SHORT SHARP SHOCKS # 3 - THANKSKILLING (2009)

 I've realised that of late I've only been reviewing what could be described as objectively "good" movies. This is all well and good but longtime readers will know that there's a long standing tradition of me also reviewing movies that could be charitably described as "complete and utter shite".

I've been letting the "shite" side down. Time for that to change !

So sit back and relax as I dare to review a film that positively revels in its own "utter shiteness".

Ladies and gentlemen - I give you ThanksKilling.

DIRECTED by Jordan Downey 

SCREENPLAY by Jordan Downey, Brad Schultz, Tony Wilson, Grant Yaffee & Kevin Stewart 

STARRING - Natasha Cordova as Ali, Lindsey Anderson as Kristen Roud, Lance Predmore as Johnny, Aaron Carlson as Billy, Ryan Francis as Darren, General Bastard as Oscar, Chuck Lamb as Sheriff Roud, Jordan Downey as Turkey's Voice.

PLOT - Five college students are heading home to be with thier families for Thanksgiving.

On the way thier car breaks down and they are forced to camp out in the woods. Unfortunately this coincides with a demonically possessed turkey being resurrected from the dead by a hermit's dog pissing on its grave.

The turkey embarks on a vicious killing spree. The students had better look out...

PERFORMANCES - This film is so knowingly tongue in cheek and over the top that's it's hard to tell whether the actors are actually fairly competent and are just pretending to be awful or whether they are really just bad. Melodramatic line delivery, flat performances and stilted dialogue are all there in abundance. I've not seen any of the actors in anything else, so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that I think they're (possibly) deliberately acting shit, it's hard to say...

The characters are all of the stock types that you'd expect to see in a slasher/American high school set film. We've got The Quarterback - Johnny (Lance Predmore) - all the girls love him and he has a brief subplot about having a strained relationship with his pushy dad which goes absolutely nowhere. Then there's The Good Girl - Kristen (Lindsey Anderson) who's dad also happens to be town sheriff, unsurprisingly she also turns out to be the final girl. 

There's The Slut -Ali (Natasha Cordova), The Funny Fat Guy - Billy (Aaron Carlson) who's not actually that funny at all and finally there's The Nerd - Darren (Ryan Francis - who gives what's probably the closest we get to a "good" performance in this film but that's all subjective in a movie like this anyway). There's also The Creepy Hillbilly that the gang meet on thier travels - Oscar (played by General Bastard - I'm guessing that's not his real name) and The Town Sheriff (Chuck Lamb) who for some reason has a stick-on fake moustache which is probably the funniest thing in the entire movie just for it's sheer randomness. 

Just look at it...

He looks even more ridiculous later on when he dresses up in a turkey costume, once again this comes completely out of left field which only adds to the overall strangeness of the character.

SFX - Want to portray a demonic turkey in your film ? There's a foolproof way to do it...use a glove puppet. That's essentially all the monster is in this film - a manky looking glove puppet.

For all of that he does have a certain amount of charm all the same.

SEX & VIOLENCE - The cover of the DVD proudly proclaims "WARNING ! BOOBS IN THE FIRST SECOND !" (and if THAT'S not a statement of intent I don't know what is). They're not wrong - the opening shot of the movie is a close of a HUGE pair of boobs, they literally fill the screen, defying you to deny thier blatant existence.

We also get a sex scene where college bike Ali has sex with the turkey (this is unknowingly on her part to be fair, she's having doggy style sex with her boyfriend, the turkey kills him and...ahem...finishes the job for him), "You've just been stuffed !" yells the turkey before killing Ali.

The gore is where this film really comes into its own. He may be a dumb looking Muppet Show reject but this turkey makes Jason Voorhees look like a rank amateur. People get sliced and diced left right and centre. The Sheriff gets his face ripped off and the turkey wears it as a disguise (his daughter can't tell the difference).

Eyeballs get gouged, people get pecked to death.

The turkey gets shot and thrown on a fire, Kristen ends up eating his barbequed leg to celebrate his demise (it IS Thanksgiving afterall, so at least she's following tradition).

RATING - Thankskilling is NOT a good film, but it is  a good BAD film. It won't be to everyone's taste, it's crass, it's in your face, it's not as funny as it thinks it is and some people will no doubt find parts of it triggering to some degree (but that's ok as those types don't generally tend to have a sense of humour anyway). 

It's a movie that doesn't take itself remotely seriously and is designed to be utter crap - it succeeds in this ambition admirably. Basically - it is what it is. 

It's only an hour and seven minutes long so it doesn't outstay it's welcome but I can't say I'd go out of my way to watch it again either (or indeed any of it's sequels). 

There's far worse ways to spend 67 minutes of your life, but there's far better ways of spending that time too. Approach only if your in the mood for some real grime encrusted shit.

3 murderous Muppets out of 5.

ART -

Well...told you it was bad. That's my crap channel thoroughly cleaned out for a while. Next review we're going to be delving into darker territory... MUCH darker territory. Stay tuned...