Thanksgiving. A time to give thanks and appreciate all the good that we have. Oh, and a time for killer turkey movies and movies about cannibalistic gladiator competitions. Take some time to appreciate your families and join us on the journey to FrightPix Thanksgiving.
Poultrygeist
The most important part of Thanksgiving is the turkey. Except if you’re a vegan or vegetarian, that is. So, it’s only fair that we open this list with an ode to the star of Thanksgiving, the poultry. What happens when a military themed fried chicken chain builds a location on top of an ancient Indian Burial ground? Well, a supernatural force takes over the food and those who eat it, of course! From the people who brought you The Toxic Avenger, Troma takes on the fast food industry in the first ever film about zombie chickens. While Poultrygeist might not give you the chills and feature the creepy television that haunted your dreams from Poultergeist, it does have some singing and dancing and most importantly, the zombie chickens.
Birdemic 2: The Resurrection
Birdemic 2 might be about a different kind of bird, but is still an ode to the flying stars of Thanksgiving none the less. Birdemic 2’s 1.9 rating on IMDB is a dramatic improvement over Birdemic: Shock and Terror’s 1.8, which if anything is proof that if at first you don’t succeed, try again and this time with even more CGI birds attacking townspeople. If you saw James Nguyen’s original “romantic thriller” and unabashed reworking of Alfred Hitchock’s The Birds, then you should know that not much has changed plotwise in the much-anticipated sequel. There are birds. They are angry. They are trying to kill people. What has changed is that whereas in the original, Nguyen’s incompetence was only matched by his unabashed earnestness, in the sequel, he’s very aware of how trashy his movie is (spurred on by Birdemic’s huge success on the midnight-movie circuit). And while that does take away the joy of watching an accidental failure, it does mean that Nguyen goes all in on being as ridiculous as possible. What this all adds up to is the perfect bird appreciation movie to bring in the holiday.
Evil Feed
Pass the small intestines and welcome to Evil Feed, a take on The Hunger Games that involves contestants entering a gladiatorial competition to survive and not become the next meal. Decidedly more self-aware than many of the other movies on this list, Kimani Ray Smith’s 2014 film is an ode to the batshit-crazy grindhouse films of the 70s and 80s. The Long Pig Restaurant run by Steven (a delightfully-out-of-his-mind Terry Chen) is famous for two things: solely serving human meat for all of its meals, and holding MMA cage fights to produce freshly tenderized meat from the loser. When an aging martial arts instructor is kidnapped to be one of the fighters, his daughter (Falling Skies’ Laci J Mailey) and a group of his students set out to rescue him from the hellish eatery. What follow is a schizophrenic amalgamation of sex, action, and gore that will leave you laughing and wincing the whole way through, while also leading you to consider going vegan once and for all.
Bathory: Countess of Blood
It’s important to note that not all people enjoy turkey and ham on Thanksgiving. Some people, let’s say, would prefer their meat…raw. Before the days of Twilight and the obsession with cannibalistic vampires began, there was Erzsébet Bathory, a Hungarian countess. After an incident in her underground hospital that left Bathory poisoned, the local witch, Darvulia, saved Bathory, but only for a price. Darvulia will grant Bathory a life of eternal beauty if she were to sacrifice her reputation and love, first. Of course when Bathory is seen bathing in tubs of red liquid, corpses are mysteriously being found buried nearby, and the interior of the Countess’ castle starts looking like a Bonnie Tyler music video, people understandably start to get suspicious. We’re not ones to judge here at FrightPix, but it kind of looks like Bathory is taking gluten free to an entirely new level.
Thankskilling
Within the first five minutes of the movie, you see a topless pilgrim killed by a demonic turkey. We’d get more into detail with this one, but I think that sentence will do just fine. Happy holidays!