Nudist Colony of the Dead - review

1991 (USA)

2007 Pirromount Films DVD R(1)

Contains spoilers.

With an introduction and production notes from writer, rewriter, director, producer Mark Pirro (director) explaining how for this remastered 2007 release of his 1991 goofy horror musical comedy, such was the bad quality of the original footage he had to resort to extreme post-post-production make-over techniques and the use of rehearsal shots just to be in a position to release something he was willing to admit to, I knew this one was going to a bit of a slog. I'm also not going to pretend for one second it's a good film; the story is both absurd and infantile, the songs are irritating and chintzy, the acting b-movie cheesy and despite being a bit of a satirical side-swipe at Christian hypocrisy, it itself is more than little guilty of political incorrectness with Jews, Mexicans and the Japanese all the butt of crude racial stereotyping.

Yet for all its flaws, and a willingness to disengage all critical thinking and flow for an hour and twenty in the weird and corny waters of Pirro's mind it's actually impossible not to actually have some fun with it. The ridiculously exaggerated one dimensional and highly unlikeable characters somehow get under your skin, the story never really goes anywhere but ambles along without ever causing offence and you'll even find yourself humming 'inky dinky doo dah morning' long after the credits have rolled however much you hate yourself for it. I know it's a bad film, heck, it knows it's a bad film, it's just somehow managed to make me not hate it as much as I feel I ought to; which is a lot.

The Sunny Buttocks nudist colony has been forced to close by Christian do-gooders convinced of it's role in corrupting the innocent; you know, think of the kids. Unwilling to go down without a fight the last core group of naturists including the quite preposterous Rachel Latt dressed as an extremely elderly Mrs Druple with prosthetic boobies that hang down to her knees, agree to a suicide pact and a curse to rise from the graves to enact vengeance should any Christian visit the land. Five years later the camp is now called Cutchagussout and is available to hire. Cue, evangelical preacher Reverend Ritz (Dave Robinson) who persuading his parish that the fornicating youth need time away to repent as in his words 'they can't praise the lord with genitals in their mouths', gets a motley assortment of weird and wacky teens to the site where the fun can begin.

For a zombie film it was disappointing that they didn't play a prominent role. Really, other than for a few seconds' cameo here and there they're not really in the film for any of the first hour. The kids arrival at camp, their introductory banter and painfully slow exposition of each quirk that sets them apart from the others and defines their behaviour and dialogue is the focus. Whether it's Lou Jobee (Steve Wilcox), an annoying bible basher who misquotes scripture at every opportunity, Juan Tu (Peter Napoles) who is of Mexican and Japanese decent and is only present to make fun of his  mispronunciation of 'l's, or Fanny Wype (Heather McPherson) and her ever increasing mascara, the kids are painfully shallow with one trick pony jokes that get old very quickly.

The zombies curse proves true, though why they would enact their wrath on kids deemed un-Christian enough to send for lessons on scripture is a rather glaring narrative stumble. Pulling themselves up from their resting places they're surprisingly cognisant able to talk, high-five and prepare elaborate ways for killing the zealots, as they put it. There's no flesh eating or scratching on show with the blue/grey, surprisingly well-covered for a bunch of nudists, preferring knives, strangulation, cheese wire and cars as the method of dispatch. All I'm going to say about costumes, make-up and effects is whist there's a fair amount of originality and imagination on show the extremely low budget is also painfully obvious.

Nudist Colony of the Dead is a hard film to hate altogether. Mark Pirro had a vision and the argument of whether he should aside, he did see it through producing something daft, corny and stupid, but original and not bereft of all charm. Quirky, original, but one probably for quite the devoted must-see-them-all zombie film fans, Pirro's silly little low budget film gets an inky dinky doo dah 3/10... Arse.

Steven@WTD.

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead - review

2006 (USA)

2010 Troma Blu-ray R(All)

Contains mild spoilers.

