POULTRYGEIST

2006

Co-Written and Directed by Lloyd Kaufman

A.K.A. Night of the Chicken Dead

Plot Arby (get it?) and Wendy (GET IT?) are young lovers, making out at the Tromahawk Indian Burial Ground nestled deep within Tromaville, New Jersey. Because Wendy's going away to college, the two teens decide to go all the way. This excites the local native corpses, and makes for an interesting interlude. Which means cue the crazy axe-murderer! The kids run off and the disembodied zombie hands take out the crazy guy. Cut to six months later-- Standing on the remains of the burial ground sits an American Chicken Bunker, your standard issue mega-conglomerate consumer-hungry fast food franchise. Also at the grounds is a large angry mob, protesting the restaurant's treatment of its animal stock, its desecration of the native people's land, and because mega-corporations like this are usually run by a-holes. Arby stumbles into the crowd, grabs a brew, and joins the guys watching the protesters that are members of C.L.A.M. (College Lesbians Against Mega-conglomerates, natch) make out. Then he realizes that one of them is Wendy! Bummer, dude. Apparently, in college Wendy met Mickey (GET--Oh I give up, if you don't get it by now, then there's no hope for you) who quickly convinced her that "experimenting" would be good for her. After all, if it wasn't for experimentation while in college, we never would have discovered Strontium-44, would we? (Said discoverer gets a dedication in the credits, by the by) This segues into Arby singing the song "Revenge is a dish best served fried". Oh, I didn't mention this was a musical? Well it is, suckers. The title track, in fact, is performed by a band known as "Calimari Safari" who are most certainly not New Found Glory using a pseudonym for legal reasons. Certainly not. Anyways, Arby decides that the best way to stick it to Wendy (metaphorically, as literally is clearly no longer an option for our poor protagonist) is to go get a job at American Chicken Bunker. So he rushes in and demands that the manager, Denny, give him a job. Because he asked so forcibly, Arby gets his wish and becomes the new counter-girl. It's just an expression. Donning his skirt and blouse, he meets the rest of his coworkers, who all fit nicely into two-dimensional stereotypes. There's the redneck chicken lover, Carl Jr., The little gay Puerto Rican, Paco (Last name Bell, natch), and the Burka-wearing Muslim, Hummus (I suppose they couldn't come up with a good middle-eastern name that was a pun on fast food. Besides "Shawarma Hut" doesn't sound like a terrorist organization either). And if you pay attention, you'll spot two other employees in the backgrounds occasionally, with the names Hardee and Long John, but they don't have any lines, and don't matter to the plot, so feel free to forget about them. Just as the Bunker opens for business, in runs famed Archaeologist, Crazy Ron (Ron Jeremy!) to warn them all of their doom at the hands of angry Indian spirits. Oh, and to order a sloppy Jose to go. Meanwhile, some odd veiny, green eggs appear in a box by the grill for reasons I clearly must have missed. Oh well, it's probably nothing. Eventually the crowds start filing in for some good fried chicken, including Jared, the Subway guy! (Played with stunning life-like resemblence by Joel Fleishaker!). Jared accidentally gets one of the eggs on his plate. Shrugging, he downs it in one bite--then immediately gets the runs and he himself runs off to the bathroom, to crap himself a new, tiny body. Being stuck with cleaning the mess, Arby (and Wendy outside) sing a duet about how much they miss each other and "Getting their salad tossed" by each other. The ballad is probably one of the best non-gore parts of the film, despite the tons of present redonkulocity. After the song ends, a limo pulls up to the restaurant and out pops the founder of ACB, General Lee Roy in his dapper white suit. Nope, I can't think of anyone he might resemble. Accompanied by the restaurant's googly-eyed chicken mascot, he attempts to give the crowd a literal song and dance about how good the food is. Inside, Wendy and Mickey are trying to convince people that mistreating chickens is bad, mmkay? Arby proposes they make love not war, so they have a hot crazy three-way...until Arby wakes up from his daydream to realize he's been humping the cash register. Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Paco has decided to use his own "special sauce" in the meat grinder that makes the sloppy Joses, since working in fast food sucks so hard. Suddenly, something sneaks up behind him and pushes him in! Denny and the General rush in to find the place a bloody mess. Hummus, who was bowing to Mecca at the time, claims the chickens did it, and that they have declared a Jihad on us all! The men don't believe her, but cover up the death anyways, as noone wants to eat at a restaurant where someone got killed in the food prep area that day. Next, the General orders Arby to make some sloppy Joses for him and his press junket. Once he makes one (which comes with two olives on to attached with toothpicks) it comes alive as the ghost of poor Paco, to warn Arby that the chicken spirits and the native spirits are joining forces to get revenge on whitey! Before he can impart their weakness to our hero, in walks the boss man and his reporters. General Roy eats the sandwich (knowing that's Paco's meat in those buns, no less!) and sends Arby down to the storeroom with the mysterious green, veiny eggs. The storeroom is mighty creepy to Arby. Suddenly, a giant chicken jumps out at him! Oh wait, it's only the mascot, who takes off his mask to reveal himself to be "Mature" Arby, an older and wiser, but no less pathetic version of our hero (Played by Lloyd Kaufman!). Arby is oblivious to this fact, and the two sing an Irish jig about how rotten a lifetime spent as countergirl has been to the older Arby, and how the younger Arby isn't paying attention, since he's to busy thinking about how to get Wendy to like him again. After the Arbys leave the storeroom, Carl Jr. sneaks in with a whole, raw chicken, for some fine inter-office romance. Too bad the g-g-g-ghost chickens have other plans. Next thing you know, CJ is running around the kitchen with a monster chicken torso latched to his groing, screaming and spraying both red blood and green...zombie blood? all over the place. Then for reasons that even she seems to not know, Hummus fixes the situation by shoving her mop right up Carl's rear, knocking the undead monster right into smithereeniville. To everyone's surprise, Carl survives the ordeal, but the General won't let them take him to the hospital, because it's pretty obvious why a man with a mop sticking out from between his legs being taken through the building would do for business. Then he gets another idea, speaking of the civilian reaction. He and Hardee and Long John (huh, I guess they had some role after all) take out buckets of chicken to the protesters. Mickey looks at the meat with disgust, then takes a bite. Her reaction is to call the General crazy--Crazy for giving away such good chicken for free! With a rallying cry from her, she charges into the restaurant. The crowd doesn't need to be told twice, and follows, leaving Wendy dazed and confused. While the staff is busy with a amd rush of customers, Wendy wanders back to the office, only to find the General and Wendy in...well let's just say it's a compromising situation and leave it at that. Apparently the whole protest was a set-up marketing ploy, and a good one at that. Wendy still protests that the chicken, now with yucky green pustules on them, are still bad, and takes the pair out front, where customers are puking left and right, to prove it. In rebuttal, the General takes a wary bite of the meat...and immediately runs to the bathroom, where he poops out a giant egg. The egg hatches, revealing a green little monster chicken that promptly bites its poppa on the nose. In an exhibition of true Geek skills, the General goes and bites its head off in retaliation, spraying the bathroom with green...blood, I guess. Meanwhile, back in the lobby, our gang discovers that the zombie native chicken virus is real, as many patrons start transforming into chicken/human hybrid zombies, resulting in a massive bloodbath of the other customers, with almost every death being a parody and/or commentary on the way chickens themselves are prepared and consumed by us. What is the creatures' one true weakness? Who will survive? How will Troma fit the infamous Sgt. Kabukiman car flip into this film? You'll just have to watch and find out. I must say, Poultrygeist impressed me. As faithful readers of my site (all three of you) know, I'm a huge Troma fanatic. However, they often have certain flaws that have nothing to do with the budget constraints they end up being saddled with, such as an utter lack of crowd control, or the insertion of unfunny comedic stock sounds at inappropriate times. This film lacks those elementary flaws, resulting in what may just be Troma's most polished film. If Troma had spent the last fifteen years or so making these kind of films instead of the half-hearted products they often have created, then the company wouldn't be so reviled by such a high percentage of b-film lovers, and would instead be given an honored seat.

Rating I give Poultrygeist: Five Rotting Shambling Corpses out of Five. Practically a required viewing recommendation.

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