Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead

 

PLOT (spoiler alert!!!):

Poultrygeist follows a group of consumers and ordinary citizens who are trapped inside a New Jersey fried chicken fast food restaurant – the American Chicken Bunker – which is being attacked by chicken-possessed zombie demons because the building is erected on top of a sacred Indian burial ground. The protagonist is Arbie (Jason Yachanin), an ACB employee trying to win back the heart of his ex-girlfriend Wendy (Kate Graham), an activist protesting against the restaurant, who has left Arbie for another woman.

High school sweethearts Arbie and Wendy meet the day before Wendy’s departure to college to consummate their relationship in the Tromahawk Indian burial ground, promising to each other that no matter what happens, they will always stay faithful to each other. She is grossed out after finding a man jacking off to their lovemaking, but is later killed by zombie hands spouting from the ground. One college semester later, when Arbie returns to the spot of his one and only sexual encounter, he is shocked to discover two unsettling realities: not only has the burial ground been bulldozed and replaced by an American Chicken Bunker, a mega-conglomerate fast food franchise, but college has turned his dear Wendy into a “leftist, lipstick lesbo liberal”, protesting the construction of the fried chicken menace with her activist girlfriend Micki (Allyson Sereboff).

Disillusioned and out for revenge, Arbie decides to get a job at the American Chicken Bunker. Under the supervision of paranoid manager Denny, Arbie is thrust into the monotony of minimum wage with a variety of colorful co-workers: the effeminate Mexican Paco Bell (Khalid Rivera), the animal-loving redneck Carl Jr. (Caleb Emerson), the burqa-clad Muslim Hummus (Rose Ghavami) and a mysterious 60-year-old man in the restaurant’s basement who has worked as the restaurant’s costumed mascot all his life and has a virtually identical similar background to Arbie.

However, strange things are afoot at the American Chicken Bunker. While grinding meat, Paco is pushed into the meat grinder by an uncooked chicken. General Lee Roy decides not to do anything, and lets Paco get turned into sloppy jose. Arbie begins to unravel a sinister plot involving the spirits of disenfranchised Native Americans and the billions of slaughtered chickens sent to the “concentration coops” who plan on exacting their revenge in the most gruesome ways possible, after being told so by Paco (who is reanimated as a sloppy jose). Carl. Jr, who is having intercourse with an uncooked chicken in the storage room, fights the uncooked chicken when it starts biting his penis. Hummus manages to kill the uncooked chicken by shoving a broom up Carl’s backside, though it tears off his penis. General Lee Roy tells them not to take him to a hospital. He instead tells them to give chicken (which has been sprayed with blood and green ichor) to the protester outside. Carl Jr. is killed when Arbie gives him alcohol to drink. After Mickie tells the protesters that the chicken tastes good, the protesters go inside the restaurant to eat chicken. Wendy finds out that Mickie has been paid by General Lee Roy to say that the chicken tastes good she breaks up with Mickie and returns to Arbie. General Lee Roy gets diarrhea after eating a forced-upon piece of chicken. General Lee Roy lays an egg in the bathroom and is attacked by the chicken that hatches from the egg. He rips off the chickens head with his teeth and is sprayed with green blood. He becomes a giant egg and hatches into a chicken zombie. He then decapitates Denny (who is telling a story about the first time he encountered a chicken).

