Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006) Review
Written by: skfan
Troma released films are what can best be described as an acquired taste. For most people you either love Troma's amateur over the top tasteless low budget filmmaking or you hate it. For me I've always been kinda on the fence about their films. I love the idea of Troma and what Lloyd Kaufman represents but most of the films I've seen just don't live up to the hype. They're either too low budget or just not over the top enough to be as enjoyable as the trailers would lead you to believe.
Troma also seems to push one film ahead of the pack and market it more then others such as some of they're bigger hits like "The Toxic Avenger" series and Tromeo and Juliet.
That brings us to Poultrygeist which is Kaufman's latest directed effort. I've heard about this film for a long time now as I'm sure a lot of you have as well and the good news is if you love Troma this is one of the best they've put out in a long time. The film isn't actually that different then the twenty other titles they'll release this year. The only difference is its just done better.
The script isn't original or political in the least but the noticeable difference to some of Troma's weaker efforts is the high production values, not to mention the gracious amount of nudity, over the top gore and of course the amateur crude humor.
The story revolves around Arbie who returns a year after highschool to discovery that his highschool sweetheart Wendy (most of the lead cast members are named after fast food restaurants) has become a lesbian. Just to piss her off Arbie get a job at the local American Chicken Bunker fast food restaurant where Wendy always protests outside of. It just so happens that the restaurant was built on a ancient indian burial ground and it doesn't take long for the chicken to start getting possessed by the evil spirits which in turn, turns anyone that eats the chicken into crazed zombie chickens.
With all of this craziness happening throw in a couple of musical number, some fart joke and some politically incorrect comments and you have one hell of a fun movie. Thats just what this film is fun. The story line doesn't really matter and is just used as a way of moving the film along from one gory scene to the next. In the first five minutes you get to see a pair of breasts and a man get his spine ripped out of his ass. If any of that sounds good to you then your in for a hell of a good time because the film is just getting warmed up.
A couple of the scenes in the film really made me wonder if Kaufman did sit down and watch some of Peter Jackson's early work because the gore seems to be non-stop over the top especially in the second half. There is no doubt in my mind that gore hounds will drool over some of the stuff thats thrown on screen and for the most part it's pretty well done considering the budget.
Although in a film like this the acting isn't all that important, the performances were surprisingly good. The two leads Arbie and Wendy were especially strong and have had very little experience before the film.
Overall if your a Troma fan your going to see this film no matter what and I'm sure you'll love it as for non Troma fans you might not get as much out of this although if you go into this film with an understanding of what it is I'm sure you'll at least be entertained.