CANNIBAL DINER (2012 - German)

Studio:       Brink Vision
Director:    Frank W. Montag
Writer:       Mario von Czapiewski
Producer:  Mario von Czapiewski, Frank W. Montag
Stars:     Alexandra Lesch, Kristiana Rohder, Lara Baum, Alexandra Jordan, Violetta Schurawlow, Indira Madison, Mike Zick, Dominik Schneider, Celina Klemenz

Review Score: 

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Summary:

A camping holiday turns into a nightmare when six German models are stalked by a family of mutated cannibals. 

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Dahlia playfully records Mele and Jill with a camera as they unpack supplies and make camp. Jill snorts cocaine and makes out with a topless Mele. After hearing strange sounds from the nearby trees, the girls are attacked by someone unseen.

Kati showers after a modeling job while her sister Celine repairs a dune buggy breakdown with Tanja. Kati leaves a voicemail for Celine and Tanja when she becomes lost on her way to meet them. Kati sees a drunken woman stumbling along the road and asks her for help. The woman directs Kati to a restricted area that was once the site of several chemical factories. As the two women are talking, someone steals Kati’s car. Kati proceeds down the road on foot. Someone picks up the map that she throws away.

While Kati loses herself in the forest, Tanja and Celine arrive by dune buggy at the campsite seen earlier, but find it deserted. Tanja is unable to reach anyone via cell phone. Kati makes her way to an abandoned chemical factory in the restricted area. Inside, she sees a strange, blue-skinned man dragging a bloody sack. Kati goes to the exit, but there is another man outside the door. Back in the factory, Kati watches the first man eat a body part from his sack. She then flees.

Tanja and Celine find Kati’s map by the side of the road. They go into the woods to investigate.

Kati finds a little girl on the factory’s second floor. The girl is blue-skinned like the two men and acts feral. Kati runs away and finds a cell phone in another room. She tries to escape through a window, but discovers that they are all barred. Kati climbs up to the roof only to learn that there is still no cell phone reception.

Tanja and Celine agree to split up and search separately for Kati. A blue arm grabs Tanja. Celine finds a human ear on the ground and begins to run until she finds Tanja’s dead body against a tree. The killer then grabs Celine while she hides.

Kati fashions a rope to descend back to the lower level of the factory while she is pursued, but she is eventually captured. Kati awakens tied to a chair at a dinner table with one of the cannibals while another one butchers Mele in preparation for their next meal. The little girl that Kati found earlier asks if Kati is her new mommy. After Kati says no, the little girl says that Kati will be their new mommy until the next one arrives.

When Kati refuses to eat, The Cook throws Kati’s plate in frustration and accidentally starts a kitchen fire. Kati uses the diversion to escape her restraints. Following a struggle, Kati manages to kill the cannibal who tries to recapture her.

Kati barricades herself in one of the rooms. A cannibal starts breaking down the door with a chainsaw. Kati escapes through an underground passageway and the cannibals pursue her. Kati kills another cannibal after a fight.

When the remaining cannibal corners Kati while holding Dahlia’s night vision camera, Kati distracts him with a striptease before she attacks. Unable to find an exit, Kati is eventually attacked by another one of the cannibals.

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Review:

Once in a while, a movie comes along that makes writing the review an experience similar to what it might have been like for Babe Ruth to take batting practice in a slow pitch softball cage.  Which is to say that articulating an opinion, summarizing the film, and deciding on a thumbs up or a thumbs down is so criminally easy that it is nearly impossible to not hit a grand slam even with a lazy swing.

The plotline can purposefully be described in a single sentence.  Six German models go camping in the wounds and run afoul of a small family of mutated humanoids.  Even as a throwback to that sub-genre slice of schlock where fun can be found in a low-rent movie with such a mindless setup, “Cannibal Diner” is still a dismal letdown.  For a movie that intentionally touts its selling points as the inclusion of catwalk caliber women and cannibalistic creatures, “Cannibal Diner” seriously underwhelms on the delivery of both items.

As soon as the first trio of girls makes camp, one woman takes off her top in preparation for making out with another model after that one finishes snorting a line of cocaine.  Shortly thereafter, cut to an extended montage of another girl taking a shower for the duration of the opening credits, and nudity appears to be a hot item on the movie’s menu.  Horndogs will be disappointed when they realize that this one bottomless scene and that one topless scene is all they will get.  After the title cards, gratuitous shots of short-shorts clad asses and blood covered cleavage are the only substitutes for juvenile thrills for the remainder of the runtime.

On the monster front, sunburned Smurfs stand in as the cannibals.  Caked in dark blue paint while licking their Halloween vampire teeth, the movie’s monsters are only slightly more menacing than the three-apple-high cartoon forest dwellers.

Three of the six girls die before the opening credits.  Another pair is dispatched without ever coming into contact with any of their friends.  That leaves just Final Girl to occupy the majority of the minutes by walking around in forests, along roads, and inside an abandoned building in her futile effort to keep the audience awake.  When action finally does take place, several moments perplexingly switch to slow motion, either to make the movie last longer than one hour or to highlight how ridiculously wide of the target the cannibals swing their clubbed weapons.

For better or for worse, mostly for worse, “Cannibal Diner” knows exactly what it is doing.  There is no nobler of an intention on display here than to fill the screen with breasts and beasts as a sleazy appeal to the stoner set of easily amused horror moviegoers.  The film is not even ashamed of the fact that it blatantly apes scenes from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” shot for shot as if Gus Van Sant himself were behind the lens.  Some shaky night vision “found footage” and a growling soundtrack from metal bands named Demon Boy, Alien Vampires, and Sonic Thrill round out the kitchen sink of dead horse horror movie clichés.

“Cannibal Diner” is unapologetically intended for an audience that is still giddily entertained by the sight of buxom ladies traipsing through dark hallways while pursued by dime store monsters foaming at the mouth with prop blood.  Those who outgrew this exploitative formula of horror cinema back when Ronald Reagan was still the U.S. president can leave the uninspired movie in its rightful place at the bottom of the bargain bin.

Review Score:  20

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