The archives of the articles, reviews, interviews and other ramblings written by Sarah E. Jahier (aka Fatally Yours).
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Poultrygeist (2008)
Make sure you’ve got your seat belts fastened tightly, because Poultrygeist is one wild ride. Filled with puke, poop, killer poultry, putrescent gore and plenty of bad nudity, Poultrygeist shows Troma at its trashy (and socially-conscious) best!
Arbie (Jason Yachanin) and Wendy (Kate Graham) vowed they’d always be together…but a year after consummating their love in the Tromahawk Indian Burial Ground Wendy has come back to town a changed woman. She is in town protesting the bulldozing of the burial ground and the erection of fast food joint American Chicken Bunker in its place with her militant girlfriend Mickie (Allyson Sereboff). Yep, Wendy has turned into a lipstick lesbian much to the chagrin of lovesick Arbie. He vows to get her back and promptly takes a job at American Chicken Bunker. He joins the colorful group of employees, including high-strung manager Denny (Joshua Olatunde), backwoods dead chicken f*cker Carl Jr. (Caleb Emerson), gay Mexican Paco Bell (Khalid Rivera), and burka-clad Humus (Rose Ghavami) who has her own prayer mat in the kitchen to pray to Mecca every day.
Besides the angry protesters outside, Arbie and his co-workers must also deal with the angry spirits of displaced Native Americans as well as the souls of all the chickens American Chicken Bunker has slaughtered. Soon, people start ending up dead and/or start turning into horrific (and hungry) chicken-like zombies.
Can Arbie and his friends save the world? More importantly, can Arbie win Wendy back in the process?
Troma’s take-no-prisoners humor is readily apparent in this gloriously low-brow film and everyone from liberals to minorities to huge corporations get skewered. I especially liked how no group was left unscathed…as soon as fun was poked at big corporations, they’d switch it around and start making fun of the protestors standing against big business. Of course, this being a Troma film it’s also heavy on toilet humor…dick and fart jokes abound and this definitely isn’t a film for those easily offended!!
You expect the toilet humor (like a guy having massive diarrhea…from the point of view of the toilet bowl, someone adding his own “special sauce” to the fast food, chicken carcasses getting raped, etc.) from a Troma film, but what surprised me was the high quality of the special FX! The budget for Poultrygeist was pretty low, but they still managed to pull off some amazing effects. Highlights included a zombie hand going through someone’s ass and out their mouth, a meat grinder accident with a spectacular spray of blood, someone’s face getting cut into perfect deli slices in a meat slicer, dozens of people throwing up green puke and tons of other gross-out moments. The effects in the film were impressive and by far some of the best shown in any Troma film in the indie studio’s 35 year career!
Also a personal best for a Troma film was the acting in Poultrygeist. The actors gave it their all here, with very enthusiastic performances. Even though the characters were way over the top, you couldn’t help cheer for them anyway. In the wrong actors’ hands, the quirky characters could have quickly fallen flat…Luckily, we get a near-perfect cast that delivers and hams it up just enough without going too overboard in this over-the-top film! They even manage some fun musical numbers!
Yep, I said musical numbers! These will even be enjoyable to those that normally don’t like musicals (trust me, I watched this film with my musical-hating boyfriend and even he loved it). The lyrics, including songs about sex, bodily fluids, love, and more sex (usually of the anal variety), are just so damn offensive that they are plain hilarious. Plus, the audio is great and the actors can really sing! The songs even manage to propel the narrative along and aren’t just there for schlock value (though they do help!). We even get to see Uncle Lloyd (wearing a skirt, no less) join in on one of the musical numbers as he sings and dances!
Poultrygeist also tackles some socially conscious issues and though they are covered in poop and puke (and chicken feathers), the message still shines clear. The take jabs at big business, fickle and hypocritical protestors, consumerism, American’s fast-food addictions and so on. And through it all you’ll be laughing your ass off…unless you’re blowing chunks, that is!
Poultrygeist is the most fun you’ll have with chicken-zombies, Native American spirits (the ghostly kind, not the alcoholic kind), lesbians, skirt-wearing men and fast food this year! This is a fowl, gross-out movie that super-sizes the fun and comes with an extra side of AWESOME!
Available from Amazon!
Labels:
animals attack,
comedy,
curse,
explicit,
gay,
gore,
musical,
offensive,
over-the-top,
possessed,
recommended,
revenge,
social commentary,
spirits,
spoof,
Troma,
zombies
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