The customers, workers, and protesters then all turn into zombie chickens. The mascot (Lloyd Kaufman) shoots all the chicken zombies inside with an M-16 machine gun. The General Lee Roy zombie returns, but is shot down by the mascot. As the old man approaches towards the General, he gets his nose ripped off by a now zombie chicken Denny. Arbie then shots and kills Denny. Wendy turns the open/closed sign to ‘closed’, which keeps the chicken zombies at bay. The mascot, who is still, alive tells Arbie that he is his future self. He then turns into a chicken zombie. Mickie, who attempts to escape, is turned into a zombie chicken. She and the Mascot chicken zombie chase after Arbie and Wendy. Hummus drinks meat steroid in an attempt to save them, and accidentally kills herself in the process. Arbie and Wendy realize that beer kills the chicken zombies, and which also then kills the Mickie and mascot zombie. They run out of beer and are saved by Humms (who is still alive, despite having exploded a few minutes earlier). They find a child hiding in the storage room and are attacked once again by the General Lee Roy chicken. It is then killed by Paco sandwich. Hummus is then shown to have C-4 strapped to her body and tells them that she will sacrifice herself. Wendy, Arbie and the little girl escape as the building explodes. While being driven home in a car, the child experiences stomach cramps and eventually starts clucking like a chicken. There, she lays an egg, frightening her, Arbie and Wendy, which causes them to lose control and crash, resulting in the car back-flipping before landing on the ground and exploding, thus killing all inside.

In a post-credits scene, the zombified chickens are then shown dancing as a reprise of the Poultrygeist theme song plays in the background

REVIEW:

Let’s see…it’s Friday, storming, and I need to find something to cheer me up from my ruined day yesterday (long story). I believe this calls for something so horrible that it might actually be good. Could Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead be the answer? I guess we’re about to find out!

What is this about?

What happens when a fast-food chicken franchise is built on a sacred Native American burial site rife with restless spirits? Zombie chickens!

What did I like?

Over the top. If Troma films have come to be known for anything it is that they don’t hold back with anything. Keeping with the studio’s tradition, there is plenty of over the top violence, gore, cheesy jokes and just about any and everything that other films do everything they can to hold back on because…reasons.

Fast food. Someone over there at Troma must have gotten some really bad service one day from a fast food joint. I say this because in almost all of their films, at least the ones that I’ve seen, there is a scene involving death by fast food preparation. While this sounds like a complaint, I actually found it to be quite creative. I wonder why no one else kills anyone using fast food restaurants.

Nerd rule. Today, it seems as if us geeks and nerds have taken over the world. This may be true, I still don’t see many nerds as leading men, do you? Aside from shows like The Big Bang Theory and the like, leading men are still the jocks and pretty boys. This is why it warms my heart to see a nerd as the main protagonist in this film. Not only that, but he doesn’t change who he is throughout the film to become a “better person” or to win the girl. Kudos to this screenwriter for keeping things the way they should be.

What didn’t I like?

Potty go down the hole. Remember Jared from Subway? Yeah, well, he’s not in this picture. There is a character who is meant to be a parody of him, though. That’s not the bad part, though. This same character gets his food and immediately has a potty emergency. Still not the worst part, though. As he is having him time on the throne, he is still eating (which is gross to watch, I might add). Wait, there is more! Every now and then, the camera will switch to a toilet view. Need I say more? For this type of film, potty humor is well and good, but good gravy, some things just should not be seen!

Yessir, massa, sir! I believe there was a time when KFC was under scrutiny for the use of a southern “gentlemen” as their mascot. As per the norm whenever a chicken place is featured in a film, the colonel is replaced with a general. Remember Billy Dee Williams in Undercover Brother? Well, this general seems to have an effect on the one person of African-American descent in this town, because when he comes around, Dennis suddenly talks like he just came from picking cotton in the fields all day. Why is this? I don’t know, but I have my suspicions.

Little ones. In my day, I’ve seen quite a few topless scenes. The thing is, these are most effective when the girls actually have something to show (and perhaps bounce). I don’t mean to get too crass here, but it has been proven that guys like bigger breasts. So, why is it that the filmmakers decided to get the most flat chested girls for this topless scene? There are a couple of exception, mind you. I just can’t wrap my head around it!

Final verdict on Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead? Well, it is obvious this was made by people who knew what they were doing. There is care taken in making sure the jokes actually are placed strategically, the zombie part of the film doesn’t arrive too quickly, and certain characters are developed. That being said, this is not a good film, even by Troma standards. I think it is best if you deny it even exists. Believe me, is it for the best!

2 out of 5 stars