Let me ask you something. Do you think I added (Get it?) to the title of Die-Ner? If you said yes, then you are mistaken. Die-Ner actually credits itself as Die-Ner (Get it?). With that fact in the back of my head, I knew this film was not going to take itself too seriously and that’s great. It’s pretty often that you see these independent horror films made on shoe string budgets take themselves so seriously in their attempt to scare you. This causes them to seem lame or even silly at times. I think one of the greatest characteristics of Die-Ner is that it plays up its flaws. By no means is this film great; it’s not even really good. It’s decent and it knows it, so it didn’t “come hard” at viewers in an awkward way. We’ll get to the before mentioned flaws later, but for now, let’s go over the plot.
Die-Ner is about a serial killer who stops in at a dive, or diner, late one evening. After chatting it up with the waitress, he goes on a killing spree and murders all the employees of the diner. Before he can escape, an argumentative couple and a police officer stop in for a bite to eat. The murderer seems to have them all fooled…until the murdered employees return as one of the living dead! Now the young couple must survive and escape the grasps of a deranged serial killer, but also survive a diner full of the walking dead!
First off, the waitress who bites it first reminded me a lot of Crista Flanagan from MadTV (and also all the crap movies like Disaster Movie, Meet The Spartans, and Vampires Suck). I was a little bummed when it turned out not to be her, but the main villain “Ken” reminded me a lot of a famous actor too! It’s not him either, “Ken” being played by Joshua Grote, but it bothers me to not remember who he reminds me of!
The setting of Die-Ner is very reminiscent of the diner in The Hitcher. The whole film pretty much seems like an extended scene of The Hitcher, minus the zombies of course. This was cool because I was really diggin’ the whole 80s vibe…that is until a modern vehicle pulled up to the diner. I overlooked this minor detail due to the fact that “Ken” smashes a smoke alarm quite violently and this reminded me of myself. I had to use my phone as my alarm in college because too many late nights out and my alarm clock had a very unfortunate end. While watching the movie I though, “I smash technology to pieces when it annoys me too… Does this make me a killer?!” Sadly, another flaw poked its way into my mind. The man in the couple and the killer are trying to hold a door closed because zombies are trying to come through. One of them decides to hold the door closed…not by the doorknob, but by the lining of the glass window…….
Maybe he just wasn’t thinking clearly because he was so relaxed. EVERYONE was so relaxed. If I saw a frickin’ zombie I would probably scream, “HOLY FUCK!” and panic. The cop, the killer, and the couple are so nonchalant about zombies attacking them. They just accept it without a second thought or without any concern. Their logic is flawed overall, for example: they have a gun but never use. They duct tape a zombie to the floor instead of killing it. Even the men and women behind the camera, mostly the script writer, is flawed when it comes to logic. When the cop is killed, obviously he doesn’t answer dispatch. I learned on Paranormal Witness that if a cop doesn’t answer dispatch for a certain period of time it is considered an emergency and all available officers will be routed to that destination. I understand that the movie would have been ten minutes long if someone focused on this detail (someone like me…), but this is a horror film. There are a million clichés that you could have used to get around it.
One of my last notes I probably shouldn’t share…but what the Hell? A back story is given that tries to explain why the killer…kills people. His excuse is that one day when he was a child he and his mother played Hide & Seek. She used this opportunity to abandon him in the home and never return. I’m sorry, but for whatever reason – the way this played out on screen was just hilarious to me. I laughed. Does that make me sick and sadistic?
Die-Ner (Get it?) has a lot of pros and cons. The whole film is a series of give and takes. It came from the same deluxe DVD that had The Lights on it. Apparently they all come from Osiris Entertainment, which is a distribution company. In comparison, Die-Ner was a step up, or maybe two steps up, from The Lights…which probably wasn’t that hard to accomplish. I honestly don’t know if I can recommend Die-Ner to anyone, but it was far from crap.
I saw this a while back and maybe it’s my love for low budget horror that makes me say this movie is fucking awesome and wonderful! Ken kinda reminded me of Edward Norton a bit.