{"id":4314,"date":"2024-10-05T17:48:36","date_gmt":"2024-10-05T17:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=4314"},"modified":"2024-10-12T21:26:01","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T21:26:01","slug":"blood-diner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/05\/blood-diner\/","title":{"rendered":"Blood Diner"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Blood Diner <\/strong>(1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lightning Pictures\/Horror-Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 88 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (violence, gore, full frontal nudity, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jackie Kong\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael Sonye\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Don Preston\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jurg Walther\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 10, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Rick Burks, Carl Crew, Roger Dauer, LaNette La France, Lisa Guggenheim, Max Morris, Roxanne Cybelle, Sir (Lamont) Rodeheaver, Dino Lee, The Luv Johnsons, Drew Godderis, Bob Loya, Alan Corona, Deseree Rose, Laurie Guzda, Tanya Papanicolas, Karen Hazelwood, Effie Bilbrey, Michael Barton, Cynthia Baker, John Randall, Jane Cantillion, John Barton Shields.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *<\/p>\n

\u00a0If you\u2019ve been following my reviews of the past several weeks, you know I\u2019ve liked some really bad movies. Who in their right mind recommends trash like Code Name: Wild Geese, Drive-In Massacre, 1990: The Bronx Warriors and Sorority House Massacre II? Since I\u2019m not in my right mind, ME! So it is with heavy heart that I make the following declaration. I didn\u2019t like Blood Diner<\/strong>, a horror-comedy from the director of The Being and Night Patrol, Jackie Kong. It comes as a shock to me too. I fully expected to enjoy it, but I just couldn\u2019t get into it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Why didn\u2019t I like Blood Diner<\/strong>? I\u2019m clearly NOT a film snob; if I was, I wouldn\u2019t be watching it in the first place. I have no problem with low-budget horror movies. They\u2019re kind of a staple of my cinematic diet. \u00a0It also isn\u2019t because I didn\u2019t get what Kong was going for. It\u2019s obviously a homage to the films of Herschell Gordon Lewis aka \u201cThe Godfather of Gore\u201d. As a matter of fact, it was originally conceived as a sequel to his 1963 splatter masterpiece Blood Feast until the makers changed their minds. My main problem with Blood Diner<\/strong> is that it\u2019s a screaming bore. I had to fight to stay awake. It\u2019s neither scary nor funny. Boring horror movies and unfunny comedies are bad enough each on their own. Put them together and you have something that really stinks.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The plot centers on the Tutman brothers, Michael (Burks) and George (Crew), and the \u201cvegetarian\u201d diner they own and operate. They\u2019re the only living descendants of serial killer Anwar (Godderis) whose death by police they witness as young boys. Several years later, they bring back Uncle Anwar by digging up his body and placing his brain in a jar. He tasks them with resurrecting the ancient goddess Sheetar. To do that, they must stitch together body parts they collect from immoral women then summon her by sacrificing a virgin at a \u201cblood buffet\u201d. The virgin of choice is Connie (Guggenheim), a good girl bullied by her fellow cheerleaders until the Tutman boys slaughter them. They go around killing other bad girls while two mismatched detectives, Shepard (Dauer) and Sheba (La France), try to track them down.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The tagline for Blood Diner<\/strong> reads \u201cFirst they greet you, then they eat you.\u201d You\u2019re probably asking where cannibalism fits in if the brothers run a \u201cvegetarian\u201d place. Notice how I use the word in quotations? That\u2019s because it isn\u2019t strictly vegetarian. They put unused body parts in the food. Nobody seems to notice. In fact, their clientele tends to rave about the food. This should be funny, but it isn\u2019t, at least it isn\u2019t here. The idea works to better effect in 1966\u2019s The Undertaker and His Pals in which a victim named Sally Lamb becomes \u201cLeg of Lamb\u201d, the diner\u2019s special of the day. It\u2019s corny as all hell, but it works because the whole movie is a weird goof. While also a goof, Blood Diner<\/strong> is never that fun; it only thinks it is.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There are many reasons Blood Diner<\/strong> is terrible. It\u2019s bad for all the usual reasons and more. One thing that sticks out like a sore thumb is the sound recording. Very often, the actors\u2019 voices have a disembodied sound like they re-recorded their dialogue at some later point in production. This, in turn, affects their performances. It makes them worse than they already are. Not that the characters are any great prize either. Everybody is an idiot. This applies to the insane as much as the sane, not that there are a lot of sane people on hand. The special effects are awful. They\u2019re cheap and look it, but I guess it\u2019s okay since the whole movie looks cheap. There are ways to make cheap movies look good; Kong puts none of them to use.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Blood Diner<\/strong> doesn\u2019t have as much gore as I was led to believe by the \u201cNo One Under 17 Admitted\u201d policy on the poster and the intro in which a narrator warns the viewer of the \u201cmany scenes of graphic violence\u201d and it\u2019s \u201cnot intended for the faint of heart\u201d. I call BS! True, it\u2019s violent and gross, but it\u2019s hardly the bloodbath promised by the ad and intro. The finale in the punk club should have been an orgy of splatter like the lawnmower finale in Dead Alive. It has some but not enough.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For me, Blood Diner<\/strong> is just idiotic. It\u2019s badly made on all levels. Scene after scene is executed poorly like the part where six topless cheerleaders get killed. It lands with a thud as do all of the supposed jokes and gags. The only other memorable kill scene is where a woman is decapitated after being deep-fried in batter. Kong mucks that one up too. Blood Diner<\/strong> is a failure all around. What\u2019s worse, it isn\u2019t at all good-natured. Homages are supposed to be a display of the artist\u2019s affection towards a certain subject or person. It doesn\u2019t seem like Kong has much love for splatter flicks judging by the contempt that runs through this movie\u2019s veins. In addition to having low IQs, all of the characters are unpleasant. I didn\u2019t like a single one of them.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I hate to come down on Blood Diner<\/strong> so hard especially since I enjoyed Kong\u2019s other movies. Of course, they both have cool casts, something sorely lacking in this effort. I guess even Gong Show regulars have standards. They\u2019re better off not appearing in Blood Diner<\/strong>, a most unappetizing dish of a movie.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blood Diner (1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lightning Pictures\/Horror-Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 88 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (violence, gore, full frontal nudity, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jackie Kong\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael Sonye\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Don Preston\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jurg Walther\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 10, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Rick Burks, Carl Crew, Roger Dauer, LaNette La France, Lisa Guggenheim, Max Morris, Roxanne Cybelle, Sir (Lamont) Rodeheaver, Dino […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Blood-Diner-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4314"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4570,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4314\/revisions\/4570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}