Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006) Review
For the last WTF Wednesday, I present Poultrygeist: easily the biggest WTF horror movie of the 21st
century so far. Why? It’s about a fast food restaurant, some musical numbers
happen, people get turned into mutant chicken zombie things, food comes alive,
people get murdered, violated, torn apart, and it’s an absolutely chaotic, gory
mess. Still with me? Let’s dig deeper into this befuddling experience.
The main character is Arbie (all names are spoofs of fast
food joints), and he’s trying to get back together with his ex-girlfriend Wendy,
who is opposed to fast food chains—and rightfully so. The fast food in this
movie looks utterly repulsive. Arbie gets a job at American Chicken Bunker, and
the characters who work alongside him are insane and often hilarious, including
Hummus, a completely cloaked Muslim with only her eyes showing, and Carl Jr.,
who has sex with a dead chicken at one point.
I give huge credit to the opening of this film. It perfectly
sets the tone in less than five minutes. Arbie and Wendy have sex in a
cemetery, and a zombie reaches out of the ground and pokes its finger in
Arbie’s butthole, and the finger breaks off inside. There’s also a guy casually
jacking off to their lovemaking nearby, but he gets brutally ripped apart by the
zombies.
This literally all occurs in the first five minutes. And
it’s not even the most messed up part.
It actually builds up effectively, with each gross-out
moment escalating adequately compared to the last. Everything culminates in a
scene that, no joke, almost had me throwing up. I watched this very late at
night and was not mentally prepared for what I was about to see. I felt ill. It
was like a disorienting nightmare. Zombie chicken people are eating customers, tearing
people’s faces off, a guy’s nipples turn into eggs and hatch baby zombie
chickens, there’s fast food slop everywhere, blood, shit, piss, green slime,
everything the effects department had, all dumped out and smeared over everyone
and everything. It is absolutely one of the most insane scenes in a movie I
have ever watched.
But I’m just telling you what happens in the movie at this
point, not what I really thought of it. Well, for a while, I didn’t know what
to think, but I have to say, as disturbed and off-the-wall as Poultrygeist is, it’s also pretty
consistent in its entertainment value. The effects are low budget, but very
effective (a little too effective,
sometimes), and while it’s spoofing and referencing many other films in the
horror genre and beyond, it also has many original (if questionable) ideas.
Poultrygeist is
from the independent film studio Troma, which is infamous for making
boundary-pushing horror/comedies with legendarily low-budget gags and having no
moral compass. Poultrygeist was the
first Troma film I saw, but their older films are tame in comparison. As of
writing this, I would consider Poultrygeist
to be their crowning achievement.
Do I recommend Poultrygeist? Not unless you 1) are familiar with Troma and have seen other
films by them but haven’t seen this one, 2) enjoy watching the sickest,
most-depraved horror movies you can get your hands on, or 3) want to prank a
friend or family member by tricking them into watching something that will
shock them to their core. If you think you might be in any or all three of
those categories, by all means, have at it (the full uncensored movie is even
available on YouTube for free), but otherwise, I strongly caution against watching.
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