NOR RETREAT, NO SURRENDER

  It's time to break out that badass Japanese rising sun bandanna and those sweet aviator sunglasses that you've been holding on to since middle school, tear the sleeves off our shirts, oil up the nunchucks, dust off the secret shuriken collection, push the furniture back against the walls and turn the living room into a deadly dojo where we can practice our best martial arts forms in front of a full sized mirror and/or camera while the 80's inspirational montage rock cues up!  Yell it loud and proud from your guts!  Let your chi hammers break the chains that tether us to our normal everyday lives my fellow KVLTISTS, "NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER!"

  Question:  If some bad karate guys tried to buy out your dad's dojo in Los Angeles and then kicked his ass in front of you and the entire martial arts class for not selling what would you do?  Please take your time, think it through, and choose the best possible answer...

  Okay times up.  If your answer was to move to Seattle, join a new karate school, get your ass embarrassingly kicked in front of everyone on the first day then immediately run away with your tail tucked between your legs, get your ass re-kicked in front your girlfriend at her birthday party, then break into an abandoned house to set up a mock dojo of your own to train with Bruce Lee's ghost, then use the newly honed karate skills that you've acquired from said undead Jeet Kune Do master to save the asses of the guys who run the dojo that you were publicly shamed in during a martial arts tournament that you were only attending as a spectator, you'd be absolutely correct and you'd already know the plot of No Retreat, No Surrender!

Jean Claude Van Damme, "the muscles from Brussels" who taunts opponents by doing the splits during tussles.  

  The No Retreat, No Surrender itinerary of kickassery; awesomely bad 80's fashion, ridiculously overdone cable-drawn stunts during impromptu karate battles, like father like son public humiliation, multiple training montages (including a very homoerotic exercise involving a friend and ice cream), awesome power rock montage anthems with guitar work by none other than a then unknown Joe Satriani, a first-date in Seattle montage, Michael Jackson impersonators, a food fight, breakdancing, Bruce Lee's actual grave, Bruce Lee's (not actual) ghost played by Lee's actual stunt double Tai Chung Kim, Coca Cola's best product placement ever, Jean Claude Van Damme injuring multiple stunt men and actors over and over again, and the titular line dropped no less than 3 times throughout the film.  *Sung in a super serious montage rock voice*  Search deep within yourself, light the fire in your karate heart.  Become the lightning before the thunder, soar with the burning wings of your mindeagle, high above the karate'd corpses of the competition, and always remember there's No Retreat, No Surrender!  

Recognize this famous gif?  It's a deleted scene from the American release of No Retreat, No Surrender.  Bruce Lee's ghost sure has some interesting training techniques.  Somebody call Chris Hanson pronto! 

FUN FACTS ABOUT NO RETREAT NO, NO SURRENDER

Jean Claude Van Damme's first credited role was in No Retreat, No Surrender as the film's main villain, Ivan "The Russian."

During production, Van Damme was reported to have injured stunt men and actors during multiple fight sequences that resulted in busted lips, bloody noses, bruises, and one actor being knocked unconscious from a poorly placed and timed roundhouse kick. 

At the time of it's release No Retreat, No Surrender was panned by critics claiming that it was a pastiche of ideas ripped off from other successful martial arts and action films of the day like The Karate Kid, The Last Dragon, and even Rocky IV. 

Never surrender

V/H/S + V/H/S 2

  The anthology film has been a staple of horror cinema that dates back as far as the 1940's with a slightly earlier and eerier kind of British invasion that came in the form of a little chiller titled The Dead Of Night (1945).  More horror anthology pictures have crept into the public peripheral throughout the years with notable classics such as Mario Bava's Black Sabbath (1963), Trilogy Of Terror, Creepshow, Tales From The Crypt: The Movie, Tales From The Darkside: The Movie, Tales From The Hood, Twilight Zone: The Movie et cetera.  In 2007 a soon-to-be horror anthology sleeper hit, Trick 'R' Treat was born then immediately shelved by distributors due to lack of interest.  In 2009 Trick 'R' Treat was rightfully disinterred and once again re-animated the horror anthology film for younger audiences and elder KVLTIST'S alike.  Fast forward to 2012 and we have V/H/S, in our midst.  It's a retro take on that old horror anthology chestnut and was unleashed upon the world with much internet hype and endless miles of ad campaigns in all of our KVLT-approved horror magazines that promised an experience of genuine terror... and it actually delivered.


