Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead

As I have stated in the past if there is one thing I love more than zombies its zombie chickens. Wait I don’t think I’ve ever said that but after last night’s viewing of Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead I sure am saying it now.

After the first 15 minutes of this movie I must say I almost (ALMOST) hit eject and said screw Brutal as Hell I can’t watch this crap. Something about watching Jason Yachanin who is an almost dead ringer for Clay Akin get fingered by a corpse made me want to stop reviewing movies all together. I am glad I stuck around however, I had no idea going into this movie that it was a musical. I just thought it was going to be a cheesy spoof movie on Poltergeist and Night of the Living Dead. I was laughing so hard during this movie I had to take two hits off my inhaler from laughing so hard. This movie is by far the BEST movie Kaufman has ever made and were talking about the guy that helped with Orgasmo and the Toxic Avenger Series. But onto the flick:

Our story opens with our main characters Arbie and Wendy making love in an old Native American graveyard, with the promise being made that when Wendy leaves for college she won’t change and will always love Arbie. Flash forward six months Wendy returns from college a lesbian with a knack for protesting chicken restaurants and targets the one Arbie works at, along with is friends Paco Bell (A homosexual Mexican), Humus (A proud Muslim woman), and Carl Jr (Inbred animal lover) the group works for Denny (token Militant black guy) who dreams of opening his own chain of restaurants one day named Dennys. I know for a fact someone right now is reading this going your shitting me, but no these are our characters love it or not.
Unfortunately for everyone the restaurant is built on that same Native American burial ground and the restless Indian spirits have merged with the restless chicken spirits and have began an epic revolt that I’m not sure if even Bruce Campbell could stop. Several songs and dances later the customers who have either eaten the tainted chicken or been pecked to death by the other zombie chickens start attacking the fast food chicken shack. This leaves our hapless heroes to try and defend the place for Truth Justice and American Chicken Shack, sort of. Lord knows if I had a job making $3.15 an hour I would want to defend it too!

Eventually with the help of Paco Bell who is now a Gay Mexican Sloppy Jose sandwich (once again I’m not making this up) our remaining heroes find a way to stop the evil zombie chickens but will they have enough time? Your going to have to pick up the DVD to find out, and this DVD is worth it. Just make sure you get the TROMA DVD and not the Chinese bootleg. Kaufman has a 15 minute speech at the beginning of the DVD explaining what is wrong with the bootleg and why you should always buy the authentic DVD, this alone is worth the asking price of the movie.

I can’t really say this is a 5 star movie, can’t really say it’s a 4 star either. But if you want a great get inebriated (whatever your method hey I don’t judge) this is the flick for you.

Beware Trailer is Not Safe For Work. Nice Ron Jeremy Cameo too.

ZombieLand

As a precursor to this review it does contain some spoiler information, here are my guidelines on the matter

As with all my reviews I may at times give spoilers out on the flick. I try not to do things that ruin the entire flick such as saying who the killer in Scream is but my big thing is if your reading a review of a movie you want to know 4 things:

1. Should I avoid the flick altogether
2. Is it good enough to justifying only a bootleg view
3. Is it good enough to spend money in theaters
4. Is it good enough to spend money to buy the DVD




The answer to these questions when it comes to Zombieland is Yes to questions number 3 and 4. See this flick in theaters and buy it the day it comes out on DVD or Blu Ray. If you LIKE zombie flicks this is a good movie, if you LOVE zombie flicks this is one of the best movies to come out in probably the past 5 years.

Major Casting:
Jason Eisenberg - Columbus
Woody Harrelson - Tallahassee
Emma Stone - Wichita
Abagail Breslin - Little Rock

The plot of Zombieland is the adventure of Columbus and Tallahassee in the post zombie outbreak across the United States. Columbus has several rules he has created for surviving, however just because the two heroes are surviving doesn't mean they are living. It isn't until Columbus and Tallahassee run across the scam artists Wichita and her little sister Little Rock that their luck goes from bad to worse. Eventually as in all zombie flicks the two groups come together as they set out for California so Little Rock can visit an amusement park and Tallahassee can continue his search for Twinkies. Wichita and Columbus start the hints of a romance along the way setting up a neat little set up for the remainder of the flick.

My impression of that plot is ludicrous however after watching the flick it works, and it works REALLY well. Tallahassee's obsession with Twinkies is hysterical and the interaction between Tallahassee and Bill Murray is cinematic gold. Before this movie I could not stand Woody Harrelson but I have to really change my stance on it. The movie is 125 minutes long which is a bit long for a comedy horror flick but you do not really notice it going by, there is not a lot of action despite what the trailers for this movie show. If you think your going to see Resident Evil style fight scenes you are going to be disappointed, however when the fighting does start it is done very well.

