Blu-Ray Review: THE DEADLY SPAWN (1983)

Somewhere in a rural section of New Jersey, a couple of camping enthusiasts/possible life partners are shaken from their sleep by the sudden impact of an asteroid just a few hundred yards from their campsite. They go to investigate, and soon find themselves serving as an all-you-can-gnaw buffet for the meteorite's passengers: a bevy of space worms with multiple heads and more teeth than an Osmond family reunion. Needing a cool, damp place to rest, the Big Mama Worm lays down a slime trail toward a nearby house, slithering into the basement and settling down to a cosy life of popping out baby worms and messily devouring anyone who happens to come down looking for an extra jar of jam preserves.

Rightly considered one of the most ambitious micro-budget monster movies of its era (or any era, for that matter), The Deadly Spawn was a mainstay of video stores throughout the big-box VHS era. Produced by Ted A. Bohus and directed by Douglas McKeown (at least partially--more on that below), the movie was made on a truly paltry budget of about $25,000, yet boasts one of the most memorable and effective creatures ever to grace a video cover. And now Elite/MVD Entertainment has released a Blu-Ray edition of this essential slice of American indie-horror history, and graciously sent a copy to the Vicarage for review.


First, the movie itself--if you're a fan of cheesy sci-fi from the 80s, a celebrant of shoestring ingenuity and champion of the cinematic underdog such as the Duke and myself, then here is a movie tailor-made for your enjoyment. As the Mother Spawn grows larger, ickier, hungrier and ferociouser in the basement, a familial comedy of errors starts taking shape upstairs. The mother and father of the house are planning a long getaway of some sort, and have invited Aunt Millie and Uncle Herb to look after the kids while they're away. Because of their early planned departure time and Mom's conscientiousness about writing instructive notes before getting ready to leave, no one thinks it strange that neither parental unit is around when the rest of the house awakes--which is unfortunate, because they both have of course become Spawn-food in the interim.

On the fortunate side, though, is the fact that the orphaned-but-oblivious kids are uniquely well-suited to deal with the alien menace festering in their root cellar. Elder son Pete is an astronomy major just waiting for a radioactive bug bite to turn him into a superhero--nerdy, scrawny, but incredibly knowledgeable about all things to do with SCIENCE! His younger brother Frankie is a borderline autistic Monster Kid who enjoys wandering around the house in a devil cape and ape mask trying to scare Aunt Millie (and failing miserably). While Pete invites his school friends over for a study session and Pete talks to psychiatrist Uncle Herb to see if monster movies have warped his brain, a surprising number of expendable extras wander into the basement to be eaten by the Slimy Spawn.

Once Frankie discovers the toothy worm and its sperm-like spawnlings (gnawing on his mother's disembodied head! A circumstance which distresses him less than one would imagine), things get turned up to eleven--Spawn Babiez spread out in the neighborhood, attacking a vegan lunch party (seriously) and devouring Uncle Herb. Can Pete, Frankie, and the rest of the Mystery Incorporated gang find a way to defeat the Deadly Spawn before the neighborhood, and presumably the planet, becomes a bloody buffet?

The Deadly Spawn is a lot of fun, and all the more impressive due to its miniscule budget. Clearly a labor of love for all involved, it has that idealism and enthusiasm that I love so much, and that is sorely missing from many of the low-budget efforts of our era. And the creature effects by John Dods (who also did the effects for Don Dohler's immensely entertaining Nightbeast (1982)--a movie I've been meaning to review for ages!) are simply fantastic. Sure, there are some technical shortcomings and the expected sliding-scale acting, but it sets out to give the audience an icky fun time, and in that it more than succeeds.

As to the Blu-Ray presentation by Elite/MVD...well, I wish it were a little better. Whether due to the transfer or to the state of the source materials available, the picture here is somewhat less than hi-def. An improvement over a washed out VHS, sure, but just barely. There's a good amount of bonus materials. The commentary by Bohus and editor Marc Harwood is a hoot, as the two men clearly enjoy one another's company and love reminiscing about the film. We hear about technical triumphs, scheduling snafus, and tensions between McKeown and Dods which eventually led to McKeown's departure from the project and Dods stepping in as director. There's a gag reel, casing footage, trailer, TV spots, and more--more than enough for any Spawn fanatic.