  V/H/S blends the recent wave of found footage films with the classic horror anthology seamlessly, creating something that feels new while towing the line of the retro vhs aesthetic into the digital age.  Younger audiences may find this hard to look at, but much like the graininess of horror classics like Night Of The Living Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the fuzzy, washed-out-vhs-look only adds another layer of depraved ambiance to the scenes of terror on-screen.  Much like the horror anthology flicks of yesteryear, V/H/S offers a series of seemingly unrelated stories with a wraparound segment to tie it all together.  The KVLT would love to blab about its favorite parts of each individual segment, but half of the fun of V/H/S is in not knowing what's going to happen next and especially its shock and twist endings.  All the KVLT can reveal about V/H/S is that it was made by young and up-and-coming directors of indie horror hits like The Signal, I Sell The Dead, and House Of The Devil and it's one mean-sprited little anthology flick that is guaranteed to leave a slimy coating of real horror residue on the viewers brain that lasts days, even weeks after seeing it.

 

This will be the last time he ever meets someone who posts in the craiglist personals section. 

  V/H/S 2 once again features the found footage format happened upon by two private investigators who are tracking down a student who has recently gone missing.  Trying to trace the whereabouts of the student through clues left on a laptop and curiously marked vhs tapes the detectives unwittingly unleash a veritable Pandora's Box of malevolent spirits, zombies, bodily mutilation, a suicide KVLT, alien abduction, and a wraparound shock ending that left a grin of satisfaction on this KVLT leaders face as the credits rolled. 

They practice hard year in and year out but just can't seem to get the Olympic Summer Games to approve Russian Roulette as a team event. 

  So dust off what some consider to be a dead format and check out V/H/S and V/H/S 2.  The KVLT's seal of approval comes wholeblackheartedly with both V/H/S installments and do heed the warning of "be kind rewind" or else you just may end up as the victim in/of a segment in V/HS 3.

FUN FACTS ABOUT V/H/S AND V/H/S 2:

V/H/S has already been spoofed in a 2013 short called Laserdisk.

Be Kind Rewind Or Die!

Be Kind Rewind Or Die Twice!

MANIAC {2012)

In 1980 William Lustig's American slashterpiece Maniac "warned you not to go out tonight." 
  In 2012...
the warning stills stands.

  Even for the most astute KVLT VISONARY'S life is full of a preponderance of enlightening as well as soul-shattering questions.  Why are we here?  Does true love, good and evil, actually exist?   Will we ever live to see the fabled Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash movie?  What's life like after the Shire?  What would it be like to see a film where Elijah Wood goes on a killing spree and talks to mannequins? Why have French directors been making the best horror films over the last decade? These questions and more will be answered in this article.

  Meet Frank zito, a deranged young mannequin restorer who is prowling internet dating sites and the city streets in search of the perfect woman.  Or rather pieces of the perfect woman to add to his collection.  The trophied items in this macabre menagerie also happen to be the scalps and hair of young women that he murders night after night.  He then brings the scalps home to lovingly adorn the mannequins that inhabit his home and business.  Meanwhile, a beautiful young female photographer named Anna, who is unaware of Frank's ghoulish night-time activities, notices his restoration shop and wants to use some of his mannequins in an upcoming photo shoot.  Frank obliges and immediately becomes obsessed with Anna, stalking her and murdering anyone who gets in his way in hopes of adding her to his grisly gallery. 

 Go get your haircut at the local cosmetology school, they said.  It's free and you're helping college kids gain experience and earn grades, they said. 

