Horror musicals are such a strange concept that, even as a huge fan, I still find it hard to believe that they exist in the first place. From Little Shop of Horrors to Repo! The Genetic Opera, audiences are surprisingly okay with singing along to tongue-in-cheek violence and creepy characters. Of course, not all horror musicals are created equal, and Troma Entertainment has provided us with some of the weirdest ones out there. That’s why I’d like to take this opportunity to talk about my personal favorite Troma movie, Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, which is approaching its 15th anniversary.
Like most Troma films, the production of Poultrygeist was a horror story in and of itself. The script took several years to perfect, props and costumes had to be donated from other studios, and legendary producer/director Lloyd Kaufman was forced to take money out of his own retirement fund in order to help finance the project. Hell, the owners of the abandoned McDonald’s that served as the film’s main location even prohibited the filming of nude scenes, resulting in sexy reshoots in the basement of a nearby church.
This hard work eventually paid off, with the film finally releasing to a brief theatrical run in late 2006 and receiving surprisingly positive reviews when compared to other Troma movies. For those who haven’t seen this schlocky masterpiece, Poultrygeist follows a small-town boy named Arbie (Jason Yachanin) as he discovers that his ex-girlfriend Wendy (Kate Graham) has returned from college as a liberal activist and is now dating another woman. Irritated with Wendy’s anti-establishment views, Arbie takes on a job at the newly-opened American Chicken Bunker, where he meets other wacky characters like Denny, Paco Bell, Carl Jr and Hummus, all with their own bizarre idiosyncrasies playing off of offensive stereotypes.
Unfortunately, the Bunker was built on top of a Native-American burial ground, and when vengeful spirits meet with the restaurant’s lack of food safety protocols, a disgusting plague is unleashed upon the unsuspecting customers. It’s not long before Arbie and company are surrounded by legions of mutant chicken zombies hell-bent on consuming human flesh, much like fast-food giants consume family-owned businesses. Faced with an impending apocalypse, the survivors must learn to set aside their differences in order to defeat this poultry-based menace.
Minimum wage warriors.
While this sounds like a bonkers movie on paper, it’s even crazier on the big screen. Last year’s Shakespeare’s Shitstorm may have done its best to live up to its name, but I still think that Poultrygeist is Troma’s most disgusting outing to date. Not only does it feature some of the most grotesque depictions of fast food to ever grace cinemas, but there’s also quite a bit of genuinely disconcerting gore and body horror on display once the chicken uprising begins.
My own personal history with Poultrygeist actually began long before the film came out, as a young me came across a promotional poster at a Toronto bus stop. While the cheesy tagline (“Humans… the other white meat”) and chicken-related imagery made it clear that the film wasn’t meant to be taken seriously, that screaming skull exploding with chicken parts was forever seared into my retinas. Years later, I finally gave the film a chance during a Troma binge and fell in love with its absurd critique of corporate America and the absolutely gnarly visuals.
While the film contains way more than its fair share of potty humor (including an unforgettably cringe-inducing scene involving the late, great Joe Fleishaker and a cramped bathroom), the real laughs come in the form of over-the-top dialogue and intentionally cartoony direction. There are quite a few laugh-out-loud moments here, especially when Lloyd uses the characters to express his own views on modern America.
Despite the laughs, Poultrygeist is still an incredibly violent and mean-spirited picture, balancing the absurd humor with genuinely horrific moments that are sure to make you regret picking fried chicken as a midnight movie snack. For every comment about the evils of mega-corporations, you also get a scene where a mutant zombie rips off a man’s face and eats it like fried chicken skin, making it clear that the goal here is to shock you into learning something. In some ways, the movie is a perfect satire of a George Romero zombie flick, wearing its heart on its sleeve while tackling social issues much as those movies did.
You’d never see this in a Romero movie, though.
Of course, the actual musical sections of the film might be too much for some viewers, with obviously dubbed lyrics and exaggerated dancing that often goes on for quite a bit. Personally, I appreciate Lloyd’s cheesy approach to musical storytelling, but it’s clear that the end product isn’t for everyone. Fortunately, the songs themselves are all infernally catchy (I’m actually trying to get the main theme out of my head as I write this), even if the lyrics tend to try a little too hard to be offensive.
In fact, like most Troma productions, Poultrygeist doesn’t hold back with its heavy-handed political commentary and racial/sexual stereotypes. I know half the fun of a Troma movie is knowing that these flicks have no filter when commenting on serious issues, but more sensitive viewers should watch out for some particularly mean depictions of immigrants and the LGBT+ community. Of course, the inherent absurdity behind some of these moments is the joke in and of itself, and after checking out some of the film’s deleted scenes, I think things could have been a lot worse.
The whole thing only works because of the bizarre ensemble of memorable and likable characters, with their interactions making the depravity bearable. I know it’s strange to claim that these offensive stereotypes are likable, but there’s just so much heart behind the writing and cartoony performances that you can’t help but root for this group of oddballs. Even Kaufman himself gives a great performance as a possible future version of Arbie that never managed to escape the clutches of the Fast-Food industry, and there are plenty of cameos to look out for as well.
At the end of the day, Poultrygeist may be schlock in every meaning of the word, but it’s lovingly crafted schlock, and that makes all the difference. Despite the absurd plot and copious amounts of blood and guts (among even less palatable substances), the movie somehow manages to avoid being a cynical farce, and I think that genuine Troma spirit makes up for any and all narrative shortcomings. That’s why I’d recommend this one to any fan of horror musicals or even horror comedies in general, so long as you watch it on an empty stomach.
