One night at an Indian burial ground, Arby and Wendy, high school sweethearts, make a promise that even after they depart for college, they shall always remain faithful to one another. One semester later, Arby returns to find out that not only has the burial ground been replaced by a fast food restaurant, but his girlfriend is a lesbian, and is protesting the chain's existence. He takes a job at the restaurant out of despair, but soon the patrons start acting strange after consuming the product inside, and start returning as zombies, albeit with a more "fowl" edge!
God bless Troma. They're one of the longest standing independent movie promotions and always seem to know what their fanbase wants (violence, more violence, silly humor, nudity, lesbians, and even more violence). Poultrygeist has had a rather long, if not somewhat troubled history. First conceived in 2002, shot and completed in 2006 after numerous rewrites and production problems, and finally released to DVD in 2008, the film's a bit of an oddball, even by their standards.
I forgot that this film was part musical, in addition to the horror-comedy that I've come to expect from Troma. The songs themselves really did seem crowbarred in, and though they're certainly sang well, I didn't find any of them to be particularly memorable. The film also seems to run out of gas a bit towards its conclusion, and even the characters break the 4th wall by admitting that the end is a bit anticlimactic.
That'll do it for the complaints though! As I pointed out above, Troma adores blood and guts. They certainly don't spare any expenses here, and there is one scene in particular that lasts for about five minutes in the restaurant that was just beautiful. Well, beautiful in a very disgusting, macabre, blood-soaked kind of way. It was very reminiscent of the party scene in Peter Jackson's Braindead, at least in terms of how many different ways you can come up with killing fast food fanatics. Like all Troma films of the past, there are also tons of nods to their previous films, but you should be expecting that by now. The film's also got a pretty lowbrow sense of humor, but again, it comes with the territory, and there'll be quite a few times you'll feel guilty (for approximately three seconds) for laughing at certain jokes.
I think the horror world would be a lot more empty and less fun without a company like Troma around. I can understand why they have their fair share of "haters" in the community (though why you'd bash something like this or Terror Firmer and give praise to Thankskilling I have no idea why), but I've always had a soft spot for the sickos. Poultrygeist isn't their strongest title to date, but it certainly is a damn good time. Plus you get to see the classic "Troma car flip" and Lloyd Kaufman wielding an assault rifle while mowing down chicken-zombies. Even if the rest of the film was boring, those alone could make it worth it.
Tomorrow, I see if Stuart Gordon can make me fear part of my job with DOLLS.
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