is more professionally produced than its inspiration. With a few notable exceptions, the cast is a step up from the lovable line readers from Lewis' landmark. The titular diner appears to be a real one, and secondary sets demonstrate more loving attention to detail than Lewis' bare walls. The salacious script, by actor/screenwriter Michael Sonye (Dukey Flyswatter from the eighties' band Haunted Garage), makes an honest attempt to inject new blood into stale horror iconography. In addition to cribbing from Blood Feast and Undertaker, Sonye tosses myriad influences - vintage cartoons, fifties' sci-fi films, cop shows, and MTV - into his gore-nucopia.
Blood Diner is an entertaining time capsule for viewers who fondly recall the U.S.A. Network's "Night Flight" series or remember the gaudy sights and sounds of L.A. in the soul-sucking eighties. The follow-up to Kong's monster movie homage The Being (1983), it evinces a similar fondness for cinematic cheese and tastelessness. Kong's eagerness to embrace excess helps compensate for the film's reliance on recycled horror routines. This is especially true for the current DVD release from Lionsgate, where, unlike the old Vestron VHS, the film is presented in its unrated version. Lionsgate offers Blood Diner in a two-DVD set with Bob Balaban's Parents (1989) and four other horror comedies of dubious interest.
To its detriment, strangely enough, Blood Diner is more professionally produced than its inspiration. With a few notable exceptions, the cast is a step up from the lovable line readers from Lewis' landmark. The titular diner appears to be a real one, and secondary sets demonstrate more loving attention to detail than Lewis' bare walls. The salacious script, by actor/screenwriter Michael Sonye (Dukey Flyswatter from the eighties' band Haunted Garage), makes an honest attempt to inject new blood into stale horror iconography. In addition to cribbing from Blood Feast and Undertaker, Sonye tosses myriad influences - vintage cartoons, fifties' sci-fi films, cop shows, and MTV - into his gore-nucopia.
Blood Diner is an entertaining time capsule for viewers who fondly recall the U.S.A. Network's "Night Flight" series or remember the gaudy sights and sounds of L.A. in the soul-sucking eighties. The follow-up to Kong's monster movie homage The Being (1983), it evinces a similar fondness for cinematic cheese and tastelessness. Kong's eagerness to embrace excess helps compensate for the film's reliance on recycled horror routines. This is especially true for the current DVD release from Lionsgate, where, unlike the old Vestron VHS, the film is presented in its unrated version. Lionsgate offers Blood Diner in a two-DVD set with Bob Balaban's Parents (1989) and four other horror comedies of dubious interest.
[This review originally appeared, in different form, in ecco, the world of bizarre video, Volume One, Number One.]