In short, it's a great indie monster movie and worth adding to your collection, if you don't already have the DVD or are the sort of movie fan who just *has* to have everything on Blu-Ray.

Movie: 2.5 Thumbs
Disc: 2 thumbs

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Blu-Ray Review--MONAMOUR (2006): or, Tinto Brass's World of Asses

Mention the name Tinto Brass to fan of exploitational cinema, and you're bound to see a little gleam appear in his or her eye. As the writer and director of Salon Kitty (simultaneously one of the most lushly artistic and one of the grime-encrusted sleaziest examples of the Nazisploitation subgenre) and one of the directors of the historical epic Caligula (probably the most expensive and star-studded exploitation movie ever made), Brass has already staked out his place in the pantheon of Exploitation Godhood. Even if none of his later movies could possibly harness the power of that one-two punch to the crotch he delivered in 1976 and 1979, Brass has laurels enough to rest his haunches upon well into retirement.

But like many a movie-making madman, for Brass, resting on a pile of shrubbery was never an option. Film is not a vocation for men like Brass, Franco, and others--it's sustenance. They have to make movies, or else wither and die from creative starvation. Sure, the public's tastes change, the budgets get smaller and smaller, and perhaps the edge is dulled as the visionaries get older and their eyes less sharp, but they're still out there, making movies on whatever scale they can--because they must.

All that's by way of introducing Brass's 2006 movie, Monamour, recently released on Blu-Ray by Cult Epics. The film shows that Brass still has an eye for magnificent composition, lush design, and gorgeous Euroflesh of the highest order. It also shows that age has softened none of Brass's perverse obsessions, which here are in full and varied display. As a result, Monamour plays as either the dirtiest mainstream movie you ever saw*, or else the most lavish porn ever made**, with only the actual penetration scenes cut.

This is, of course, a recommendation.

* Caligula excluded.
** Ditto.

The plot is basically Unfaithful (2002) all over again. Prominent literary editor Dario (Max Parodi) has come to Mantova for a literary festival, bringing along his beautiful, free-spirited, and extremely restless young wife Marta (Anna Jimskaia). Six months into their marriage she is feeling the wane of what was once a passionate affair--no longer do they make love in public while bemused duck hunters look on, and she hasn't climaxed since she said "I do." (Marta records all this late at night in her journal--sitting at her writing desk, pantsless, while Brass gives us an up close and detailed view of her open marrone degli occhi.)

While looking at some explicitly sexual murals at the famous Palazzo del Te (including one of Jupiter's Erect Cock), Marta meets and mysterious stranger, Leon (Riccardo Marino), who seems to have been built in the same Sexy Factory as a young Antonio Banderas or Unfaithful's Olivier Martinez. Like that latter Latin Lothario, this Roman rapscallion uses the silent, forward, borderline-rapey seduction method that always seems to work in stories like these. Before you know it Marta is blowing Leon at a literary fest dinner, having anal sex with him in cafe restrooms, and dancing drunk and nearly naked in public squares, stopping only to quaff more champagne and stick her tongue down the younger man's throat. Of course it's not long before Dario starts getting suspicious (Marta's sudden distaste for wearing panties in public is one clue; her ass-baring dirty dance with Leon at the Lit Fest Ball is another), which paradoxically inflames his dormant desire for his wife to new heights. Is Marta's affair a marital tragedy, or a new kind of happy ending?

It's probably just as well that I don't have Blu-Ray screengrabbing capabilities as yet, because I would be hard-pressed to find a single frame of this film that I could post here without the Blogger Police shutting me down. As I said earlier: this is a porn, only without the actual penetration. Everything up to the very border of that--and I mean EVERYTHING--is present and accounted for. If you don't like seeing puckered starfish, turgid tube-steaks, spot-lit lady-parts,and lots and lots of simulated sex (of just about every configuration), then you had best stay well away from this one. Tinto also tips his hand as to his own personal "special needs," as we get many lovingly filmed odes to asses of all kinds, not to mention several scenes of Marta and her brazen confidant Sylvia (Nela Lucic) chatting while on toilets or otherwise squatting down to urinate.Threesomes, lesbianism, anal, masturbation, simulated-or-possibly-not oral sex--whatever floats your boat, chances are Brass has it covered.

