Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.5

Blood Diner Blu-ray Movie Review

Raoul's been eaten, move on to someone else.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 27, 2016

Some of you who have been around long enough to have made it through various incarnations of home video formats may remember the Dark Ages of something called VHS tapes. It may be hard for younger collectors to realize what a sudden boon the home video market created for film lovers when these now clunky seeming cassettes showed up on the market. Up until the advent of VHS (and Betamax, of course), it was next to impossible to have a personal collection of favorite flicks unless one were fortunate enough to own 16mm prints and projectors. But suddenly with this “newfangled” technology, there was an exciting new supply of content available, something that started to grow exponentially once the VHS vs. Betamax “format war” was over and labels starting churning out tapes of their catalogs. Among the first big players in the VHS market was a rather unlikely one, Vestron Video, built out of the ashes of Time-Life Video (of all things), and then, once the nascent label got a secure toehold in the industry, with a slew of mostly second string features that were culled from the likes of the Cannon Films library. Vestron was a favorite of early collectors, and soon the company actually branched out into producing its own films (including such hits as Dirty Dancing), but it’s Vestron’s early video releases which still tend to spark a certain nostalgic fervor in collectors. Now, in a marketing turn that has perhaps appropriately been called a resurrection (considering the science fiction and/or horror aspect of many Vestron titles), Lionsgate is bringing back the imprint with a new line of offerings under the Vestron Video imprint.

Note: A couple of minor potential spoilers are included in the following plot summary.

In a way it’s a little ironic that the first two releases in Lionsgate’s new Vestron Video series are this film and Chopping Mall, since Chopping Mall features brief cameos by Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov of Eating Raoul (and they’re in fact playing the Bland couple again), while it’s Blood Diner that features a somewhat Eating Raoul-esque plot device that sees a restaurant catering in a very special kind of “menu item”. (An additional scene which would have featured the otherwise underutilized Bartel and Woronov is offered on the Chopping Mall disc as a supplement, albeit only in screenplay form, since the scene was evidently never actually shot.) Blood Diner was originally conceived to be a sequel of sorts to Herschell Gordon Lewis’ infamous 1963 opus Blood Feast (available soon from Arrow as part of their The Herschell Gordon Lewis Feast collection). Knowledge of that tidbit may help some viewers to elide certain segues in the film which may not otherwise pass rudimentary levels of logic, but it’s also helpful to realize that Blood Diner is played unabashedly for laughs. Those laughs are often juvenile, but they’re consistent, and they provide most of the energy for the film, which is full of various levels of blood and guts mayhem but which rarely creates any tension.

One of the few moments of actual suspense occurs very early in the film when a quick quasi-montage details what seems to be a harried working mother quickly preparing for her job and then leaving her two young boys alone to play in the house (in her appealing commentary included on this Blu-ray disc director Jackie Kong discloses that the character of Mike, one of the little boys, was actually essayed by her young daughter). Kong has already repeatedly cut to a “point of view” shot outside the house which clearly implies someone is casing the joint, assumedly for a nefarious reason. The kids continue to goof around with a series of vintage toys (Kong states in the commentary she was going for a fifties feel). The sequence provides a rare moment of genuine angst in Blood Diner, especially when the perspective switches back to the little boys who notice someone fiddling with their house’s doorknob. Suddenly an apparent madman bursts through the door, bloody and carrying a hatchet. In the first substantial gag of the film, the boys, up until then terrified and hiding behind their toy chest, jump up excitedly and proclaim a hearty hello with open arms to what turns out to be their uncle.

