PMS Filmworks, 1987
starring: Rick Burks, Carl Crew, Lisa Elaina and Drew Godderis
directed by: Jackie Kong

the plot: When they were children, brothers George (Crew) and Michael (Burks) Tutman watched as the police gunned down their deranged uncle Anwar (Godderis), a psychotic slasher responsible for the deaths of a number of young women. But before he died, Anwar asked his nephews to carry on his work when they got older. As the boys would discover, Anwar’s “work” centered on sacrificial murder. His goal: to kill and harvest the body parts of young women in order to resurrect the ancient goddess Shitar and unleash her upon the earth. To keep the family tradition alive, George and Michael open up a vegetarian café in Hollywood, where they pick unsuspecting patrons to be their next victims. Guiding the boys is the disembodied brain of Anwar, stuck in a jar and hooked up to a speaker so he can communicate his diabolical plans. From among the café’s customers, Michael picks out Connie Stanton (Elaina) to be the sacrificial virgin who will help bring Shitar into the world. As the bodies pile up, Michael and George serve up their victims as vegetarian delicacies and prepare Shitar’s earthly body. But a pair of bumbling cops may turn out to be the brothers’ downfall.

why it’s good: “Blood Diner” is the ultimate paradox: a movie so absolutely terrible and yet so amazingly awesome that the cognitive cinematic dissonance could make your head explode. Originally conceived as a sequel to H.G. Lewis’ 1963 gore-fest “Blood Feast,” but retooled when Lewis refused to sign off on the production, “Blood Diner” trumps its source material, both in terms of all-out gore and total cheesiness. Doubtful? Just check out the scene in which George and Michael, wearing Ronald Reagan masks and wielding machine guns, dispatch a room full of naked, aerobicizing cheerleaders who were about to make their cable television debut. Or watch the scene in which George gets a massive kung fu beat-down at the hands of a naked punk-rock chick. Or the bit where Michael picks up a girl at a bar, covers her in batter and deep fries her head. There really isn’t a moment in which “Blood Diner” isn’t hilariously out of control, but director Jackie Kong and screenwriter Michael Sonye also fill the movie with plenty of throwaway gags, from the brothers’ shopping list (sample items: six dog dicks, four cats of any gender and MSG) to a mid-movie wrestling match between George and a massive brute who calls himself Little Jimmy Hitler. The special effects are surprisingly competent—they don’t look all that great, but they’re not terrible, either. Speaking of terrible, though, the acting is atrocious. But it’s so atrocious that it transcends badness and becomes sublimely surreal. Some characters adopt random, embarrassing accents while others speak most of their lines through a dummy dressed like a cowboy, and little rhyme or reason is given for any of this behavior. All the madness comes together in a finale that features zombies, musical Hitlers and the goddess Shitar sporting a massive, toothsome stomach-vagina. If you’ve got the stomach for it, “Blood Diner” is immensely satisfying.

why you should own it: If you like bad cinema, you’ll love “Blood Diner.” It’s so enthusiastically bad, so confident in its terribleness that you can’t help but love it. Tracking down a DVD copy may be a bit of a challenge—German distributor Dragon has produced a region-free edition of the movie, which can be found easily (but not cheaply) after a quick Google search. VHS copies of are still floating around on eBay and Amazon, if that’s your thing, but the easiest way to catch “Blood Diner” right now is on Comcast’s FEARnet On Demand channel. There’s also a legitimate sequel to “Blood Feast,” directed by H.G. Lewis himself, but here in the Video Vault, we can’t imagine anything overtaking the sheer awesomeness of “Blood Diner.”