So why does Brass tease the line of pornography without actually barreling over? Perhaps he thinks it's ugly, and Brass's work is about nothing if not the beauty of desire. The movie is sumptuously filmed, the compositions are striking and often gorgeous, and the sex scenes orchestrated for maximum artistic erotic impact. Whether the manner of sexual congress is to your taste or not, you still have to appreciate the artist's eye he brings to even the sleaziest material. It's a beautiful film to look at, and there's always something eye-pleasing on screen. With Monamour, Brass shows once again that he doesn't so much tread the line between sleaze and art, as he denies the existence of any such line.

Also included in this 2-disc set is a short film by Brass, Kick the Cock, which explores the ins and outs of special needs culinary study. Special features include making-of featurettes for both films, director's commentary, and trailers.

Monamour is a slight but sexy film, worth looking at for fans of Brass and Eurosleaze enthusiasts. Cult Epics has once again delivered an excellent Blu-Ray package for material other distributors might not touch with a ten-foot salami. 2 Thumbs. Stay sleazy, Tinto. Stay classy, Signor Brass.

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Blu-Ray Review: Camille 2000 (1969)

Marguerite (the stunning Danièle Gaubert) is a girl who seems to have it all. Young, beautiful ,and married to a fabulously rich duke who puts few demands on her time and fewer still on her body, she is free to explore all the pleasures and excesses that late-sixties Rome has to offer.

These, you will find, are considerable.

We watch Camille as she organizes and attends a series of galas, orgies, and freak-out happenings, against some of the most sumptuous settings and clad in the grooviest fashions imaginable. She drinks, shoots up, and pops pills with abandon, floating from one erotic adventure to the next in a haze of altered reality. (When one of her exhausted, tripping friends asks breathlessly, "Marguerite, don't you ever come down?" she replies, "Not if I can help it!") The victim of an unspecified wasting disease, Marguerite has apparently decided to live life to the fullest every day, and to grab all the sexy goodies she can in the process.

Directed by Radley Metzger, the infamous auteur behind art-house classics (The Lickerish Quartet, 1970) and less-respected but no less arty porn flicks (The Opening of Misty Beethoven, 1976), Camille 2000 is a movie with so much style, substance almost doesn't enter into the equation. From the lush cityscapes of Rome, to bedrooms with inflatable furniture and mirrored walls, Metzger delivers one visual treat after another, for which the main story of Marguerite's affair with comparatively stodgy businessman Armand (Nino Castelnuovo) is simply the framework. The new Blu-Ray release from Cult Epics does great justice to Metzger's film, and should have arty-erotica fans standing at attention and saluting.

Nota bene: I do not have screen-capture capability on my blu-ray...therefore I have shamelessly stolen all the images in this review (unless otherwise noted) from Retrocinema by Wetcircuit, an excellent site that everyone should visit immediately. Full credit to Wetcircuit, who I hope will not hate and/or sue me.

About that story--Marguerite's world of carefree, casual sex and drug use is rocked when she meets and falls in love with Armand, the son of a wealthy Italian tycoon in Rome to learn the family business. After some rather stoic flirtatiousness at a couple of parties (including an orgy featuring a Eurobabe in an amazing mesh bikini), Marguerite takes Armand to her bed, kicking off a series of sensual sex scenes and an affair that will change everything for her, and not really in a good way. While Marguerite is a free-love kind of girl, Armand demands faithfulness.

Beautimous

When he tells her he wants her to be his alone, Marguerite sighs, "Are we there already? Measuring love like a coffin? Who loves the most, how do we measure it? In carats, or ducats?" Armand is not to be dissuaded, however, and Marguerite reacts by breaking a date with him so she can make love to a cruel young Count with whom she has a strange sex/power relationship. When Armand learns of the betrayal, he responds as you would expect--by sending a model to Marguerite's bedroom, who then strips nude to reveal a note on her back reading "YOU ARE A WHORE! I WAS AN IDIOT!" 

Okay, maybe you wouldn't expect that. But it does make an impression.

"No, it wasn't the couch...that one was all me."

