Today’s guest is cult filmmaker Jackie Kong, best known for her outrageous horror comedy BLOOD DINER – the charming story of two homicidal brothers who dig up their uncle’s corpse and follow the instructions from his undead brain to kill a large number of people so that they can use the body parts to resurrect the ancient Lumerian goddess Sheetar. The film, which came out in 1987, is now well-regarded as an underground cult movie which has seen quite a few successful revival screenings in the past few years.
Kong made her first film in her early twenties: a monster movie called THE BEING, shot in 1980, released in 1983, starring Martin Landau, Jose Ferrer, and Howard Ziehm‘s former producing partner Bill Osco. Jackie also made two comedies, both in the vein of the POLICE ACADEMY movies: NIGHT PATROL, starring The Unknown Comic Murray Langston and Linda Blair, and THE UNDERACHIEVERS, starring Edward Albert and Barbara Carrera.
And then, after four films, she stopped making movies and mostly disappeared from the public eye, briefly resurfacing in 2001 with an early webseries called KARAOKE NIGHTS. In recent years, she’s launched a website where she addressed rumors about herself, she attended many screenings of her films, she recorded audio commentaries for re-releases of her movies, and she’s currently working on a new project. In our interview, Jackie talks about the making of BLOOD DINER, her aesthetic and her characters, she discusses her particular twisted brand of Americana, and she teases a new project she’s currently working on.
You can find out more about Jackie on her website jackiekongdirector.com. BLOOD DINER is available on Hulu.So here’s Talking Pictures with Jackie Kong!
The mp3 file can be downloaded HERE.
All photos (C) Jackie Kong.
Special thanks to Dr. Wily, my Lichtspielplatz podcasting partner for audio editing. The music was created by Clark Kent.