This movie has a LOT of cheese in it and a fair amount of corniness but it plays really well. You can tell everyone that made this knew it wasn't going to be a masterpiece of cinematic history but it flows so well that I think they have at least when it comes to zombie horror. The makeup and special effects are really good, was not crazy about the running zombies but it was needed in this flick to help sell the final horror scenes.

I give it a 4 out 5 and it will be purchased as soon as it comes out on DVD.

Slow vs. Fast The Great Zombie Debate

Eventually this blog topic was bound to occur. Best to get it out of the way now and leave the remaining topics a surprise to you my most beloved and loyal readers (all 6 of you).

Always a topic of debate amongst lovers of horror (probably argued as much as remake vs. Original) is the slow zombies versus fast zombies debate. While I won't give George Romero complete credit for starting the zombie genre he will be the basis of my slow zombie argument. I am a huge zombie fan and I will try to be as non-bias as possible in this debate. My personal preference is slow zombie but as I said I will do the best I can to be non-bias.

First up: Slow Zombies

Why they are scary: Slow zombies are scary because no matter how fast you run or how well you hide your going to get caught and eaten. The same principle goes for the original Michael Myers and Jason characters (Jason being a sort of Zombie in his own right). Slow moving zombies are hell bent on one thing, killing and eating the victim. This does have rare exceptions like in Return of the Living Dead where the slow zombies talk and still have a degree of intelligence (opening doors, using radios to call for more food ect...)

Why they are not scary: Slow zombies survive off dumb luck and dumber victims. A look at any Romero picture always has that one shot of a zombie doing something out of instinct that enables the zombie horde to get to the victims. Hardly ever does the horde break down the door and eat everyone inside. Instead luck plays a large role in it, whether it a biker gang moving the trucks so the zombies get into the mall or the instinct principle that leads a zombie to stick a gas pump into a limo and throw in a zippo. As far as the dumb victim scenario it is never going to fail in a zombie flick (fast or slow) that one of the main characters is going to get bit and hide the fact until all of the other dumb victims get trapped with him or her. Sometimes the victims are smart enough to kill the friend in time (Shaun of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead) but most of the time it ends badly like Night of the Living Dead.


Secondly: Fast Moving Zombies

Why they are scary: The fast moving zombie is scary just because they move at inhuman speed due to the zombie not suffering from muscle fatigue or feeling the pain of a torn muscle. These are highly intelligent zombies capable of working as a team to get to the goal. Whether it be the zombies from the remakes of Dawn of the Dead to the infected Resident Evil all the way to the patriarch 28 Days/Weeks zombies, they are all bad ass killing machines that want nothing more than to kill every living thing on the planet.

Why they are not scary: In my opinion (I'm still trying to be unbiased) Fast moving zombies are not scary because they have every strength and other than a head shot none of the weaknesses of the living human race. One only has to look to the opening of the remake of Dawn of the Dead to realize that the moment of death an infected human jumps to their feet and becomes a killing machine capable of running a mile in two minutes and will stop at nothing to bite and kill. That is sort of scary but many of the fast moving zombie films it is just that a kill, there is none of the gore that accompanies a zombie gang attack on a person. Nightmare City being an exception to this rule. In the zombie genre gore is an almost requirement and right of passage. Imagine what Day of the Dead would look like without the scenes where heads and torsos are ripped into, you don't have to imagine very hard pop in Day of the Dead's remake, the gore is almost non existent due to the desire to get a good rating from the MPAA.

As I stated earlier I have to go with Slow Zombies in this debate. While both are mindless killing machines the fact that slow zombies accomplish the same goal without breaking most known laws of physics and is more probably wins the debate at least in my mind. But have I done anything to put an end to the debate for the masses? Nope, nor would I ever even want too. I want the debate to continue it is a source of entertainment amongst most zombie fans. As long as the debate continues tinsel town will take notice and give us 3 or 4 zombie flicks a year. Great zombie movies such as Severed will be made that makes everyone take notice of a genre that is pretty much the black sheep of the horror community.

However, this is just the opinion of one movie fan, who is fired up and in love with a genre of movies that has always seemed to click with him and the rest of the audience. I would appreciate any comments anyone has, please don't let this be a one sided debate on fast vs slow. You've taken the time to read my rant, let me enjoy yours now.