The rest of the film is about Marguerite's relationship with Armand, how his need for faithfulness and hers for freedom clash. This comes to a head when Armand's father confronts her and warns her off, leading to a break-up, misunderstandings, erotic revenge, and a glittery partner-swapping bondage party with chain-mail dresses and public sex! Finally, Marguerite's strange malady reappears, lending a tragic end that you pretty much had to think was coming.

Except that's not really what the film's about. What it's about is the visual experience of Metzger's imagery, the amazing sets and costumes and compositions, which are usually centered around the act of sticky love. Two long sequences in Marguerite's amazingly appointed bedroom are visually stunning, containing some representations of oral sex (but cunni- and fellati-) that are both artistic and tasteful. (ba-dump) To be honest the story drags a bit at times, but if you give yourself over to the beauty of the images on the screen, it's well worth the trip.

For Mad Movie fans, there is joy to be had in the amazing costumery of Marguerite's hippie entourage, including some that look like they just walked off the set of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Also, though the flick was filmed in English, few of the actors seem comfortable in the language, and Armand's father's mush-mouthed delivery is an unintentionally hilarious highlight. The acting throughout is fairly wooden, but whether that's a directorial decision, or a result of the language barrier, or just how Europeans acted in the 60s, it's still rather secondary. Gaubert is stunning, Rome is beautiful, and the camera drinks it all in. That's all you really need.

Promo Art from Cult Epics

Cult Epics has done a great job with the Blu-Ray presentation, improving greatly upon previous transfers (despite some perhaps inexpungable print damage). The colors and sound are great, and the disc is packed with extras, including behind-the-scenes and restoration featurettes, commentary by Metzger himself, deleted scenes, outtakes, and trailers. A great package for lovers of 60s sexploitation.

Movie: 2.5 thumbs
Blu-Ray:  3 thumbs

And be sure to visit http://www.retrocinema.wetcircuit.com/ for more great images from this and other films!

Not from the Cult Epics transfer, but it does appear in the film, and was too wild not to show. Credit to Tenebrous Kate for the grab!

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BLU-RAY REVIEW: Class of Nuke 'Em High (1986)

My fellow citizens, I bid thee welcome once again! Once more we shall hold hands and skip merrily along down that well-trodden, but oh-so-sublime path to Tromaville. The very air is turgid with excitement! I feel you quiver as a small moan escapes your cracked lips. Fear not! The genius that is Troma welcomes you into its loving embrace with a new Blu-Ray (or Brown-Ray?) release. Oh sure, there might be some toxic waste strewn along the pathway. There might be mutants around every turn. But think of the rewards!

Friends, the Duke of DVD does not mince. Nor does he dice, but that’s another discussion. One can be well-assured that if I like something, and I mean truly worship something, then you can be confident in the fact that this thing, be it a movie or a disused phallus in the shape of a religious icon, is worthy of your attention. Such are Troma movies. They excite, they titillate; they inspire conversation and sometimes retching. They always, however, entertain.

Let us explore, shall we?

Class of Nuke ‘Em High begins, as most all movies should, within the confines of Tromaville, that city unlike any other. It seems the corpulent manager of the local Tromaville nuclear power plant has been lax in keeping up with necessary regulations. This has led to so many gallons of toxic waste seeping into the local environs around the plant that even Haliburton would be ashamed to be associated with it. Then again, perhaps not!

"Mornin' Bob." "I'm not Bob, Harry!" "I'm not Harry!"

Of course, instead of an endless sprawl of warehouses or a grassy plain, right next door to the nuclear plant is a high school! Tromaville High, no less, filled with a veritable menagerie of nerds, spazes, twerps, geeks, punks, sluts, jocks, wasteoids, potheads, dumbasses, fuckups, and my personal favorite, a Mad-Maxian gang of cretins called The Cretins. In other words, your typical high school. Unfortunately, toxic waste somehow very quickly gets into the water supply, whereupon a geek (or perhaps a nerd?) drinks from it, not noticing the water has turned from clear to green.

Though a smashing success, the Recycled Water Program still had its detractors.

Very quickly the nerd starts having such a fit that one would think he was either in the throes of an exorcism, or having his testicles attached to a golf cart battery. He quickly turns violent, choking a passerby before finally running through the classroom to leap to his death from a window. Many bystanders (including Troma great Michael Herz in his only on-screen performance ever, thank you very much IMDB) watch on with horror as the nerd’s flesh melts from his bones.

