Director: Jackie Kong
Writer: Michael Sonye
Starring: Rick Burks, Carl Crew, Roger Dauer, LaNette La France, Lisa Elaina, Max Morris
Music by: Don Preston
Taglines: “First they greet you, then they eat you.”"Food So Good, It Tastes Just Like Mom Used To”
STORY
Two brothers were indoctrinated by their crazed uncle into a cult worshipping an ancient goddess named Sheetar, shortly before getting gunned down by police. When they grow up, the pair dig up their uncle’s body and uses his reanimated brain to help them collect the body parts needed to resurrect Shita. Meanwhile, they secretly feed human flesh to the unsuspecting customers at their “vegetarian” diner.
OPINION
Blood Diner is another one of those movies that’s OK at face value but gains a lot on interest when you learn its history. In this case, Blood Diner was originally intended as a direct sequel to Herschel Gordon Lewis’ infamous gore movie Blood Feast, which followed Fuad Ramses’ attempts to create a similar feast for a similar ancient goddess. Unfortunately, Lewis could not direct a movie to save his life. His movies are all very boring, atrociously acted and poorly staged. the gore – their main selling point – may have been shocking at the time, but generally consist of waving offal taken from a butchers’ shop in front of the camera. It’s not even a case of working with 60s sensibilities or being a pioneer in his field – the 2002 official follow-up Blood Feast 2 – All U Can Eat is just as bad. He has his fans, but I’m not really one of them.
Luckily, Lewis did not direct this one. Taking over is Jackie Kong, a female director who had an unfortunately brief career in exploitation and horror movies including The Being and Night Patrol (in fact, Blood Diner was her last feature). I’ve not seen her earlier work, but I would like to track them down after this, where she shows a real flair for direction that was totally missing from Lewis’ work. The script has the same kind of goofy humour and strange sensibility (the cops investigating the murders are as quirky and useless as in its fore-bearers).
There are 2 things that really stand out here. First is the acting. While not particularly great, it’s about average quality for an 80s low budget movie, and positively Shakespearean compared to Blood Feast. The other great thing is the gore and the imagination behind the effects. Aided by 80s effects technology and a good eye, Kong manages to create a lot of amusingly disgusting sequences. From the woman who has her head coated in batter (before getting it deep friend and then knocked clean off) to the people puking over each other in the diner, there’s a lot on display here that proves that in the right hands, this kind of gore comedy can work quite well.
There’s downsides, of course. The script is not particularly good, and the film walks a very thin line between campy fun and boringly self-aware. There’s a sequence toward the end of the movie during Sheetar’s resurrection (come on, that’s not a spoiler, surely!) which takes a left turn into zombie movie territory and while Sheetar’s resurrected form is amusingly disgusting, you can’t help but notice she’s rooted to the spot. There’s some truly weird sequences that reflect some of Lewis’ more bizarre decisions (for example, there’s a strange recurring gag about a rival diner whose owner talks to a dummy) that work equally badly.
The music sequences are also strange in a way that was obviously meant to be camp but grated on me a little bit. The first such sequence (an aerobics studio full of topless cheerleaders) was just long enough to drive the joke into the ground, but when action moves to several club sequences it gets a bit much. For some reason, the bands on stage are playing a weird 80s version of 50s rock and 60s soul. During the final club scene, some of the band are dressed as Hitler. Maybe I’m missing something, but it was all just filler that annoyed me more than entertained me.
All in all, these are fairly minor quibbles. If the phrase “an 80s version of Blood Feast” piques your interest then go for it. Otherwise, it’s a passable time-waster but nowhere near the quality of other similar movies that were made at the same time.
Rating: 
CENSORSHIP
Blood Diner was mildly controversial on release, being banned in several Canadian provinces. It was also cut by nearly 4 minutes for its UK VHS release. I see no reason why it would be cut if resubmitted today, given that the likes of and even Caligula are now uncut, but thus far nobody has.
AVAILABILITY
Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be an official UK or US release of this movie on DVD although there are some European discs available (linked below).
I loved Bloodfeast II. “Buttsteak” and “Satan” have become family jokes around here. Don’t be such a snob!
Heh, fair enough… Not being a snob, just didn’t find it that funny but glad you enjoyed it!