  So you're saying to yourself, "sounds like every slasher movie ever."  That's partly because this is a remake of the infamous 1980 video nasty original, but with an incredibly interesting casting choice of none other than Elijah Wood to play the mentally disturbed character, Frank Zito.  Then, instead of making a shot-for-shot remake, the ghastly story is told entirely through painstakingly accurate first-person POV cinematography that puts you directly in Zito's bloodstained shoes!  That's right KVLTISTS, you get to see each horrific murder in graphic detail through the killer's unflinching perspective all the way to the end of the film!  And being that this is a remake of a horror film that is over three decades old, you get a more updated modern city backdrop and hip characters to relate to just before they are slashed into bits and scalped right before your very eyes to the sleazy, pulsing, and amazingly apt, lo-fi electronic score by a surnameless French composer who goes only by Rob, that harkens back to the glory days of John Carpenter and Goblin.

Looks like Frank Zito and his lovely new date will be staying in for a romantic double feature of Mannequin and Mannequin 2: On The Move, like they do every night.  

  You may also be asking yourself, "Who are the red-handed culprits behind what sounds like a true tour-de-force of modern terror and a real contender for the best wide release horror film of 2013?"  Well, they are none other than the French film-making team behind the much-heralded modern horror classics like High Tension (2003) and The Hills Have Eyes (2006), with blessings and a producers credit from the director of the original Maniac, Willaim Lustig.  Also to be noted is that this movie actually caused test audience members in Los Angeles to faint, become nauseous, and in one case vomit.  The director took this as a compliment.  If you do decide to venture out into the world to catch a screening of Maniac in it's limited run, don't go alone, maybe consider wearing a helmet or other forms of protective headgear, afterall "He warned you not to go out tonight."

FUN FACTS ABOUT MANIAC:

Silence Of The Lambs fans will notice that Buffalo Bill's favorite song, "Goodbye Horses" by Q Lazzarus is played during one of the first murder sequences in Maniac. 

Fans of the original Maniac will notice a quick reference to the original and very controversial movie poster art in Frank's reflection in a parking lot. 

Mannequin 3: On The Prowl For Scalps

DJANGO UNCHAINED

  

  It's not everyday that a bona fide KVLT member gets the opportunity plunk down their hard-earned or not-so-hard-earned loot at the box office in exchange for a chance to see a real red-blooded gritty western on the silver screen.  Sure there have been a few notable westerns that have played theaters in the last decade with enough critical fanfare to garner public interest like The Proposition, The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, Appaloosa, Lawless, and the True Grit remake, all great westerns in their own respects, but none of them are as KVLT worthy as Django Unchained.  After seeing the red-band trailer sometime during the summer of 2011 for Quentin Tarantino's homage to spaghetti westerns, The KVLT has been, frothing at the mouth, reeling in anticipation, and counting down the days until it's Christmas première.  So saddle up KVLT compadres and lets blaze that dusty trail with Django Unchained.


  Django, (Jamie Foxx) a former slave whose freedom is purchased on the road by a glib-tongued German Dentist named Dr. King Schultz (Christopher Waltz) who also happens to be a bounty hunter.  Dr. Schultz quickly learns of Django's skill with a firearm as well as his thirst for revenge against his former slave owners and their employees.  Django and Schultz join forces gunning down fugitives, collecting bounties, and making their way through Texas and eventually to Mississippi to one of the most infamous plantations in the Antebellum South called Candyland.  Dr. Schultz and Django arrive at Candyland playing the roles of two slave traders in order to find and rescue Django's estranged wife Broomhilda, a German speaking slave who had been all but lost in the slave trade until now.  Candyland's sole proprietor Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a brutal sadist who specializes in buying, selling, and pitting his Mandingo fighters, (the human equivalent to dogfighting or cock-fighting) against one another for money.   At Calvin Candie's side is his ever loyal head servant and hype-man Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson) who senses that Django and Dr. Schultz' plans may not be what they appear and quickly informs Candie of his suspicions.  Tensions mount and the silver-tongued Schultz tries to smooth over the rough details of his a false business proposition while Django has his hand on his sidearm ready to shoot his way out of Candyland and save Broomhilda at any cost if the deal sours. 

Here's a bit of business advice from The KVLT, Lesson 1:  Never trust a man who brings a human skull to the board meeting.