"Established" might be stretching it a bit.

Soon the media gets wind of this and descends upon the area, harassing the rotund nuclear plant manager, who insists his plant is safe. “I don’t give a wet fart what you think!” he exclaims, much to our delight. You can’t pay for writing like that, folks! (Seriously, I doubt the person who wrote that got paid.) I would be remiss if I didn’t pay fealty to the opening credits, where one can listen with wonder at the awesome Nuke ‘Em High-theme song! I was guffawing mightily!

Back at the school, an enterprising douche has talked his girlfriend into making out whilst at school, in the most logical place possible: the fallout shelter! Due in most part, I’m sure, to the rampant nuclear scare of the 1950s, Nuke ‘Em High has itself a full-blown fallout shelter down in the basement. A more perfect during-school makeout spot I’ve not heard of! He scarcely gets his hand up her shirt before toxic sludge drips down on both of them. She thinks it’s something else--from his pants--and, screaming “EWWWW!”, runs off.

"Don't judge me."

Meanwhile, we have The Cretins. Looking like post-apocalyptic rejects, and with an attitude to boot, they roam the halls, hardly attending classes, and instead run a small extortion effort in-between selling pot. Pot that is grown next door. At the nuclear plant. See where this is going? Before you can stutter out “Hey, who laced my pot with sludge!” The Cretins are selling tainted green. The first fun-stick goes to one of our group of spazoids, who wastes no time in using it as leverage to get all his horny friends to attend a frat party at nearby Troma U.

The ol' high heel to the groin shot. A Troma favorite.

Now, friends, I’ve been to my share of frat shindigs, hootenannys, and par-tays, but I’ve never seen a frat party like this. It’s a veritable Roman bacchanal! The theme seems to be a beach-esque variant, so everyone is wearing swim suits, or trying to. Several gratuitous titty shots are doled out here from the master’s table, for which we are very thankful. As any devotee of Bacchus knows, nothing makes a party like a little Vitamin M. No sooner has the first top dropped than our intrepid dude pulls out his toxic-laced weed.

"I totally love your hairless chest! In a non-gay way, I might add."

It is now time that we should meet the two who are most central to our story: Warren and Chrissy. It seems they’ve been dating, but so far haven’t “sealed the deal,” so to speak. Each one confesses to their friends that they don’t want to rush the other. Inevitably, they are on a collision course. A sexual collision course, fueled by weed. It seems marijuana laced with toxic water produces an aphrodisiac effect not unlike the Duke himself disrobing in front of you. Trust me, it would drive any person of either sex wild with unquenchable lust.

"Your puffy nips are harshin' my buzz."

Before you can say “My GOD, those are puffy nipples!”, the two are going at it like shorn monks, upstairs on the bed used to hold people’s coats. Did I mention “puffy nipples”? Chrissy has teats that look like they’ve been hooked up to a milking machine which ran on full blast for a week. Very off-putting, but that’s the Duke’s personal tastes. Ahem, where was I? Oh yes, rutting youngsters! Their friends happen upon them during coitus, but all they do is watch, instead of joining in like any sane people. We get a hilarious sight-gag here, though, as one of the nerds pulls out some binoculars to watch the festivities, binoculars complete with bugged-out eyes attached to them. If that isn’t funny, then why did I chortle?

Hangover from the Black Lagoon.

The two love birds head home, to their respective beds, whereupon they have terrible, toxic-wasted-fueled dreams! Warren sees his dong grow to gargantuan proportions, and Chrissy sees her belly swell as if with child. Sadly, each was only a dream. Meanwhile, The Cretins are busy once again. The lead Cretin seduces the German teacher in a hilarious scene, and she quickly joins the group, which consists of a dude with his face painted gray and two teeth protectors in his mouth at all times, another dude who dresses like a preppie except for black lipstick and somehow also has perky breasts (this is never explained, but it doesn’t have to be, it’s awesome!), and several women in various states of Cyndi-Lauper-esque dress.

"Ok, so, crisis averted. Who's hungry?"

