Where do you begin to critique a movie that was made for $3500 in a little less than two weeks by like fifteen people about a murderous talking turkey? How about the fact that it may be the single greatest worst movie I have seen in a very long time. Yeah, I am just as surprised to be writing that, as you are to be reading it.
Thankskilling is a movie about a killer turkey. Let that sink in a bit more. Not only is the turkey out to kill people but it talks and has a rather foul (NO… don’t even think for a second that is intentional) mouth. So according to a rather hilarious bit of exposition told via a cartoon, the killer turkey is all due to a curse. A pilgrim disgraced a Indian by the name of “Feathercloud”. He was so pissed that he placed a curse on “all white men”. “Feathercloud necromanced” a turkey that would roam the Earth every five hundred and five years, killing the first humans it came in contact with. A turkey that would stop at nothing to get what he wanted… to kill!
So as luck would have it, a hermit’s dog decides to take a piss right on the very spot where the turkey is buried. Oh, and it just happens to be the same time when the five hundred and five years is up. So now there is a shit talking turkey on the loose killing anyone and anything it comes in contact with. A group of college kids on the way home for (naturally) Thanksgiving break takes camp in the very same woods where the turkey is. Said turkey then decides to hunt down and kill all the kids one by one. In the end they figure out a way to kill the turkey and save the world (I guess).
Having read all that, you wouldn’t think that I would have such high praise for the movie. Though it did stoop to having a boob as it’s opening shot, and there was one fart noise, it was never something that was used so much that it causes you to roll your eyes. This movie strikes a very good balance between over the top stupidity and self-awareness. A scene that has the kids talking to the turkey wearing the face of one of their parents like it’s any other day, is followed by a book reading montage. At the end of the montage one of the characters remarks that they “finally” found the answer and the other character says “that was only like five minutes.” There are several scenes like that, and they are pretty funny. Like the fact that a guy tries to pick up the turkey on the side of the road like it’s a hooker, but pays no attention to the fact that it is a TALKING TURKEY!
I don’t normally like to commend film makers for having their movies take such drastic swings with how the movie is presented, at least in tone, but here it just works. As I said before, given that it was made literally in eleven days and on a $3500 budget is awesome. This is the movie that my friends and I would have made, if we could have gotten the time and money together.
It’s refreshing to know, also, that Thankskilling has kind of become some what of a cult movie. So it’s nice to know that it has been given enough attention that they have now been funded enough money to film a sequel. I can only hope that they stick with the same formula in order to stay away from getting lost in the pile of dumb “Troma-like” movies out there.
Comments