Oh dear lord baby Jeebus where do I start with this one? Well first of all, Poltrygeist is directed by Lloyd Kaufman who also gave us The Toxic Avenger and subsequent film installments as well as the Nuke 'em High series of films. So if you are familiar with any of those you sort of know what to expect upfront. Actually that's a lie because I've seen some of them and am familiar with Kaufman's work and I've met the guy too so I'm a Kaufman fan and I was not prepared for what Night of the Chicken Dead was going to be. It's Lloyd Kaufman turned up to 11!
The film centers on American Chicken Bunker your basic fast food restaurant... that just happens to be built on Indian burial ground. The ghosts curse and/or possess the chicken causing everyone from customers to employees to become zombies. Not only do they become zombies but they begin to sprout wings and grow beaks! All of the characters are named after fast food restaurants. There's Arbie, Wendy, Denny, Micki, and Carl Jr. There's even a guy named Paco Bell who is killed in a meat grinder and ends up trapped in a Sloppy Joe. Yes, the sandwich talks! Then there's Jared, whatever you do don't go in the bathroom after Jared!
I was surprised when the first half of the movie turns into a gory horror musical (think Rocky Horror meets Rob Zombie)where some of the numbers were quite entertaining. Some of them you can tell the actors were not hired for their singing ability. I say that because some of them were shit at both singing and acting so I'm not really sure why they were hired. This isn't for everyone even if there is something in here to offend just about everyone. It's gory, it's gross, it's disturbing but it's side splitting funny as well. It begins with Wendy telling her boyfriend Arbie to go to college and make something of himself to which he responds: "My dad is a retard and my mothers blind. Who's gonna take care of them while I'm off gettin' smart?". It's those kind of lines that let you know you're also in the middle of a love story. And if that doesn't prove it to you then it's in the closing minutes of the film when Wendy and Arbie have survived one near death experience after another that our heroine Wendy, looks at Arbie and says: "You had me at 'shit covered mongoloid'.", well sometimes the love stories write themselves.
I liked all the Tromaville references throughout the film like Arbie wearing a Toxic Avenger T-shirt, the Tromaville Cemetery, even Arbie's uniform made me flashback to what Toxie wore in his first film. Sometimes horror parodies are just bad ideas, maybe this is too, but it's made by people that like horror films. That actually makes a difference. And while the gore and the special effects some of which are really good and I was impressed with them, there were some really disturbing effects as well. Rarely do I look away due to a scene being too graphic or gross or for any reason but there is one moment in here like that for me. I turned my head and shouted "NO!!" pretty loud. I was surprised by how much I was caught off guard. So this definitely falls into the "So bad it's good" territory and I will give this three and a half C.L.A.M protestors out of five. I feel a higher grade would seem like I was condoning the racial or religious insults as they are fairly cringe inducing at times.
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