Cannibal Diner

A bunch of nubile German chicks head off to an abandoned diner before discovering that it's really home to a den of cannibals. One by one they are picked off in tame cutaway ways until the one that's left runs around a lot while whimpering. You ever see a film with a pretty cool cover which makes you think it might at least have some nice gore and be a passable entertaining time filler? Only then you put it on and it's absolutely dire and generic and totally devoid of any tension, suspense or fun? Yeah. Cannibal Diner is one of those films. Basically, it's a generic badly directed mess and most unforgivably of all, it's really boring. The director is apparently under the bizarre delusion that jumpy flashy cut off editing and long scenes of a chick stumbling around to intense urgent music equates to tension. It doesn't.

I don't want to sound too harsh here because I never expected much to begin with, and sucker as I am for all things cannibal related in horror, my standards tend to be fairly low in this regard. All I ask for is some nice gore and some perky nudity. Now while there is admittedly some perky nudity here, it's still an utterly abysmal film, that failed to even meet my low requirements, and I gotta say, I'm actually amazed that films like this even get financed. I firmly believe that for all its flaws, indie or low budget horror is actually the lifeblood of the genre, in terms of quality, but just like big budgeted and decidedly bland remakes, indie horror unfortunately throws some turkeys our way also and Cannibal Diner is a film to be avoided, as it's one of those films where your finger is itching to press the fast forward button 30 minutes in and even at 66 minutes (6 minutes are end credits) it still outstays its welcome. 2/10 a really bad and boring horror film and far too tame.

Avoid.

While driving to meet her friends for a spot of camping in the countryside, Kati (Alexandra Lesch) finds herself lost. When she gets out of her car to ask for directions, her vehicle is stolen, and she finds herself wandering into a restricted industrial area that is home to a clan of cannibals.

The poster for this low budget German 'Wrong Turn' inspired horror shows its star, buxom beauty Alexandra Lesch, laying naked on her back, her naughty bits obscured by the cannibals' hands, suggesting a film brimming with gratuitous nudity. Sadly, barring a brief shower scene during the opening credits, Lesch fails to get nekkid, her ample charms remaining (mostly*) hidden under that regulation horror item of clothing, the tight white vest.

But a lack of nudity isn't the only way the film comes up short: for a German horror with the word 'cannibal' in the title, there is also a frustrating lack of gore, with only a couple of body part props and an unimpressive 'metal pole in the eye' during the whole sorry affair. For the most part, the film consists of Lesch running around a ramshackle factory, trying to avoid the flesh-eaters. As nice as it is to see such a well endowed girl bounce her way through a movie, it does get more than a little tedious when there is virtually no plot to speak of and a complete lack of originality. Chuck in a dreadfully boring final act shot almost entirely in night vision and what we have is an extremely disappointing waste of time.

2.5 out of 10, rounded up to 3 for IMDb.

*Lesch does strip to her undies towards the end of the film, but filmed in night vision (poorly lit with a green tint), it's hardly worth the wait.

"Cannibal Diner" starts out nicely enough, sort of a German version of "Wrong Turn", but then the movie takes a turn for the worse and it is steeply downhill from there.

The story is about a girl trying to find her friend and sister as they are out camping. But something has gone wrong as the campsite is abandoned when she finally gets there. Stumbling through the woods, she comes across an old abandoned factory, which serves as the home for a group of cannibals.

Right, and that was basically it. The movie started out nicely enough, but once getting to the factory, the movie just dissolved into sheer stupidity. If people had been living out there as cannibals, why would they be familiar with electronic devices? And what was up with the soot-covered faces? And the entire segment where she was running around the factory with a camera set for night-vision, that was just insulting, and it carried on forever.

This movie had no scary moments, and it just become annoying towards the end. The movie is nowhere near the "Wrong Turn" movies, nor the "The Hills Have Eyes" movies, but it tries so hard to be so. I wasn't particularly impressed by this movie, and sort of sank into a boredom-induced coma towards the last third of the movie.

The title of the movie doesn't really make much sense either.

"Cannibal Diner" gets a mere 3 out of 10 stars from me.

Seriously! Just bad! On every level! The best thing about this, is the poster! Subsequently also the DVD cover using that poster image of course (or maybe it was the other way around). There are some beautiful women in this (and one or two of them do show some skin), but this does not elevate the viewing experience.

Actually there is a scene towards the end of the movie, that is almost completely dark, which is almost kind of good. It does create some atmosphere. But too little too late! The effects are OK and maybe the only thing that might make the viewing experience not a complete disaster. It's a shame, because the filmmaker is such a nice guy. And it's good that he tries to do genre cinema in Germany ... but he has some work to do!

There are worse movies out there than Cannibal Diner and there are a few things that keep it from being worse than it actually was. Cannibal Diner does start off promisingly with some atmosphere and tension, the music has an urgent and haunting vibe to it and the gore is thankfully not too cheap and not used too excessively. The camera work/editing and directing though were often frantic and abrupt and when they do slow down they manage to take slow to extremes. The movie is too darkly lit in places and while the settings have a nice Gothic look you couldn't properly enjoy it because of the state of the lighting and the way it was shot and edited. Cannibal Diner felt very underwritten with the dialogue sounding so awkward it was not easy to take seriously or understand what point was trying to be made. The story apart from the opening has no atmosphere, thrills or tension and just felt very pedestrian and overly-silly, with scenes that went on for far too long and didn't serve anything to the story. The antagonists, not looking terrible but also not mind-blowing either(true of most of the effects here actually), have little personality and no real menace, which made the conflict and threat really unconvincing. There's no better news about the acting, the actors look good and sexy but their acting is another matter, too often being stilted and repetitive. The chemistry is not convincing either with them sometimes being in their own world and not much else. All in all, could have been much worse but a lame movie in most but not all respects. 3/10 Bethany Cox