Midweek Mayhem: Jackie Kong's trash classic, Blood Diner
Midweek Mayhem is a weekly column reviewing and discussing horror films of varying sub-genres.
"The suspect is armed and dangerous, with a meat cleaver in one hand and his genitals in the other". Jackie Kong's Blood Diner starts as it means to go on; making little-to-no sense and lashing surreal gore all over the screen like a Jackson Pollock painting. I legitimately struggled on starting this week's Midweek Mayhem, simply because I'm not even sure where to start with Blood Diner. It's a film so strange, so lurid, so fantastically over the top it defies regular film analysis. Its like aliens took a film class and a couple of thousand dollars and this was their initial attempt.
Hanging around my local video store as a teenager, I distinctly remember the clam-shell box art for the film, promising a low-rent slasher centered around some kind of cannibal diner...or something. But how could any monster loving kid turn that down? And yet I somehow didn't see the film for years to come, as time passed and the store closed it became much harder to find a copy. Then last year, thanks to Lionsgate's fantastic new Vestron Video Blu-Ray line, it finally got a restoration and I finally caught it. Imagine my surprise to find the film bares little resemblance to the awesome poster art.
In fact, IT'S EVEN BETTER.
The film opens with two brothers, Michael and Georgie, playing at home. Their maniac uncle suddenly bursts through the door, chased by the police for multiple sex crimes, and hands them two ancient Lumerian amulets, that will someday help them finish their mad uncles mission to resurrect the goddess, Sheetar. After mad uncle Anwar dies and the brothers grow up, they dig up Anwar's body, remove his brain and put it in a jar. And hey presto, Anwar's a talking brain in a jar, guiding the boys through the blood ritual to resurrect Sheetar.
Sure. Why not?
The film is structured loosely around the rituals shopping list; the boys need virgin's blood, various body parts and a brain to bring the goddess back, so they use their vegetarian restaurant to lure and trap helpless victims. And yes, you read that right; the two maniacal, cannibalistic, grave-robbing brothers run Hollywood's hottest veggie joint. It actually works for the film though, as the structure basically sets up an assembly line of gags, including a highlight where Georgie dismembers an IRS rep whose come to check their account books. The special effects are so woeful they're almost charming, sometimes you're not even sure whats happened to a victim until uncle Anwar's brain talks about the victim. Speaking of Anwar, this thing is hilarious. The brain in a jar joke never gets old in the films scant running time and its constantly spitting out memorable lines as "Oh Sheetar, your knockers are fantastic" and "Boys! Don't let your shlong stop you from the mission like I did". The dialogue here is honestly so bizarre I'd kill to get my hands on an original script just to see if these lines were indeed scripted or simply ad-libbed.
The entire world the film takes place in is incredibly mean-spirited too, as characters obnoxiously laugh as a passer by is crushed by a car or have no reaction at all to dudes dressed in ancient Egyptian clothing performing a human sacrifice in a night club. The world is a microcosm of trash cinema, a world where similar sleaze classics like Street Trash or The Mutilator could easily fit in to.
The entire experience of viewing Blood Diner has me debating whether or not Jackie Kong knew what she was making? Was it meant to be so disgusting? So funny? So outside the realm of normality? If so, then she's a genius, because this shit is like nothing that's ever been made before or after its release. I haven't cracked into the special features on the Vestron Video release just yet, so I'm not sure, but part of me hopes Kong just threw everything together and it resulted in this beautiful cinematic insanity. As it stands, intentional or not, Blood Diner is a sight to behold. A film apart from its own genre and indeed cinema as a whole. It's wild and it deserves your attention.