ANYTHING GOES IN THIS HORROR COMEDY CLASSIC
★★★★★ (A Must-See)
Director: Jackie Kong
1987
Blood Diner is a treasure of a film that does the impossible: make you laugh at it and with it. Inspired by Blood Feast (1963), it’s an amusement park ride you never want to end; when you’re trying to process what you just saw, the next scene carries you down a rollercoaster hill and then past a tunnel of love and then through a haunted house…all without losing track of its very specific comedic tone of neon 80s camp. Do yourself a favor, please do not Google this film before you watch it. Like other great horror movies such as Sleepaway Camp and Society, photos online spoil the ending, and do you really want to ruin what could be an amazing movie experience? Just press play.
The movie starts with two young boys witnessing jailbird Uncle Anwar’s suicide by police. Before he dies, he tells the boys he’s in an Egyptian cult and it’s up to his nephews to eventually unearth his body so he can resurrect an ancient goddess named Sheetar. After the brothers grow up, they make good on their word and dig up their uncle, transferring his somehow still viable brain with attached eyeballs into a jar of goo. Drew Godderis hams it up as Anwar, the talking brain who barks orders at his nephews and helps them run a vegetarian diner secretly serving cats and humans.
The brothers are opposites. One is a nice-looking guy with a friendly smile, who runs the business end of the diner, and the other is a wrestling-obsessed lunatic who cooks the meals. After returning to the restaurant with their uncle-brain, they begin a storied quest to gather body parts in order to bring Sheetar back to life—as well as procure a virgin for sacrifice. It amuses me that the girl chosen is never asked if she’s a virgin; they assume she is because she’s shy and doesn’t want to attend topless aerobics classes with her girlfriends.
This is the same aerobics class that is targeted for an attack, and you will recognize one of the ladies from a wildly popular 80s movie, but I won’t divulge her identity here because it’s pointedly absent on her IMDb and Wikipedia pages. If you do you figure out her identity, don’t be a jerk. Shaking pom-poms while doing topless high-kicks isn’t the kind of work you want to show the grandkids. But this scene is a good example of what Blood Diner does right—it shocks you over and over until you forget what you saw five minutes ago.
As the brothers piece together a Sheetar, they dodge officers slowly picking up the scent. I want to give a shout-out to director Jackie Kong for casting not just a woman, but a Black woman as the level-headed detective who has to deal with her partner’s incompetence. You might not think this is much, but remember, Blood Diner was filmed in the 1980s. At first glance, she’s Janet Jackson from the “Black Cat” video, but it’s really actress LaNette LaFrance playing the straight (wo)man around cannibals, sexist cops, and an Egyptian death cult. She’s the dash of seasoning and reasoning that keeps everything grounded.
“It’s a violation of Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act if you’re nasty.”
The climax of Blood Diner is one for the ages. I don’t want to ruin the movie for you, so I’ll only add that it includes tubs of flesh, green zombies, and saxophone players. Like the rest of the film, everything is thrown into the pot and still winds up tasting good. If you’re feeling low, Blood Diner is spicy comfort food. It requires you to leave common sense and decency at the door, but no one’s complaining when a movie is this much fun.
GENRES: Body Horror, Diverse Characters, Funny, What the Fuck Was That
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