Die-ner (Get It?) (2010) review: Get it, got it, good!

Take a look at the release poster above and you see a "punny" title. Now puns can be good and puns can be bad, and more often than not they are a sign of bad things to come. So when you see the title for a low budget zombie film called Die-ner (Get It?) with a picture of a zombie waitress outside of a diner on the cover, you can't help but expect the worse. And yes the (Get It?) is a part of the official film's title complete with the parentheses. Hold on a second and keep reading because the good news is that the title is the only drawback of the film.

After serial killer Ken (Josh Grote) offs a small diner staff (Maria Olsen and Jorge Montalvo), he has to figure out a way to keep them dead on a permanent basis when they reanimate into flesh-hungry zombies. Making matters even more difficult is the young married couple (Liesel Kopp and Parker Quinn), whose marital problems are nowhere near as critical as the horror they just stumbled upon, and the bumbling local sheriff Duke (Larry Purtell) who are now his prisoners.



As far as zom-coms (zombie-comedies) go, Die-ner is more along the lines of Return of the Living Dead and Shaun of the Dead than the overrated Dead and Breakfast (another punny-titled affair). The gags are funny and humorous gore is a plenty, but there is also a level of seriousness within the film's horror elements.

The film's opening scene feels very Tarantino-esque, along the lines of homage and not knock-off, informing the audience that they are going to see a different type of film than what the DVD cover art conveys. Then we see the face of our anti-hero Ken who physically looks like a cross between Ed Norton, WWE superstar Christian and adult film star Tony Tedeschi. And he really sounds almost exactly like Ed Norton too.



Nevertheless, Grote portrays Ken as a crass and sarcastic murderer who is just "simply misunderstood" in society. In his own mind, he is a decent human being, yet Ken is as vicious as they come. He does not seem too menacing due to his size and the fact that he wears what appears to be a Member's Only jacket. Now with all of those perceived negatives going against him, Grote pulls it off in a believable manner. In fact, he carries the entire film, not to say the supporting cast is weak by any means. His introduction scene where he poses as the waiter and draws a funny picture instead of taking the couple's order is a great standout moment.

As mentioned earlier, the comedy is tapped from the same keg as Return. So while Grote and Quinn are acting as this film's Burt and Freddy, Kopp really turns on the drama. Essentially, she is the film's "straight man", leaving comedy to the other leads. But she also does not play a typical helpless female stereotype either. In fact, she is pretty tough and fearlessly confronts Ken time and time again, pushing his patience to the limit.



Forget the fact that this is a low budget indie zombie flick, this is is a highly entertaining film overall. It is definitely a much needed fresh take on the zombie genre film, even though it contains a large deal of humor. Not to mention you get to see pointless dream sequences and learn the importance of having a rope and duct tape bag.

Die-ner is a film light years better than the title implies. Director Patrick Horvath proves you don't need hordes of zombies to make a memorable and surprising horror flick that can go toe-to-toe with most of the high budget 3D horror shown in theaters. This is made possible by the impressive acting as a driving force and a story thankfully veers away from the stagnant repetition in the hordes of recent zombies films.




Die-ner (Get It?)...no really, go get it!