[Poultrygeist:Night Of The Chicken Dead]
Plot:A military themed fried chicken restaurant chain called "The American Chicken Bunker builds a restaurant on the site of an ancient Indian burial ground, local protestors 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!

Cast:Jason Yachanin, Kate Graham, Allyson Sereboff, Robin Watkins, Joshua Olatunde, Khalid Rivera.

My Thoughts:Cluck no.

Review::"Poultrygeist" is probably one of the worst horror films I've seen so far this year. And this coming from someone who has seen "The Eye" and "One Missed Call" remakes. Lloyd Kaufman is back, and trying to bring back the spirit of the Troma horror movie with this film that concerns a chicken restaurant which is built purposefully upon an ancient indian burial ground. Of course it doesn't take long for the angry native american spirits to awaken and start wrecking shit. And they choose the grand opening day of the restaurant to do so....what a coincidence huh? Well "Poultrygeist" is certainly no coincidence. It's not a coincidence that a movie can be this bad.

Nor is it a coincidence that it hasn't found a distributor yet, nor a coincidence that Lloyd probably had to put up his own cash to make this thing. Tongue in cheek horror/comedies are one thing, but "Poultrygeist" fails at being that...and fails miserably. Unlike "Cabin Fever", which handled tongue-in-cheek humor with class, cleverness, and smarts..."Poultrygeist" handles it with brashness, stupidity, and downright lameness. For starters, the movie puts itself out there as a comedy first and foremost. This is a mistake, as the horror parts should've been at the forefront first. Instead, the film does a few bits on liberals, capitalism, hippies, protestors, and other social-related issues.

Troma films, let me just say...are not the sorts of films that should be handling these sorts of things. It seemed less like a poke at a 2008 america, and more like a flat-out bashing of certain groups all in the name of wackiness and misguided humor. I mean the movie has an arab woman named humus who works at the chicken restaurant, who is the but of all sorts of terrorist jokes due to her muslim garb. This sort of humor is too obvious for words. But obvious humor seems to be this films calling card, as we get the loud manager (a black man), the gay guy (a mexican), a nerdy white boy who thinks snagging a job at the local chicken shack will win him back his high school sweetheart, and the owner of the place who ironically resembles the Kernel of Kentucky Fried Chicken looks wise.

I'm sure the less mature among us will find this film funny, and I for one have a thick skin when it comes to certain kinds of humor...but a movie like this is so obvious in the way that it sets up it's gags and laughs that you in the end, wind up frowning instead of laughing at anything that happens during interaction between the characters. Offensive humor is one thing, but telegraphing stereotypes and that sort of thing ahead of the jokes is always a recipe for disaster.

If that wasn't bad enough, the film also has a few dance numbers which for the life of me I cannot figure out why anyone thought those would be a good idea. They are funny for about a minute, before they wear thin and become annoying. To add to all of that, each new dance number is worse than the one that came before it. The movie, during it's many fialed attempts at humor, and awful dialogue.....does manage to get around to the angry spirits inhabiting the grounds. They eventually take over the dead carcasses of the chickens and wreak havoc on the place, turning it's patrons and workers into zombie chickens themselves.

And being that this is a Troma movie....the fx are pretty low budget when it comes to the moments when the blood and gore hit the screen. The zombie chickens are very good looking though, fx wise. Not sure how much cash was spent on those particular prosthetics...but they weren't too shabby looking. Which is about the only good thing I can say about this movie. Between it's awful humor, over-grossness (trust me, this movie takes gross to a whole new level), and freaking annoying dance numbers..."Poultrygeist" is a "bad egg" of a movie.....no pun intended.

Troma fans from way back when will love it I'm sure. But if you're not a fan of Troma, or horror/comedies....you'll hate this movie with a passion. While I try to give every film a fair shot when reviewing it, including Troma movies.....I just could not stand this one. "Poultrygeist" is a failure at all levels, and really just doesn't get anything it tries right. Avoid at all costs.

Positives:Decent looking zombie chicken/human hybrids.

Negatives:Bad dance numbers, unfunny humor, annoying characters, a far too obvious line of jokes and gags, and far too much reliance on gross out humor.

Overall:Not good at all.





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