  While Django Unchained has little or nothing to do with the original Django films at all other than it's titular character and a cameo by the original Django, Franco Nero, it still packs a solid punch packed full of wild and woolly comic book styled western action and is a vast improvement on his last two films. (Inglorious Bastards and Death Proof) Like all Tarantino films to date, it's a pastiche of other cult films that he loves, in this case, spaghetti westerns like Cutthroats 9, Keoma, and the Django series and blaxploitation westerns like Boss, Joshua, Take A Hard Ride and even Hollywood's critically panned exploitation trash epic Mandingo. The acting is definitely on par with the usual trappings of the spaghetti western and Tarantino films with a few stand out performances by Christopher Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Samuel L. Jackson, but otherwise if you expected anything more than two-fisted comic book dialogue and one-liners, you may have missed the point entirely. Oh and did I mention the soundtrack? Would you believe Ennio Morricone, Jim Croce, James Brown, and Rick Ross all on the same soundtrack? It's all true and it works really well. 

  Of course with any Tarantino project there is going to be buzz, rumors, hype, and outrage and Django Unchained is no exception.  Outside of the usual complaints about glamorizing violence, explicit language, and bad taste, Spike Lee has said that he will not go to see Django Unchained because  of Tarantino's depiction of African American slavery.  Lee also had qualms about the incessant use of racial slurs in Tarantino's Jackie Brown in the late 90's.   Here are some of the comments that Lee made about Django Unchained in a in a recent VIBE Magazine interview

Dr. Schultz (Christopher Waltz) looks like he is pondering the  comments made by Spike Lee about Django Unchained. 

  So far the critics have been more favorable than Lee's take on Django Unchained.  The KVLT was a little suprised to see that it has already earned itself a rating of 8.8 on IMDB.com.  Maybe Django Unchained will be the western that will dig it's spurs into the sides of the moviegoing public for a much longer ride than some of the more recent westerns that have popped in and out of the spotlight?  But even if Tarantino's love letter to the spaghetti western is not enough to drum up a full-on revival of the western film, Django Unchained is a welcomed shotgun blast from the past with enough modern flare to dazzle new audiences who may or may not be privy to the exploitation side of the spaghetti western! In other words, don't miss it!  

Fun Facts about Django Unchained:  

During filming on location in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Tarentino rented out a local movie theater to show samurai and western movies from his private collection.

While hosting SNL, Jamie Foxx, talked about Django Unchained and said that he was, "excited to kill all the white people in the movie."

In reaction to the SNL skit, Jeff Kuhner wrote for The Washington Times: "Anti-white bigotry has become embedded in our postmodern culture. Take “Django Unchained.” The movie boils down to one central theme: the white man as devil — a moral scourge who must be eradicated like a lethal virus."

Jamie Foxx rode his own horse named Cheetah in Django Unchained

Originally, Quentin Tarentino had Will Smith in mind to play Django.  Smith declined the offer and Jamie Foxx got the part.

NEAR DARK

  In 1987 Joel Schumacher's seminal teenage vampire classic grew fangs and wings,"said hello to the night" landing at major box office success proving that the public "still believed" in vampires.  That same year Katheryn Bigelow (Point Break, Hurt Locker) had unleashed a similar gang of rebel vamps onto the silver screen in Near Dark.  Where The Lost Boys use flashy Hollywood cinematography and teenage sex appeal to tell the tale of the American nuclear family who also happen to be bloodsuckers from beyond the grave, Near Dark spins a similar yarn but with a gritty, raw, western flare, pitch black humor, and devil-may-care attitude that set it leagues apart from the usual fangfare. 

  Meet Caleb, a farmhand from Oklahoma who by day helps with the family farm.  By night, he's like any other young red-blooded American male, just out lookin' for a good time.  Along comes Mae, a mysterious and attractive young lady who has just caught the eye of young Caleb.  After a flirty introduction, they decide to go for a ride in Caleb's farm truck.  The couple lose track of time and Caleb mentions that it's almost dawn.  She panics and pleads with Caleb to take her home before the sun rises.  In a last ditch effort to finally steal a kiss from Mae, Caleb leans forward and gets more than he bargained for when Mae sinks her teeth into his neck and disappears.  The next day Caleb wakes up to find a strong aversion to sunlight, so strong in fact, that it causes his skin to blister and burst into flames.  He drives himself back to the family farm and just before he reaches his destination, he is abducted by a speeding RV full of hell-bent outlaws with Mae among their ranks who all have a similar disposition that requires them to keep out of direct sunlight and drink human blood to survive.  The gang then explain that he has been turned and like them, in order to stay alive, he must now rove the countryside at night in search of victims whose blood he needs to sustain his own life.  Caleb's reluctance to kill and his relationship with Mae cause rifts and tension within the gang, meanwhile, Caleb's father and little sister are hot on their trail in hopes of saving him.  Will Caleb become one of the bloodthirsty marauders or will his father make it in time before Caleb pays the ultimate price of living fast, like a predator in the night?