The Cretin leader and one of his lackeys hatch a devious plan to steal an old lady’s purse. Instead of simply snatching it, or holding her up at knife-point, they use a brilliant scheme in which one of them ingests Alka-Seltzer to make himself foam at the mouth, which his friend claims is an epileptic seizure. He asks the old lady to quickly give her pocketbook over to put in his friend’s mouth so he don’t bite his own tongue off. GENIUS! She hands over her whole purse, and the punk runs off laughing with it. Not to be outdone, the other stands up and repeatedly punches the old lady, so much so that his friend has to return and pull him off her. Why didn’t they just do this to begin with? That wasn’t in the plan, that’s why!

"And I say I'm angstier than you!"

Not soon thereafter, Warren shows up in the alley where the Cretins are hanging, and basically Hulks-out on them, throwing them around like rag dolls, for his is in the grips of the toxic poisoning. Meanwhile, Chrissy is having her own side effects, namely pregnancy. Only, instead of a “normal” birth, she pukes up a toxic sperm out of her mouth, into the toilet at school! Still feeling sick, she is rushed to the hospital, where her mother arrives. The doctor informs Chrissy’s mother that she has miscarried. Her mother screams, causing a doctor walking behind them to jump, tossing a full bottle of urine sample into the face of another doctor nearby!

"Excuse me while I pop this pimple... there it goes!"

Warren finally gets Chrissy while the monster rampages through the school, killing Cretins left and right, including the leader. It isn’t done with Warren and Chrissy, however, and corners them in the school chemistry lab. Lucky for them, the lab is equipped with a high-powered laser! Warren picks up the laser and shoots the monster with it, causing it to become unstable somehow. The pair leap free of the building as the monster explodes, detonating the entire school in a huge explosion!

"Face the wrath of a frickin' las-er, monster!"

Warren and Chrissy are safe, but as the camera slowly pans over the wreckage of the school, another sludge toxic sperm baby leaps up! The End!

Friends, this movie was a blast from start to finish. It was hilarious, with the typical aplomb of a Lloyd Kaufman movie. It seems that Richard W. Haines, a longtime Troma editor, was supposed to direct this himself, and indeed he is credited for it, but the job proved too much for him and the man we all know and love as Troma’s brainiac, Lloyd Kaufman, was brought in to finish the work, and it really shows. The humor throughout is expertly written and the effects, while minor, work very well.

The blu-ray edition is a gem. The picture quality is quite impressive for a movie from 1986, and the disc is loaded with extra features as well. Throw in a kick ass menu screen designed to look like a scientific measuring device, and you got a swell package. I give this movie a well-deserved 3 Thumbs Up. If you enjoy good movies, and are in any way a fan of toxic sperm babies, then you owe it to yourself to pick this one up!

"Th-th-th-that's all, Fuckers!"

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Blu-Ray Review: Poultrygeist (2006), or, This Review Contains No Chicken-related Puns

Friends, countrymen, lend me your ears! (and your chicken nuggets) It is I, the Duke of DVD, come 'round once again like that old pair of stained underwear that you used to wipe your leaking dong off because you didn't realize you were out of bedside tissues before you commenced to playing tug of war with cyclops while watching 30 Minute Meals with Rachael Ray. Oh sure, you thought you had tucked the pair far enough under your stained mattress that you would never see it again, but your mom had to go change your sheets while cleaning, and now they're back, so stiff they could stand up on their own. Only this time I must temporarily change my moniker. For the length of this review, I shall be known as the Duke of Blu-Ray! That's right, blu-ray. That future-tech spinning disc designed to hold high resolution copies of the MADdest movies ever. Rest assured, dear readers, that I have a MAD one for you today!

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead comes to us from that most-beloved-by-the-Duke studio Troma. This time, Troma President Lloyd Kaufman himself is at the helm for what is surely the most fart, sex, and poop jokes ever packed into a movie. Have you ever sat back in your favorite overstuffed chair and thought "Hey, I wish someone, some enterprising individual with more balls than common sense, would craft a movie which involves lots of lesbian action, undead fisting, un-PC comments about suicide bombers, and wrap it all up with a heaping helping of chicken-related sight gags!"? Well, this is your lucky day, punk.

Cling tenaciously to my buttocks as we explore...

