DEVIL'S DINER Review: Tasty, Twisted, Terrific

All you need is a twisted imagination, nervy direction by Ham Tran, and a little blood. On second thought, make that a lot of blood.

Devil's Diner
All six episodes are now streaming worldwide on Netflix .

Densely packed with richly-imagined, often bloody and gruesome details, Devil's Diner is a frontal assault on the senses that embraces the viewer in a warm hug while simultaneously tapping firmly on the forehead. It's uncomfortable, yet irresistible.

Vietnamese director Ham Tran's first feature, Journey From the Fall, made waves when it was released internationally in 2007, which was also when he edited Charlie Nguyen's martial arts flick The Rebel. Since then, Tran has demonstrated his filmmaking flexibility by helming romantic comedies How to Fight in Six Inch Heels (2013) and She's the Boss (2017), horror drama Hollow (2014), action comedy Bitcoin Heist (2016), and the delightful sci-fi family flick Maika (2022) (see my review here.)

With all that in mind, I had missed completely that Ham Tran had anything to do with Devil's Diner, which I'd dismissed as another routine horror series when it hit Netflix on January 26. A friend recommended the series, though, so I checked it out -- and holy cow! It's great.

For North American viewers, we've become accustomed to the march of horror entries into movie theaters and streaming services, especially during January and February, when big-budget diversions are scarce and the most intriguing indie films are debuting at film festivals. Devil's Diner caught me off-guard because it doesn't feel like mainstream "product" -- I hate that word when applied to movies or TV shows -- and it's also wildly different in style and tone from what gets tagged as "horror" by mainstream audiences, which tend to associate the word solely with blood and violence.

Make no mistake, Devil's Diner has more than its share of blood and grue, but it's not depicted for a cheap thrill or to sensationalize the subject under discussion. Rather than show bloody violence as a victory achieved by a righteous avenger, the red stuff comes gushing out as retribution against the actions and/or intentions of someone who is seeking vengeance.

In that sense, it's teaching a moral lesson. Each 30-minute episode visits a diner, either to start, end, or visit somewhere in the middle, where the chef whips up a complicated dish and then, like a friendly bartender, offers assistance to grant the visitor's deepest, darkest desire.

Indeed, each of the six episodes revolves around "the five mortal sins in Buddhist teachings": greed, anger, delusion, pride, and suspicion. The concluding sixth episode of the first season delves into karma.

The chef is a diabolical figure of great, though unassuming power. Portrayed with subtle menace by Le Quoc Nam, the chef talks softly. Somehow, an equally menacing, intricately carved door also figures into each episode. The first two episodes follow somewhat predictable narrative paths with copious amounts of blood, putting one in mind of a Vietnamese version of an O. Henry story, only far more demented.

The next two episodes take a softer approach, however, enveloping the tragic "heroes" of each tale with pathos and a resigned sense of their own fate. Then the pitiable characters take a break for the final two episodes, which traverse a few genres to arrive at their unsettling conclusions.

Ham Tran uses common points of entry to the series in order to draw the viewer in, before pulling the rug out. Really, though, he pulls out the floor entirely, and it feels as though one is falling through space into a reality that's been twisted beyond recognition. And yet, everything is relatable, which only makes its impact more devastating and oddly entertaining.