The KVLT can't imagine anyone who wouldn't want to party with Bill Paxton's character Severen in Near Dark.  ...The man has a way

  Although Near Dark wasn't given the proper promotion and wide theatrical release that it deserved, it fast became a KVLT hit thanks to home video and frequent appearances on cable throughout the late 80's and early 90's. The film breathes an air of dead seriousness that most horror films of the late 80's and even today can't hold a candle to.  To further illustrate this, Caleb, Mae, and the gang of outlaws  are technically vampires, they drink blood, ignite in sunlight, and have superhuman strength, but, the use of long sharp fangs, and the word vampire are never used in the film.  The soundtrack by Tangerine Dream and various artists, wholly embraces the isolation and of the Midwest with ironic shit-kicker blues and pop rock songs, ingeniously juxtaposed with Tangerine Dream's pulsing synth-driven dirges that help define the Faustian price of killing to live in a nocturnal world without end.  The casting for Near Dark couldn't have been any better, with newcomers like Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, and Joshua John Miller matching the level of gravitas that genre vets like Lance Henriksen, Jenette Goldstein, Bill Paxton, and Tim Thomerson are well known for.

Nice try, Lionsgate. The KVLT knows too well what vapid and sparkly set of the vampire demographic you were marketing this re-release to. 

  In the realm of vamp flicks, Near Dark is a true diamond in the rough.  Outshined by the glitz and glamour of The Lost Boys in it's initial theatrical release, Near Dark has clawed it's way through the grave dirt of the cinematic cemetery and resurrected itself as a true KVLT force for those who haven't already offered their free arteries to the Twilight set.  Near Dark is in fact the real deal.  It's dark, horrific, hypnotic, two-fisted, ugly, irreverent, comes with strong dose of gallows humor, and best of all it makes no excuses.  All killer, no filler and definitely no sparkles. 

Fun Facts About Near Dark:

The Cramps cover of, "Fever", can be heard when the gang enters the roadhouse near the middle of the film.  

Lance Henriksen actually designed his own costume for the character of Jesse Hooker. 

For the role of Caleb, Johnny Depp, and D.W. Sweeney auditioned but Adrian Pasdar got the role. 

Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, and Jenette Goldstein, had just finished shooting Aliens with James Cameron who at the time, was dating Near Dark Director Katheryn Bigelow.  Near Dark, being a lower to mid level budget studio picture, the pay margin was substantially lower than it was on Aliens, but Henriksen, Paxton, and Goldstein agreed to do the film because they loved the script and characters so much.

 On a theater marquee in the background, James Cameron's sci-fi action hit, Aliens, can be seen.

THE NIGHT HAS IT'S PRICE

FATHER'S DAY (2012)

  From the great white north a true modern cult clssick has awakened from the wonderfully warped, maple syrup-soaked minds that comprise the ranks of renegade filmmaking collective ASTRON-6.  Made on a budget of only ten grand procured by lifelong practitioners of the cinematically perverse, Troma Pictures, Father's Day pays credence to the grisly and sleazier side of  grindhouse and drive-in movies while pushing not only budgetary boundaries, but also the limits of bad taste, to new and often hilarious heights.


