Thankskilling Review (2009)

Whooo! Thanksgiving Break!! I know I’ve never reacted the way the kids in this movie do. Though had I known I’d spend my break fighting an evil colonial turkey, then maybe I would have.
Hundreds of years ago, through the power of black magic, an Indian by the name of Feathercloud brought a dead turkey back to life to kill all the white men. Every 505 years the turkey comes back to kill any human in its path. 505 years later, five college students on thanksgiving break are returning home when their car breaks down in the very same town, and they must fight for their lives against this foul-mouthed bird. Their only hope in killing the turkey and breaking the curse lies in an old book written by a turkeyologist.
Thankskilling is a low budget horror comedy that has all of the ingredients to make a pretty awesome lowbrow slasher film, but it unfortunately falls a little short. The filmmakers have obviously seen a lot of slasher movies and have used its formula well. We have our stereotypical protagonists: The jock, the dumb hot girl, the nerd, the fat hillbilly, and the smart but less attractive good girl. The killer turkey is a kind of a Freddy Krueger hybrid. He has lots of one tacky one liners, and looks burned, only he’s much less menacing, ya know…cause he’s a turkey.
The acting and music are super cheesy and none of the lines are delivered very well, but in this kind of movie, it works. The problem is that a lot of the humor just falls a bit flat. With the exception of one or two kills, the blood and gore also not quite up to par. I really can’t say anything about the camerawork, or the look of the film or anything like that either. It was all just kinda bland.
While Thankskilling showed a lot of potential for a low budget movie, it simply just didn’t pack the punch it wanted to. With some funnier scenarios and some more creative and bloody kills, it could have been pretty awesome. According to IMDB, a sequel is coming out this year; if director Jordan Downey can raise the stakes a bit with some better kills and some solid comedy, a Thankskilling sequel could be great.
5/10