Unseen Terror 2013: Day 5

As younger children, Michael and George Tutman are "approached" by their uncle Anwar, who gives them pendants in connection with an ancient deity named "Sheetar." Not long afterwards, Anwar is murdered by the police. Years later, the Tutmans have taken up the task of murdering young women (and incorporating parts of them into their special dishes of the restaurant they run) in order to please what is left of their dearly departed uncle, and in hopes of one day resurrecting Sheetar herself.


I was completely unaware that Blood Diner was a sequel to Blood Feast, a movie that was released twenty-four years prior to this picture's own release in 1987. Does this matter? Not in the slightest, as this B-movie schlockfest makes little-to-mention of its original predecessor throughout its surprisingly short running time, and could easily stand on its own as evidenced by the cult following and memorabilia it has garnered over the years.


Blood Diner's two antagonists/main characters look lifted out of the video game Double Dragon, and their acting comes from the live-action version of the same name. Come to think of it, nobody is good here. But this picture doesn't care about giving you good performances, it wants you to be entertained. And you do have a surprising great amount of fun for the first thirty or forty minutes, especially in the hilariously campy opening (Blood Diner's own disclaimer is probably better than the movie itself). It wouldn't shock me to find out if John Waters had a bootleg of this movie sitting somewhere on his shelf. But (and there's the but), the film's a roller coaster in terms of merriment: one moment, you're frolicking in its sheer ludicrousness, the next, you're wishing it would get back to what kept you laughing so much.


There's also an attempt to humanize Michael, the more vocal and human of the brothers, by giving him a "love interest," but it feels underdeveloped and never really goes anywhere. The two detectives on the case of the brothers are also so incredibly boring that I forgot to write down any notes about them other than "one looks like Janet Jackson." Another odd note: I'm not sure if the weird obsession with 50s/60s-era professional wrestling seen throughout is meant to be a positive or a negative, but the scene of one brother wrestling a nazi character, (who is garnished with a swastika and a Hitler mustache. That certainly wouldn't fly today) didn't really help clear things up. Said brother also gets the crap beat out of him by a would-be victim at the beach, which is admittedly amusing. Unfortunately, nothing really develops between the brothers, be it positive or negative, so that's a bit of a disappointment. Their disembodied uncle, who remains as a brain in a mason jar, commands them like a Power Rangers villain more than anything else, and spouts lines like he was Razor Ramon at one point. And yes, that's two Power Rangers references I've made within the span of a week. I'm ashamed of myself.


If you can't take everything with a grain of salt in a picture like this, you're likely to loathe Blood Diner. The final twenty minutes is one of the strangest conclusions I've seen to a film, be it horror or not, since I reviewed The Devils two years ago, with a pompadour-led band leader commanding a backup band dressed like Adolf Hitlers, everyone seemingly trying to eat one another, and a naked woman's stomach opening up trying to swallow people's heads. And oh how I wished I was making that up. Beers and pizza might help you get through this one.



Tomorrow, I'm still hungry, so I decide a need a filling of THE STUFF!

Unseen Terror 2012: Day 23

I'm actually going to do today's reviews a little differently. Instead of typing a separate review for each film, I've decided to do a comparison piece, since they're essentially the same, shitty, waste of time.

The plot for Blood Surf revolves around a group of people who travel to the Island of Never Specified for a new sport known as "Blood Surfing." This sport revolves around surfers throwing chum in the water to attract sharks, and surf around them accordingly while people film it for television. Our group stops by another island while doing this nonsense, and soon find that they're being pursued by a large Salt Water Crocodile. On the other side of things, Shark Night's plot revolves around a cast of students who decide to vacation at a Louisiana lake, where one of them used to frequent when she was younger. Almost immediately, they're subject to a variety of different shark attacks.

If you think the plots for those sound stupid, you'd be wrong. They're AMAZINGLY stupid. For one thing, Shark Night's plot shouldn't even make sense when you consider that most sharks survive in SALT water, not fresh. True, they offer a very brief explanation as to how these ones can and how they got there to begin with, but it still reeks of laziness. At least they explain from the get go in Blood Surf that the animal is indeed a "Salty," so nobody can nitpick them to death.

I was tempted to say that Shark Night had the advantage with its casting choices. Nobody in either film is good mind you, but at least you can recognize Sara Paxton (The Innkeepers), Katherine McPhee (American Idol), Joel David Moore (Dodgeball), and Donal Logue (Grounded For Life). Blood Surf's acting reminded me of something from an early WCW skit. Like White Castle of Fear-level stuff. The characters are cardboard cutouts or painfully cliched (this could apply to either movie to be honest), and the Australian lead actress was the equivalent to X-Men's Mimc when it came to accents. But after thinking about it for approximately ten seconds, I chose to say that it's a draw, and for one reason only: Blood Surf has nudity. Seeing as how it didn't receive a theatrical release, they most likely figured they could get their starlets to do whatever they wanted. Meanwhile, Shark Night is rated PG-13, so of course, we'll get a brief shot of sideboobs and nothing else. Those might be the holy grail for a twelve year old who hasn't discovered that the object downstairs is more fun to use than you realize, but it will annoy everyone else.

On the monsters and gore front, Shark Night can be described as no guts and no glory, since the blood and kills here are flat out lame. Every kill essentially amounts to pools of blood in the water while herky jerky camerawork frustrates you and robs you of anything potentially "cool." Blood Surf's kills are rather disappointing too, save for one scene with a human shish kabob. Shark Night loves its CGI, and naturally, it looks terrible. Would it have been too much to get the folks who worked on Deep Blue Sea to show you how to do a computer-generated shark properly? As for Blood Surf,  even though it was filmed during the "transition" period in movies (a.k.a. when CGI overtook practical effects and animatronics), the CGI looks ATROCIOUS, but we do see some shots of an actual animatronic crocodile! It also looks pretty silly, and I'm convinced they could only afford to make a head, but it was appreciated. Advantage, crocs.

However, both films are guilty of ripping off one vastly superior product: Jaws. I know we can't deny its impact on the horror genre, but for the love of god, they aren't even subtle about it. Blood Surf steals the Quint character, while Shark Night steals the opening sequence and several other key moments from that classic. Utterly shameful. I know Shark Night was also released in 3D, but even that cheap gimmick wouldn't have been able to mask its flaws.

This is like choosing which end of a double headed dildo covered in broken glass you want forcefully shoved up your anus. Neither is pleasant, neither is fun, and ultimately, you'll feel hurt having gone through either one. My advise is to just stay away if you know what's good for you.


Tomorrow, we're (hopefully) back to the good bunch with the much discussed DEADGIRL.