  Hot on the bloody trail of vengeance is Ahab, a loner living in the Canadian wilderness whose lifelong pursuits involve making maple syrup and training to become a hell-bent vigilante out to settle the score with a cannibalistic, dad-raping, maniac named Chris Fuchman, who raped and murdered his father when Ahab was just a boy.  Along the way, Ahab joins forces with Twink, a junkie and male prostitute who's father also met his untimely demise at the hands of The Father's Day killer, and Father John Sullivan, A Catholic priest who just wants to see an end to the madness.  Caught in this web of revenge and insanity is Ahab's younger sister Chelsea who is currently working as a stripper, but also wants nothing more than to see The Father's Day Killer receive his final comeuppance.  The group follows Chris Fuhman's path down the metaphorical and metaphysical rabbit hole into a world of reckless brutality and shocking depravity unlike anything you've ever seen before.

 Vengeance is a dish best served slathered in real homemade organic maple syrup

  Upon Father's Day inception, the Astron-6 team had to have been aware of the armchair critic's obvious comparisons to Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarentino's Grindhouse double feature as well as Jason Eisner's Hobo With A Shotgun.   Visually, the trailer for Father's Day definitely sets the tone to capture the same high color saturation, grainy, damaged 16 mm film print look that the aforementioned movies above revel in.  Also, like the Grindhouse double feature, Father's Day has fake bumper commercials for nonexistent (so far anyway) films that are mixed into the feature to give off the impression that the audience is watching a movie on late night cable.  The lo-fi, synth heavy, electronic soundtrack for Father's Day is also a large part of the film's retro fabulous ambiance, sending nods to John Carpenter, Riz Ortalani, Fabio Frizzi, and Goblin.  Stylistically speaking, Father's Day is without a doubt intentionally reaching for the same low rung on the artistic ladder that Grindhouse, and Hobo With A Shotgun, but the boys of Astron-6 go way further thematically and in terms of their own brand of overt toilet humor, subtle dry wit, and unflappable weirdness.  Over the top doesn't even begin to describe Father's Day.  Insofar as the KVLT can tell, there is no glass ceiling, top of the mountain, or end of the rainbow for Astron-6, every action sequence, gore gag, in-joke, and sexual situation get blown way out of proportion and into the solar system and The KVLT is grateful for it! 

Astron-6's Fathers Day is in some ways similar to the 1997 family comedy Father's Day with Robin Williams and Billy Crystal but with just a bit more violence, gore, incest, suicide, and dad-rape. 


  Father's Day may be The KVLT's pick for best movie of 2012 and if that doesn't tickle your fancy, just remember it's a movie made from all the ingredients that a growing KVLT kid needs like; gritty action, violent revenge, drug use, male prostitution, pitch black humor, bucket loads of gore, cannibalism, ample nudity, incest, suicide, and DAD RAPE!  Just think of all the rape/revenge movies that you've seen over the years in which the unfortunate victims have been 99% female.  Isn't it time we reboot our collective psychotronic minds and watch the boys (Dads) take one for the team?  To quote one of the greatest movie taglines in recent memory, "Sons, lock up your fathers."  Father's Day has arrived!

Fun Facts About Father's Day:

Troma pictures gave The Astron-6 team a completetion fund of ten thousand dollars after someone at Troma saw the trailer for Father's Day.  

Astron-6 is meant to be a nod to the popular 80's video company Vestron Video.

Astron-6 have another feature in the works called Fireman, and another titled Manborg. 

POULTRYGEIST: NIGHT OF THE CHICKEN DEAD

  Remember the steak ghost in Poltergeist, the skyscraper-sized killer Stay Puft Marshmellow Man from Ghostbusters, or the shrimp cocktail from hell in Beetlejuice?  How about killer culinary cult classics like Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes or The Stuff?   If the answer is no, fear not dear reader, there is always time to catch up on your fearsome food flicks. Upon writing this review, The KVLT racked it's collective unconscious for scenes or entire movies about killer food, and realized that homicidal edibles have been a staple of the horror film for quite some time, but none have stretched the boundaries of extreme tongue-in-cheek tastelessness insofar as Lloyd Kaufman's Poultrygeist: Night Of The Chicken Dead. 

