Blood Diner appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this Blu-Ray Disc. Though not a bad presentation, the transfer showed its limitations.
Definition was acceptable, as the film showed reasonable accuracy. I’d never call it razor-sharp, but it usually offered fair delineation. Sporadic soft shots popped up, though, especially during interiors.
No issues with shimmering or jaggies occurred, and I saw no edge haloes. Print flaws were minor. I noticed a smattering of small specks but nothing substantial.
Colors seemed acceptable. Diner provided a natural palette that never favored any particular tones. The hues lacked much pop but they appeared passable overall. Blacks were moderately inky, and low-light shots tended to appear somewhat dense. The transfer seemed dated but decent.
Similar thoughts greeted the lackluster DTS-HD MA monaural soundtrack of Blood Diner. Speech appeared a little reedy and thin, and the movie came with a lot of poorly looped dialogue. Nonetheless, the lines showed good intelligibility and lacked overt flaws. Music demonstrated limited range as well, but the score was clear enough and showed moderate pep.
Effects fell into the same range. The track didn’t ask for much, and the elements sounded decent; they could be somewhat flat but they showed no distortion and represented the material well enough. All of this left us with a “C” soundtrack.
A few extras fill out the disc, and we start with an audio commentary from director Jackie Kong. She provides a running, screen-specific look at story/characters, cast and performances, music, editing, cinematography, budgetary issues, sets and locations, and related areas.
Most of the time, Kong offers a strong commentary. She occasionally tends to simply narrate the movie, but those moments appear fairly infrequently. Instead, Kong usually gives us an honest, informative and engaging look at her movie.
Killer Cuisine: The Making of Blood Diner runs one hour, four minutes and 31 seconds. It involves info from Kong, screenwriter Michael Sonye, producer Jimmy Maslon, creative consultant Bill Osco, composer Don Preston, director of photography Jurg Walther, and actors Carl Crew, Drew Godderis and Roger Dauer.
The show looks at the project’s origins and development, story/character/script areas, cast and performances, music, sets and locations and photography. Though presented as one package, “Cuisine” really provides five separate featurettes that don’t link together in a natural way.
As such, don’t expect “Cuisine” to deliver a coherent start-to-finish overview of the film. The awkward format aside, we do get a fairly good array of information here. It’s not an especially fluid program but it tells us useful material about the film.
Next we get an Archival Interview with Project Consultant Eric Gaidin. In this eight-minute, one second chat from 2009, Gaidin discusses his involvement in the film and aspects of the production. Galdin gives us a nice summary of different topics.
Some advertising materials appear. We find two trailers, two TV spots and three radio spots. The presence of “gore-met Phil A. Mignon” makes the trailers/TV promos more interesting than most.
Finally, we find a Still Gallery. A running montage, it goes for five minutes, 34 seconds and offers a mix of movie shots and promo images. It’s fairly forgettable.
A goofy stab at horror/comedy, Blood Diner delivers occasional entertainment. It lacks consistency, though, and fails to become a particularly good romp. The Blu-ray provides adequate picture and audio as well as a collection of bonus features highlighted by a strong commentary. Fans of campy 80s horror might like Blood Diner, but it seems unlikely to appeal beyond that cult crowd.