Poultrygeist is a fowl, eggspoloitative orgy of the hensane; full of oeufensive imagery and bad yokes. Yes I did write that, no I'm not sorry.

Even though I knew what I'd be letting myself in for with a such a stupid title and knowing it was a Troma film, I still wasn't prepared for just how far they would take it. Make no bones about it; Poultrygeist is the most excessive, audaciously obscene and stupid film I think I've ever seen. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, director, producer and co-writer Lloyd Kaufmann wasn't prepared to shoot and the results are both shocking and spectacular.

Arbie (Jason Yachanin) has returned to the site of his only sexual liaison, an Indian burial ground, only to find it's been bulldozed over and an American Chicken Bunker fast food franchise has been built on top. Outside he stumbles into his lost love Wendy (Kate Graham), who's back from college after one semester taking part in the protest against the maltreatment of the mass produced chickens with her girlfriend Micki (Allyson Sereboff). Offended and angry Arbie decides he'll show her, by getting a minimum wage job in the restaurant.

It doesn't take long for the spirits of the dead Indians to mix with the existential angst of millions of mistreated dead chickens for the restaurant to become ground zero for the zombie chicken apocalypse. The food is possessed, the food is eaten, people die, chicken burgers speak, shit, vomit and blood all flow in equal and gratuitously large quantities, and protestors, staff and customers alike all combine in a giant orgy of repulsive silliness that you have to see to believe. Add to the mix as many offensive or controversial stereotypes as you can to parody and poke fun at, totally gross and unnecessary slapstick scenes at every opportunity, and you have a film that people will either admire for its sheer audacity or actively wince at and condemn.

Did I also mention it's a musical. I was a little hesitant when I read about song and dance routines on the back sleeve but I needn't have been. In the best tradition of South Park crossed with Rocky Horror the musical interludes are daft, witty and deliberately both childish, satirical and offensive. I say offensive, but as with the entirity of the film, it's all handled in such a childish and glib manner to not actually cause offense. I'll admit there's a fine line being tred, but by simultaneously firing shots at everyone and everything, with no one coming out on top, it almost acts to nullifies any or all the intent. All that's really left is the offensiveness itself and there's no real victims.

Zombie chickens are a first, I'll admit and they're a nasty looking thing. I should mention that, as is the Troma way, the vast majority of those working on the film did so voluntarily and for free. Extras flew in from all over the world to aid on set, play one of the many extras required or to help with make-up. For such an amateur, low budget affair I thought they all did a stand out job and somehow they got the zombie-poultry hybrid to actually work. They're an unsightly abomination, as are the myriad of obscene and outlandish sequences that occupy most of the film leading us up to their full on introduction.

Again, for unknown names the acting is first rate perfectly capturing the tone of the film. The dialogue is  sharp and stupid, the actors play their hyper-realised parodies with gay abandon and despite all the gratuitous nudity the film never feels it's sexually exploitative; just the opposite, promoting natural real beauty. The narrative is as coherent as it needs to be, the extras do more than stand in the background making up the numbers and action flows from outlandish scene to song at pace.

Sometimes a film comes along that perfectly understands confident and professional film making and the desire to produce something that stands up amongst its peers, but does so without losing the atrocious b-movie that lies at its heart. Anyone could come up with the dumb idea of possessed zombie chickens, but to actually produce it with style, vision and professionalism is commendable.

Poultrygeist is an orgy of the ridiculous; a vomit inducing slapstick farce of biblical proportions. My partner actually commented three quarters of the way through she'd wished she'd not eaten just before it started; and even though she does have a weak stomach I can't help but agree it's not one for the squeamish and possibly the grossest film I've ever seen. It does have a few issues; I felt the pacing fell away through an overly drawn out middle section and it is kind of a one trick pony that slightly over plays its joke but the fact my complaints are so few and minor given not only the nature of the film but how it was put together surprises even me. A chicken-shit crazy bad trip into excessive no holds-barred film making, it's lame, stupid, crude, vulgar and clucking (sorry) fantastic, 9/10.

WTD.