Nothing sucks the laughs out of a humorous situation quicker than having to explain a joke, but sometimes, when it comes to analysing a horror comedy, it helps to know what kind of ambitions it has in order to get its brand of humour. Not only can that help you acclimate to whatever tone the humour is going for, but it might help you understand some of the jokes better when you know the context the filmmakers are using.
Still, there’s still that sense that even if you knew exactly what filmmaker Jackie Kong was trying to achieve with Blood Diner, you still might actually miss the joke as her 1987 gore opus riffs heavily on the works of Herschell Gordon Lewis, the exploitation filmmaker dubbed the Godfather of Gore. In fact, at one point, Blood Diner was actually set to be an official sequel to Lewis’ Blood Feast before changing into something of a blatent homage, but the end result still manages to accurately nail the filmmaker’s crude and very amateur style (or lack thereof). However, if you’ve managed to make a clumsy film based off the clumsy work from a clumsy filmmaker – are you technically not a clumsy filmmaker yourself? Behold, the great conundrum of Blood Diner.
As children, brothers Michael and George Tutman had a very strange relationship with their uncle Anwar who essentially brainwashed the little buggers by filling their heads with stories of resurrecting the Lumarian goddess Sheetar. Of course, seeing as Uncle Anwar is also a cleaver waving serial killer, he’s soon brought down by police in a hail of bullets, but years later, when the two Tutman boys are fully grown, they dig up their beloved uncle and resurrect him to complete his work
Now a disembodied brain in a jar who barks out orders in an unpindownable accent, Anwar instructs the brothers while they toil away in their highly successful vegetarian restaurant to collect various parts from different, “immoral” women to construct a body for Sheetar and then provide a virgin sacrifice and many witnesses for the “blood buffet” that will give her life. Collecting the body parts proves to be a snap when Michael and George simply gate crash a training session for nude cheerleaders and machine gun them all down, but pinning down a virgin proves to be a slightly more delicate task.
In the wake of the nude cheerleader massacre, oil and water detectives Sheba Jackson and Mark Shepard are tasked with trying to find the heinous perpetrators of this senseless crime (if nude cheerleading is wrong, I don’t want to know what’s right), but while their investigation turns up bupkis, Michael and George are free to go on little side quests to complete their mission. But while the excitable George gets to wrestle the notorious Jimmy Hitler for cash, Michael has been wooing local virgin, Connie, for nefarious purposes and it soon seems like that have all the components needed to stage the blood buffet and restore the goddess Sheetar to her former, fanged glory.
As you could probably tell from the above synopsis, there’s not a single moment of Blood Diner that’s supposed to be taken seriously (Which phrase gave it away; “Nude cheerleading” or “Wrestling Jimmy Hitler for money”?), and director Jackie Kong does everything in her splattery powers to ensure proceedings with a kind of demented, cartoon logic usually reserved for the likes of Troma movies. However, while the movie deservedly has cult classic virtually stamped over every frame of its existence, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that I came to finally find Blood Diner at least thirty years too late.
Now don’t misunderstand me, I’ve no problems with a movie that embraces the chaos and launches itself headfirst onto the gaping maw of madcap comedy and I’ve routinely cherished the absurd bloodletting of both Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz (The Toxic Avenger, Class Of Nuke ‘Em High) and Frank Helenlotter (Basket Case, Frankenhooker) for years. In fact, while I’ll freely acknowledge that it has more than it’s fair share of flaws, I even tip the hat at Sam Raimi’s muddled farce, Crimewave despite the fact thatvit holds together about as well a wet paper bag holding a bowling ball; however, while I’ll happy acknowledge the impact Herschell Gordon Lewis had thanks to his pioneering (if primitive) use of gore, I’ve never actually been a devoted fan.
This makes reviewing Blood Diner kind of tough because even through Jackie Kong delivers a stupidly madcap adventure that works both as a genuine love letter and a spiritual sequel, I’m not actually overly fond of the movies it’s trying to ape. Furthermore, you could hardly describe the filmmaking abilities of Kong as measured or restrained and a lot of the jokes get buried in the sheer mayhem of endlessly exaggerated performances, near constant doo-wop or rockabilly music and the fact that the director can’t seem to frame a scene without at least stuffing about twelve different things going on in the background. Virtually no example of broad comedy is ignored in Kong’s quest to male the film as deliberately obnoxious as she can as she deploys outlandish accents, strange dubbing, baffling side characters (what’s the deal with the ventriloquist rival chef?), sledgehammer satire and a whole load of slapstick to keep the energy levels higher than Georgia pine. However, while I appreciate the effort, I just didn’t find Blood Diner as funny as I was hoping. Maybe if I’d seen it during my formative years I would have embraced it as much as some of its equally preposterous peers, but catching it now, the youthful exuberance needed to get caught up in the playful craziness seems to have left me somewhat immune to it’s goofy charms. I dig the splatstick, I dig the exaggeration and the ending – which oddly sees the movie finally focus at its most frenetic moment – actually hits the spot with zombies, exploding front men and a fanged goddess with a flytrap-esque maw in her belly.
However, one thing about Blood Diner that struck me is that it made me question how my brain dictate which goofy shit makes me laugh and which doesn’t. What separates Tommy Wiseu’s groundbreaking awfulness in The Room from the fact that LaNette La France acts like she’s only learned to communicate with humans that morning? Why do I deem The Toxic Avenger worthy of low budget, counter culture worship when Blood Diner is just as boldly amateurish and shamelessly stupid?
My gut is once again telling me that this probably just an age thing, which probably means that if I’d managed to squeeze a viewing of Blood Diner between screenings of Brain Damage and Waxwork, I truly might have championed this as a trash classic. However, sadly, this Diner isn’t serving anything I have an appetite for.
🌟🌟
We Have Issues 