Bon Appetit-Thankskilling: When Food Goes Bad

At the first Thanksgiving in 1621, a pilgrim, running for her life, with the screams of her comrades in the back ground, is killed by a Tomahawk wielded by a wise cracking turkey.  Flash-forward to modern times and five college friends are stoked about going home for Thanksgiving.  Jock Johnny (Lance Predmore), good girl Kristen (Lindsey Anderson), redneck Billy (Aaron Carlson), sexy Ali (Natasha Cordova) and nerd Darren (Ryan Francis).   While on the way home, Johnny’s jeep overheats and the group decide to camp and party in the woods.  Darren discovers that they are near Crawberg and recants the folklore of Feathercloud.  Dishonored by the Pilgrims, Feathercloud, a very powerful shaman, uses his powers of necromancy to create Turkie, a wise cracking, demonic, un-killable Turkey who will kill every Caucasian person he comes in contact with.

Unbeknownst to the group, a dog owned by hermit Oscar(General Bastard) urinates on Turkie’s totem bringing him back to life and sets him on his killing spree.  Turkie comes in contact with Kristin who runs back to her friends to warn them, but none of them will believe her.  The next morning is Thanksgiving and they fix the jeep and head home.

Johnny and his estranged father re-unite right as Turkie attacks.  Johnny escapes and tracks down his friends to warn them.  They all try to find Ali, but find that she has been killed after unknowingly having sex with Turkie.  The four remaining students set off to find the book at Kristin’s house, that may hold the secret to killing the killer Turkie.  They find the book and discover that they must remove his talisman and say a demonic prayer backwards in unison and then burn Turkie at the stake.

Billy in a fit of hunger leaves the group and magically ingests Turkie who pulls an “Alien” and bursts out of his chest.  The remaining three corner Turkie in his teepee and say the prayer, having removed the talisman earlier.  Turkie escapes, but is shot by Oscar propelling Turkie into a dumpster.  Believing the danger has passed, the trio go back to Kristin’s to watch a movie.  But….But…But the dumpster that Turkie fell into was full of radioactive waste and he is re-animated.

Back at Kristin’s Darren is killed and Johnny is mortally wounded.  Leaving Kristin to fight for herself.  She burns Turkey with an aerosol can and a lighter and then drop kicks him into a near by Pyre.  Oscar congratulates her on her kill as she chews on a roasted Turkie leg! Later, at an unnamed families Thanksgiving dinner, their roasted turkey jumps up and states “Do I smell sequel, biotch?!”.

There are bad movies and then there are “BAD” movies and this is a “BAD” movie.  It was intended to be.  There was no aspirations in making this movie artistic or meaningful in any way.  It was made to be pure fluff and fantasy with no credibility at all.  Made in 2007 for a budget of $3500.  It is rumored that director Jordan Downey and his friends got the idea for the film while at his local Blockbuster as they started looking at bad movie covers and were just throwing ideas off of each other, mainly just focusing on what they thought it would be comical for a killer turkey to do.  Even so, the jokes themselves aren’t funny, the movie is crass and unsophisticated with gratuitous shots of women’s breasts for absolutely no reason.  The acting is terrible, and the writing is nearly non-existent with scenes feeling more adlibbed than carefully planned out.  It is hard to say if the writers were trying to show the ridiculousness of how most horror films are aimed at young straight men or if they were just young straight men living out a fantasy. The very first shot being a closeup of a woman’s boob and the abject worship of Johnny as a sex symbol and sports star (the ultimate male fantasy).  Even the relationship between Darren and Billy seemed to be a bit more than just friendship.

And with all that, this movie still has a certain charm.  It drives a stake so far through bad that it comes out the other side sort of humorous.  The jokes fall so flat, that they are funny in how not funny they are.   Some of the plot points are so absurd that it goes way beyond ridiculous.   It is no wonder that this movie has a cult following, spawned two sequels and a Musical stage production (Thankskilling, the Musical).