Friday Night Midnight Movies: Poultrygeist
Night of the Chicken Dead!
 By Jeremy Azevedo |
Friday Night Midnight Movies is an irregularly occurring feature whose purpose is to showcase little-to-no budget films that play at late night theaters in the slums of America and the bombed-out megaplexes of the former Soviet Republic Eastern Bloc! |
To simply describe “Poultrygeist” as “just another zombie chicken picture” doesn’t really do it proper justice. The latest in a long line of bat-shit crazy Troma pictures by the ubiquitous B-movie pioneer, Lloyd Kaufman, Poultrygeist is like the “Citizen Kane” of undead fast food revenge comedy scat porn musical horror movies. If there was ever a doubt in your mind that Kaufman had another film in him that could stand next to such classics as “The Toxic Avenger”, “Class of Nuke ‘Em High” or “Sgt. Kabukiman: NYPD”, then you would be very wrong, sir.
Poultrygeist tells the story of a lovelorn young man, Arbie, that gets caught up in the conflict between a fast food restaurant, the spirits that inhabit the Tromahawk Indian burial ground upon which it’s built, and the protest group known as the Collegiate Lesbians Against Mega-conglomerates, or C.L.A.M. for short. After being spurned by his one-time lover, Wendy (who has become a lesbian hippy after only one semester in college), Arbie retaliates by getting a job at American Chicken Bunker, the restaurant that Wendy and her butch new girlfriend are so vehemently protesting.
It isn’t long before the spirits of the dead chickens or Indians or whatever the f**k (trust me, it hardly matters) rise from their crunchy and delicious graves to exact revenge on the unsuspecting fast food clerks and their fat, loud mouthed patrons. What follows is a celebration of gore that probably rivals “Dead Alive” in sheer volume of fake blood used, and probably sets a new bar for (hopefully) fake shit as well. All the while, we are treated to musical interludes that are surprisingly very funny, and I honestly can’t stand musical comedy most of the time so I mean that when I say it.
In typical Troma form, plenty of gratuitous titty shots are the cherry on this blood and shit soaked, tarred and feathered, deep fried, zombified sundae. Lloyd Kaufman has managed yet again to make a film that celebrates the low brow, while at the same time providing a relevant social commentary behind the madness, something that his many protégés from James Gunn (Slither) to Matt Stone and Trey Parker (South Park, Cannibal: The Musical) have long sought to emulate. Do yourself a favor and check this film out when it comes through your area, it’s one of the weirdest and most entertaining films you’ll see all year.
Poultrygeist trailer
