Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006)

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Just perfect...

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

I had high expectations when I settled in to watch this, (well, as high as one can get with a Troma movie), however even for them this seems to be nothing more than an drunken excuse to sully their "So bad it's good" reputation. To say that this movie took so many years from script writing to the final product is really indicative of the problems that are obvious throughout the movie as it doesn't gel together like many other Troma films seem to do.This movie is just plain bad in every sense. It starts off fine enough with a young couple, (Arbie & Wendy), getting it on in a old Native American burial ground and before you know it, in typical Troma fashion, the place gets bulldozed and paved over to make way for a burger joint. Suffice to say, the deceased members of the "Tromahawk" tribe are none too happy about it.Arbie has returned to the spot of his one and only sexual encounter and found that burger chain, American Chicken Bunker now stands on the site and Wendy has become a lesbian who's in the midst of protesting the fast-food chain along with her activist girlfriend. So naturally Arbie decides the best way to get revenge, is to get a job there.From there the movie seems to really lack that panache that made many other Troma movies, as low-budget as they may be, enjoyable to watch. I didn't really see the point in having musical numbers throughout the movie, which just slowed it right down. After the first 2 songs, I found myself fast-forwarding the rest as they didn't even add to the story.With a movie like this, you expect bad acting, poor effects, little story, nudity and over-the-top death and dismemberment scenes, yet even knowing this before hand, still won't prepare you for this futile attempt at making a low-budget and watchable movie. The sort of stuff that made Toxic Avenger, Class of Nuke Em High and the original Mothers Day etc. the trashy classics that they are.There are quite a number of disgusting and inventive torturous death scenes and random displays of nudity in Poultrygeist to keep most fans of exploitive movies happy throughout, (the woman who gets her breast implants ripped out is a new one), however if you're no stranger to Troma films, there's very little that hasn't been done before. Instead of Zombie Rednecks, Zombie Kids or Rabid Grannies, it's simply Zombie Chicken people who are now disemboweling people, which leaves me to wonder why even make a movie like this. The overall premise of the story is trashy enough to make a fun blood-drenched movie, but the singing, child-like acting and recycled humour just made it boring to watch, (I fell asleep twice while watching this), so there's my summation of Poultrygeist - A snooze-fest.

If you're into horror spoofs, this could be the movie for you. The acting does have an up side. It gets a little goofy at times, but it fits the nature of the movie. However, you'll have to put up with the disgusting parts (slime, bodily excretions from both ends of the digestive system, and blood), the sexually explicit stuff (which includes the stick of a mop taking the place of a certain guy part), and the possibility of being offended. They do take aim at quite a few groups, including homosexuals, Mexicans, Jews, Christians, and Muslims, just to name a few. Another goofy aspect of this movie are the song and dance numbers.

From the studio that brought you "Tromeo and Juliet," "The Toxic Avenger" and "Class of Nuke'Em High" comes this latest campy gross-out-fest that will send you on one crazy ride. Couple Arbie (Jason Yachanin) and Wendy (Kate Graham) enjoy their time together getting jiggy with it at the local Tromahawk Indian Burial Ground and are enjoying a final tryst before Wendy goes off to college. Wendy promises to stay true to the unambitious Arbie but as the very next cut shows, a few semesters in college has turned her into a protesting hippie liberal lesbian who marches against the opening of a fried chicken chain built over the same Indian burial ground. Out of spite, Arbie lands a job at the Chicken Bunker where strange things are occurring. Soon the whole restaurant is overrun by chicken zombies out for revenge. Oh and did I mention it's also a musical? In the tradition of Roger Corman, Lloyd Kaufman's latest is a bare-knuckle exploitation schlock-fest. With buckets of blood and low-tech special effects this film possesses a low budget spirit that only Kaufman can muster. The dialogue in this movie is very nail-on-the-head type stuff and the satire is far from subtle. With character names like Arbie, Wendy, Denny, Carl Jr. and Paco Bell, it's obvious what this movie is poking fun at. Fast food however isn't the only sacred cow getting skewered in this musical as each character also fulfills a cliché (socially or cinematically) as to poke fun at nearly everything under the sun. Rose Ghavami, who is covered in a burqa for most of the film, exaggerates her eye movements to the point of eye-popping silliness as an insulting Muslim stereotype. Caleb Emerson's Carl Jr. keeps things interesting when he's on screen as an unsanitary hillbilly and Robin Watkins effectively hams it up as Chicken Bunker's evil capital-minded proprietor General Lee Roy.For those of us with a sick sense of humor this movie is absolutely hilarious for its "so-bad-it's-good" quality. I love this film. It makes no pretensions on what it sets out to do and it really wears its heart in its sleeve. That being said, I cannot recommend this movie to ANYONE! not a soul. It's one of those movies I believe is geared towards me and me alone. Anyone interested in the single best movie involving explosive diarrhea won't be disappointed. Otherwise, go rent The Proposal or something.http://theyservepopcorninhell.blogspot.com/

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006) *** (out of 4)Outrageous horror spoof from Troma delivers just about every sick joke and vile thought that one movie could possibly have. A chicken restaurant opens up on the grounds of a Native American grave site, which doesn't sit too well with those buried there. After people eat some tainted chicken, they turn into chicken zombies and begin to eat humans. I'm not a die-hard Troma fan even though I love THE TOXIC AVENGER as well as a couple other movies they delivered throughout the past couple of decades. With that said, this is pure classic trash as I'm quite sure that I've never seen anything like this. The amount of vile jokes know no limits as it's clear from the opening five minutes that this movie is willing to go as far as it can in order to get a laugh. A lot of the humor comes from bathroom humor including a point of view shot of a man sitting on the toilet and delivering something that will have most viewers hitting their eject button. Not only do we get that but we also have people puking on one another, sex between a redneck and a chicken, a butt plug via a zombie finger, lesbian chicken lovers, cannibals, jokes aimed at "Jared" of Subway fame and countless other things that can't be mentioned here. The movie, as is the norm for Troma, sets out to offend everyone no matter their color or gender and they succeed here unlike anything they've done before. The movie also contains the typical sex, nudity and violence that we've come to expect from the studio. The performance are actually a lot better than one might expect with Joshua Olatunde really stealing the film as the black store manager who spent all of his grandmother's money trying to open this chicken shop. Jason Yachanin does fine work as the lead as does Kate Graham and even Ron Jeremy in his cameo. Those who hate Troma films are certain to hate this one but I guarantee that you've never seen anything like this before. The horror spoofs work well, the vile humor even better. This isn't a masterpiece of cinema but it's pretty close in terms of trash.