Our movie opens with what appears to be every 80's horror movie's cliched opening: two young people are having midnight sex at an Indian burial ground. Now, at the best of times this is quite dangerous, and in more normal movie fare would be the catalyst for all manner of undead goings-on. Instead, Kaufman turns your preconceptions on their head and has undead Native American arms come up to start grasping the coupling naked youngsters, and very quickly we have the first of what will be many fingers/hands inserting into anuses. The use of prosthetic butts in this movie deserves not only an Oscar, but a whole new Oscar category, to which Poultrygeist would be the only entrant.

"Oh baby, your hands are everywhere!"

Every single new scene threatens the use of either something going in or out of an anus, and often delivers on that threat. Before the young couple realize what is going on, an axe-wielding loon steps out of the shadows. The kids run off, leaving underwear behind. The axe-maniac first sniffs the girl's panties, but finds them repulsive. Moving on, he sniffs the dude's underwear, and then begins masturbating (with an obvious prosthetic cock). Suddenly, an arm comes from under the ground, through his anus (didn't see that coming, did ya?), out his mouth, grabs the underwear from his hands, then pulls them back through his body and down into the ground. This is in the first 10 minutes, folks.

"Come for the curse, stay for the food!"

We then cut to a half year later. It seems that a major fast food restaurant called "American Chicken Bunker" has purchased this land and has built a restaurant on it. Arby, the young guy from the opening scene, is returning from college. Arriving at the restaurant, he is greeted by a large group of protesters, holding such signs as "I Love Cock".

"I'm not sure what you lesbians are protesting here, but I support you!"

We also meet her girlfriend Micki, who is attached to a running joke throughout the film in which she is frequently mistaken for a man. We next get the movie's first song and dance number. That's right folks. Not content to have his movie be the most awesome movie ever, Lloyd Kaufman had to go the extra mile and make it into a musical! Another thing Kaufman likes to do is throw stereotypes into people's faces, and he does this quickly by parading out a drunken Native American who the protesters are using as a focus for their anti-corporate hate. This wont be the last stereotype used in the movie I'm thinkin'.

After the musical routine, Arby has scored a job with the American Chicken Bunker. The manager, named Denny, introduces him to another coworker named Carl Jr., whom Arby knew from school. Sensing a pattern with the naming scheme here folks? Other coworkers include Jose Paco Bell, a Latino frycook, and Humus, a burka-wearing cook that is routinely called names like Hamas and Al Jazeera. Jose Paco Bell discovers a box of mutated, pulsating eggs and when he cooks one and serves it, all hell breaks loose. Soon we have mutant chickens running around, one of them pushing Paco Bell into a meat grinder, where he is turned into a burger himself. A sentient burger, who talks with Arby letting him know what is going on and how to stop it.

"What do you mean 'Burkas aren't part of corporate dress code'?!"

Arby is too preoccupied with his girl being a militant lesbian, though. We get a dream sequence in which he is engaged in a threesome with the two girls, and then we get an extended song routine in which the two lesbians (plus about 8 other coeds) are all topless. One thing is for fucking certain: In a Troma film helmed by Mr. Kaufman, you don't have to wait long to see tits.

We next see the arrival of General Lee Roy, the company president. He woos the protesters into his good graces by a hilarious song routine and in no time the restaurant is packed with hungry chicken-lovers. Unfortunately for everyone, the Native American spirits are having none of it, and quickly infect the chicken. I must give props here to the myriad of humorous signs and labels on everything in the restaurant setting. From a drink on the menu called "Cluckwork Orange" to the hundreds of food labels on things in the back storage, the persons responsible for setting up all the, um, sets, deserve to have a pat on the back.

"Hey, I didn't ask for that much special sauce!"

I was constantly laughing at signs like "Instructions For Making The General's 2-Spice Secret Recipe: 1) Add Salt 2) Add Pepper 3) Deep Fry". From here the plots develops rather quickly. Lloyd Kaufman himself plays a grown-up Arby, who we assume has come back from the future somehow to warn Arby that his life is going to suck from there on out unless he leaves American Chicken Bunker. We don't know how Old Arby got there, and we don't care. What we do care about, however, is Lloyd Kaufman in a dress, wearing a g-string, doing a song and dance number. Yes, don't deny it, you DO care about such things!

Nothing says "good cinema" like high-pressure poop squirting.

