Blood Diner is the horror-comedy you didn’t know you needed in your viewing rotation. Directed and produced by Jackie Kong in 1987, it has gained a cult following that has only grown since its release. This is a special cult horror because at the time, a film quite like this one hadn’t been made. Up until that point, films that featured either an excess of gore, or an excess of tacky characters and sleazy comedy, had not been combined in such a perfect way that earned success. When audiences found out a woman was behind it, shock and controversy ensued. Kong managed to balance the elements of over-the-top gore slashers, with raunchy laugh-out-loud comedies seamlessly. By virtue of her female gaze, Kong's playfulness with the gender roles and imagery resulted in the delightfully campy ride that is Blood Diner.

What is 'Blood Diner' About?

The story follows the Tutman brothers, Michael (Rick Burks) and George (Carl Crew), as they execute a ritual to summon a Lemurian goddess, Sheetar (Tanya Papanicolas). The ritual requires killing women and using their body parts to build a new body that Sheetar can inhabit when her spirit comes down to Earth. The women can’t just be any women though. They must be “immoral” women. In addition, one virgin must be sacrificed to Sheetar for her first meal upon her arrival. The ritual procedure is being instructed to the Tutmans by their dead uncle Anwar (Drew Godderis). Anwar’s body is dead, but he lives on as an eccentric brain in a jar. The brother’s interactions with the brain jar are absurd.

blood diner evisceration

The first bloodbath of the film is of a group of cheerleaders who are doing a topless aerobics class on live cable television. The Tutman brothers storm the aerobics class and shoot down all the cheerleaders, shielding themselves with Ronald Reagan masks. Kong is doing some direct commenting on the president of the time, who was not known for being the kindest to women. Then they take their pick of bits and pieces of the girls to sew together for the Sheetar ritual. A head from one woman, an arm from another, etc. Kong’s female gaze hits the ground running with this scene. Women are not expected to think about blood and guts, especially not for entertainment’s sake. Women are also not expected to create imagery of women’s bodies the way men do-- such as a topless aerobics class, which ironically includes a layer of voyeurism in the universe of the film itself, being on live cable television.

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The Dumb Blonde Stereotype Is Reversed

The female gaze is prominent in the characterization of the Tutman brothers as well. It feels like the “dumb blonde” stereotype that is regularly characterized in women, is applied to Michael Tutman. He is popular for his looks, yet is actually unintelligent beneath the surface. The other brother, George, is so expressively repressed that he functions as more of a caveman or animal than a person. He has few lines and the ones he does have involve getting jazzed about wrestling and/or killing women. The ways these male characters operate, specifically in contrast to each other, are fresh in film, especially considering it is a horror film. The female gaze sheds a lot of humor on these characters because they are straightforward and one-dimensional from the get-go. Often in films where males are committing crimes against women, they are portrayed with a nuance that excuses or explains their misogynistic abuse. In this film, it is really just a hot airhead and his caveman brother.

blood diner wrestler

Blood Diner is sprinkled with subtle imagery that has the female gaze to thank. As a woman is trying to escape death at the hands of the Tutman brothers, she drops her purse and all her tampons fall out of her bag. A tampon may seem like a frivolous detail, but its simple presence could be a connecting moment for audiences that, at the end of the day, are watching a movie centered around women and blood. It is also imagery that is not typically seen in horror films, in non-horrific situations. (Not that dropping your tampon while running away from a killer isn’t horrific!)

The Female Gaze in Sheetar

The female gaze in Blood Diner is the most exciting in the creation of Sheetar. Sheetar’s whole inception has been rooted in the complications and jumbled views that society holds towards women’s sexuality. If you’re a “whore,” you’re a sacrifice and if you’re a “virgin,” you’re a sacrifice as well. The formation of one final woman, a goddess, using the individual parts of multiple women, can symbolize how women are faced with many scrutinizing standards that ultimately want them to look like the idea of another woman. When Sheetar comes alive, she looks like no other woman though. She is equipped with long, sharp, fang-like teeth. A huge vaginal shaped opening going down her entire front side, is also complete with its own set of sharp pointy teeth. The female gaze is arresting with the imagery of Sheetar. She is a monster that viciously eats her victims with her fanged vagina mouth. This element to Sheetar feels quintessential, since a major plot point to the film is judging women based on their sexuality or lack thereof. Now, this goddess’s sexual organ is ravaging and consuming anyone in the room that comes close enough.

blood diner sheetar

Kong’s female gaze makes the mixture of gore and humor unique. The context of the film is especially unexpected, because it’s about men murdering women in brutal and graphic, yet creative ways. It comes from a perspective not usually found in the horror genre. Kong’s perspective as a female director allows for Blood Diner to be one of the best and bloodiest intellectually trashy cult horrors of its kind.