  American Chicken Bunker, a fast food fried chicken franchise is about to open a new store in Tromaville.  Hordes of angry protesters gather to picket the restaurant's ribbon cutting ceremony.  Caught somewhere between American Chicken Bunker's conquest for power and local entry level employment and the collective organizers rallying outside, are two former lovers, Arby and Wendy.  Arby, is just a young man trying to make a meager living in the world working in the private sector, more specifically, at American Chicken Bunker, as well as regain the adoring affection his ex girlfriend Wendy, who is one of the protesters deadset on running American Chicken Bunker out of Tromaville.  Unbeknownst to either side, American Chicken Bunker's new location was built atop a sacred Native American burial ground and all the recent commotion has stirred their long dormant spirits.  Before you can say, "Kentucky Fried Carnage," American Chicken's Bunkers entire line of deep fried food stuffs become inhabited by the angry spirits, turning anyone who eats it into mutant chicken zombies who want human flesh added to the menu.  Oh and did The KVLT mention that it's a musical?

As the saying goes, "a zombie chicken in the hand is worth a few hundred in the cursed fast food eatery."

  In the tradition of Troma's long standing career of irreverent and over the top cinematic antics Poultrygeist: Night Of The Chicken Dead goes a few steps further than it's predecessors in providing a marathon of sick shock gags, the usual potty humor, nods of political satire, interlaced with intentionally crude yet catchy musical numbers.  Troma Films, a bastion of bad taste independent cinema for almost 40 years now, stills seems to garner a very polarized reaction when mentioned amongst film geeks.  People seem to love or revile Troma.  This could be partly due to the fact that Troma, not only makes genre-defying movies for punks, geeks, and other weirdo stereotypes, but is also a huge distributor of low budget indie films. The list of financially acquired Troma Films by far outnumbers the in-house Troma productions and in most cases lack the unabashed low budget quality, and unflappable drive that a true Troma production possesses.  Therefore, cult film aficionados assume that all Troma Pictures releases are Z-grade schlock of their own design, which is not the case.  The list of Troma's flagship features is a rather short list when you consider how long the comapany has been spitting in the eye of in the mainstream film industry.  Poultrygeist, like The Toxic Avenger films, The Class Of Nuke'Em High Trilogy, Sgt. Kabukiman, and Terror Firmer is a legitimate Tromatic effort made with the same fast-paced, unbridled insanity that made the aforementioned Troma titles cult classics.  To further illustrate Lloyd Kaufman's love for his craft, there is a featurette at the beginning of the Poultrygeist dvd explaining how and why he spent much of his 41K to have it filmed in 35 millimeter instead of on digital.  A bold move in a time when digital is the industry standard and the cost of film, film printing, not to mention editing has skyrocketed due to the shift in the technology and the demands of the modern film market.

Troma visionary, Lloyd Kaufman, demonstrating that when it comes to independent filmmaking, sometimes it's really hard to save face. 

  Poultrygeist: Night Of The Chicken Dead is everything you've ever come to love about Troma, but for the new ADHD prescription drug addled, 24 hour media and internet obsessed, fast food addicted, secretly nihilistic culture that we live in today.  With it's mile-a-second pacing, wall to wall spraying of blood, gore, fecal matter, seminal fluids, fast food stuffs, it's sharp eye for political absurdities, and catchy yet dirty take on showtunes, Poultrygeist: Night Of The Chicken Dead is a peerless original, well maybe except for the Troma-funded Trey Parker and Matt Stone first effort Cannibal: The Musical.  Although, Cannibal: The Muscial does come with The KVLT's seal of approval, So if that old yellow Troma logo has let you down before, or you are still on the fence about Troma Films, rest assured, Poultrygeist: Night Of The Chicken Dead is the Troma film to end all Troma films.  Seriously, if Poultrygeist isn't your cup of cinematic tea beer, then you're probably reading the wrong blog. 

Fun Facts About Poultrygeist: Night Of The Chicken Dead:

One of the original titles for Poultrygeist was, "Good Night and Good Cluck."

A scene that ended up on the cutting room floor reveals Trey Parker and Matt Stone as Arby's parents.  

Poultrygeist's lead characters were named after popular Fast Food Restaurants Arbie (Arby's), Wendy (Wendy's), Micki (McDonalds), Denny (Denny's), Carl Jr. (Carl Jr.) and Paco Bell (Taco Bell)

When watching Poultrygeist, patient and observant Tromaphiles may spot the infamous penis monster prop from Tromeo and Juliet, and the obligatory car flip and explosion scene recycled once again.