I'm not a Troma fan, usually finding their films too amateurish and puerile for even me to enjoy. Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, however, is actually pretty good.
Like most of their output, it's been made for chicken feed, and features the usual Troma ingredients: gratuitous T&A, shonky OTT gore FX, awful politically incorrect gags, crap direction, and shoddy acting from an extremely untalented cast. But it also manages to be pretty damn funny (there's loads of biting satire and some fun one-liners) and is so deliriously demented that it's almost impossible not to enjoy. Oh... and it's also a musical!!!
The plot to Poultrygeist is every bit as bird-brained as the title suggests: when a fast food outlet is built on the site of an ancient Indian burial ground, the result is possessed deep-fried portions of chicken which turn those who eat it into carnivorous zombie fowl. Battling for survival against the feathered undead are American Chicken Bunker counter-'girl' Arbie (Jason Yachanin) and his lesbian girlfriend Wendy (Kate Graham). Will Arbie and Wendy successfully fly the coop, or will they end up pecked to death?
Directed by Troma head honcho Lloyd Kauffman, this film is aimed squarely at the kind of twisted freaks who actively seek out the outrageous and the downright disgustingso naturally I had to watch it. And, for the most part, Poultrygeist hits the target.
With loads of gross-out gore, plenty of nekkidness, and dubious jokes about bestiality, lesbianism, terrorism, homosexuality, racism, and bowel movements, there is something here to offend everyone! All of this unwholesome content is regularly punctuated by song and dance routines that, although hardly on a par with Sondheim or Lloyd Webber, are still a lot of fun.
The only thing that really lets the film down is its running time: 103 minutes is a bit long for this kind of movie, and the joke does start to wear a bit thin towards the end.
Still, after all that I've said about Troma films in the past, Poultrygeist leaves me with egg on my face!
Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead
2006
Action / Comedy / Horror / Musical / Sci-Fi
Plot summary
When the American Chicken Bunker, a military-themed fried-chicken chain, builds a restaurant on the site of an ancient Indian burial ground, local protesters aren't the only ones crying fowl! The previous tenants, fueled by a supernatural force, take "possession" of the food and those who eat it, and the survivors discover that they must band together before they themselves become the other white meat! Film lovers have been starved for sustenance. The relentless diet of predictability and pretense Hollywood has been serving up just doesn't cut it. Poultrygeist is hearty food for thought. In Poultrygeist, Troma takes on the the fast-food industry-skewering the soulless restaurateurs-in the world's first horror-comedy film to feature zombie chickens, American Indians and a bit of singing and dancing! It's Poultrygeist!
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Well knock me down with a feather: a good Troma film.
Troma-ctic experience
Quite the disturbing one at that. We have a movie here that goes ... well all out? Has not sense of sensitivity? Anything at all that does not involve balls or walls they might be attached to - you choose the family friendly version you like best. On the other hand, if you need a family friendly version of that, this movie certainly isn't for you.
Troma is known for "bad taste" and Lloyd Kaufman made quite a dent in the low budget world. This is another example and if you are not easily offended by the juvenille style, you may even have fun watching this. But it does involve a lot of violence, gore, splatter and other effects - and a lot of nudity. The jokes are not sensible at all, really offending anyone and anything under the sun. In this case the setting is a stab against fast food, but with KFC being in the center of it. It may bring some people to the verge of becoming vegetarians I reckon ... but that will be up to you.
The movie tries to entertain and make fun (depending on your sense of humor) - does it work? Not easy to say ... but there is love for this and other movies. Even if jokes do not land where they are supposed to ...
The Troma I Know And Love
When Arbie's girlfriend turns out to be a lesbian, he decides not to go to college but to work at the American Chicken Bunker where she always protests. One thing, the American Chicken Bunker was built on an Ancient Indian Burial Ground and on Toxic Waste.
This is bloody, gory, full of gratuitous nudity, vomit and bodily fluids (not to mention poop)... this is Troma. And it references other Troma films (Toxic Avenger, Tromeo and Juliet). And it is a musical.
I recall Uncle Lloyd promoting this film for years, and I half-thought it would never happen and half-thought if it did that the film would be pieced together so poorly that it would be worthless. I was wrong on both counts. While not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, that would not be a Troma film if it was. Not since "Terror Firmer" (1999) have we seen a film like this. Welcome back!