Next up the chicken MADness continues. We have a grotesque scene involving an obese man (named Jared, supposedly of Subway fame, having fell off the wagon so to speak and gotten fat again) in a bathroom, spraying shit all over the walls. We have Carl Jr fucking a raw chicken carcass, which turns mutant and bites his dong, giving us the choice quotes: "Easy with the teeth! I was gonna pull out, it just felt so goooood!" In fact, this movie is choice quote heaven. Let us pause for a moment and pay homage to these gems:

"I was just trying to help him!"
"By fucking him to death with a mop?!"

"It's just like my granpappy used to say: 'Hey Junior, get over here with those matches! This cross ain't gonna burn itself!'"

"That's the thing about a chicken. It's got dead eyes. Black. Like a sex doll!"

"The chicken has declared jihad on us all!"

"Eat my meat you vegan whores!"

"How could I ever love someone that wants me to eat cock?!"

"I know him, we were on the debate team together in high school. I was anti-beastiality, he was pro!"

I could go on and on. Suffice it to say, this movie is hilarious to the point of crying. Pretty soon all of the restaurant patrons are chicken zombies, complete with beaks and some feathers. We also have a full-blown mutant chicken, given birth to by General Lee Roy, who swells up like a giant human egg before bursting and spilling for the giant killer chicken. In a hilarious scene right out of some insane person's nightmare, we are whisked around the restaurant as the many zombie-fied chicken people kill, eat, and wax philosophic about various things.

"One Paco Bell burger, coming right up!"

We have an old lady zombie chicken who rips the face off a victim and begins to eat it, declaring "I know it's fattening, but I loooove the skin!" We have a big-tittied woman about to get eaten but when her top comes off she realizes her huge knockers are mesmerizing the chicken zombies and begins to go-go dance on the table top. You can't make this stuff up, people! Oh wait... you can if you are a Troma writer I suppose. At one point, a chicken zombie reaches through the rear end of a patron and pulls his balls out through his ass, then tosses the balls into the deep fryer.

"My momma warned me to not fuck chickens!"

Finally the zombie chicken menace is turned away by simply flipping the "Open" sign to "Closed". This doesn't work forever, though, and in the final scenes the zombie chickens are gunned down with a handy cache of M-16's that were in the restaurant. The giant mutant chicken is still about, as well as other zombie chickens, and so in a scene we saw coming from a long way off, Humus casts off her burka to reveal not only a hot bikini-clad body, but also a suicide bomber's C4 jacket, complete with hand-held trigger device. Troma knows no restraint!

It's, um... finger-lickin' good?

As Arby and Wendy flee the restaurant, Humus blows the whole thing up in a spectacular fireball. Arby and Wendy speed off, accompanied by a young girl that happened to escape with them. Arby gives the little girl a Miller Lite, which she proceeds to chug. In the final seconds, the little girl lays an egg, which causes them all to scream, which causes them to flip their car, which explodes in a massive fiery wreck! Fin.

Needless to say folks, this is easily one of the most crazy, fucked up, insane, balls-the-the-wall AWESOME movies I've ever had the pleasure of watching. No scene fell flat, no one was left unoffended, and no chicken left unkilled.

Now lets talk a bit about this new-fangled blu-ray medium. The picture quality for Poultrygeist was fairly outstanding, with only a blemish here and there. The disc itself is packed with features, including a full-blown making-of that is a must watch.

As per a lot of Troma releases, there is an introductory video (optional) with Lloyd as he talks about this first Troma blu-ray (or brown-ray, as he calls it) release. Not only that, but this is the first Troma movie in anamorphic widescreen! I could go on and on, gushing with praise for this movie. It has everything from a Ron Jeremy cameo to deep-fried testicles. What more could you possibly want?! Nothing, says I. Three Thumbs Way Up for this one, folks. See it. Now.


(Note: a copy of the Blu-Ray release of Poultrygeist was provided to MMMMMovies for review purposes.)

"Enjoy folks, there's plenty of mutated evil chicken to go around!"

The General, having an egg-cellent time.

Ladies and Gentleman, Lloyd Kaufman

"With tits like these, who needs a burka?"

"Easter Bunny, NOOOOOOOOOO!"

MORE MADNESS...

Summary only...