Uncle Anwar (Drew Godderis) is obviously extremely addled, but he gets to maraud through some completely silly exposition while delivering amulets to the little boys. We hear cops show up outside, and Anwar goes out to meet them, hatchet in hand, to the expected sound of gunfire taking him down. The film then fast forwards a couple of decades to find Michael (Rick Burks) and George (Carl Crew) at Anwar’s grave, digging madly in what turns out to be a scheme to retrieve the corpse’s brain. That then gives way to the conceit of an animated brain (with eyes, no less) kept alive in a jar that doles out acerbic commentary for the rest of the film, along with “instructions” to the boys that will supposedly help them resurrect the ancient goddess Sheetar. Doing this requires body parts, mind you, which is where the Eating Raoul elements start accruing, as the brothers literally stitch together a “new” body for Sheetar while using “leftovers” to supply menu items at their restaurant.

The film is just downright gonzo for most of its running time, with the brothers taking out their victims while the cops attempt to figure out who’s on a killing spree and for what reasons. Some of the kill scenes are enjoyably ludicrous (my favorite is the “deep fat fryer” episode which involves a buxom beauty, completely nude, getting her head covered in batter and crisped), and the entire film has moments of giddy silliness that are unapologetically ridiculous. Performances are not exactly at Oscar caliber, which kind of only adds to the film’s peculiar luster, but director Jackie Kong (who provides a really interesting commentary) keeps things moving briskly and provides several well staged set pieces.

Blood Diner Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Blood Diner is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films and its new Vestron Video imprint with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. The press materials on both this and Chopping Mall advertise they've been "transferred from the original film elements" without detailing what exactly those film elements are (there's some scuttlebutt on the internet about the provenance of the elements and scan resolutions, but I've found nothing I personally would deem authoritative). I've given this the same 3.5 score I afforded Chopping Mall, but this is a somewhat less detailed looking overall transfer, one that's probably hobbled by a number of dark and even steamy (courtesy of the diner's kitchen) scenes where detail levels rarely rise to overwhelming status. Elements have either faded or there's a somewhat odd general grading approach here, for a lot of the palette seems slightly skewed toward a brownish or even yellowish tone. Grain can be pretty chunky at times, and as such (and again as with Chopping Mall), occasional compression hurdles enter the fray. Still, in decent lighting and when close-ups are employed, detail levels can be very good, with some of the practical effects work literally showing its seams on a couple of occasions. There's just a tiny bit of wobble during the closing credits sequence, but otherwise image stability is fine. My score is probably more at the 3.25 level.

Blood Diner Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Blood Diner features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track that serves the film decently well. It's obvious that at least some swaths of this film were post-looped, for there's little if any agreement between words being spoken and lip movements at several key junctures (keep your eyes peeled during that aforementioned deep fat fryer sequence for one especially noticeable example), and that tendency brings with it a slight but noticeable difference in overall tone and things like ambient reverb. Otherwise, things sound fine if unremarkable, with the film's goofy sound effects (many traipsing a kind of static electricity sound) reverberating with decent force. Dialogue is rendered cleanly, but occasionally encounters prioritization issues in some of the noisier moments.

Blood Diner Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Director Jackie Kong


• Killer Cuisine: The Making of Blood Diner (1080p; 1:04:31) is a great five part making of documentary that features a lot of excellent interviews.


• Archival Interview with Project Consultant Eric Caiden (1080p; 8:01) of course begs the question, "This film needed a project consultant?" Seriously, though, this is a sweet interview with the late Hollywood Book and Poster Company owner from 2009. Caiden had some early involvement in the development of the film.


• Theatrical Trailers (1080p; 4:49) offers two trailers.


• TV Spots (480p; 1:34) offers a 60 second and a 30 second spot.


• Radio Spots (1080p; 2:17) offers three spots which play out under some concept art from the film.


• Still Gallery (1080p; 5:34)

Blood Diner Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I have loved Blood Diner since I first stumbled across it on some late, late show years ago and couldn't believe the delirious silliness I was witnessing. This new Blu-ray offers a significantly improved video component even if things aren't perfect, and the audio is similarly upgraded if occasionally problematic. Lionsgate and its new Vestron Video imprint are off to a great start, even if this release doesn't quite have the abundance in the supplements department that Chopping Mall has. Recommended.