It seems like only yesterda - wait, no it doesn’t. It seems like about twelve years ago I attended the first Chicago-area Fangoria convention in about a decade. It was actually way back in April of 2006. And let me tell you, kiddies - it was the right time to do so. Where else was I gonna’ go all moony over Jenna Fischer, y’know?

This particular “Weekend o’ Hos” (as it has been affectionately referred to by me and mine since ‘89) was memorable for many different reasons. I met a few really cool people…got moony over Jenna Fischer (and Michael Rooker - but that’s a tale for another time)…and I saw Poultrygeist for the first time.

The event was billed as a “Test Screening” - which I found comical. I mean, can you imagine Lloyd Kaufman, Michael Herz, and Gabe Friedman sitting in high-backed black leather chairs…around a marble conference table (probably purchased cheap - and as a set - at a post-Ovitz CAA garage sale)…worried about the results?

“We didn’t score high enough in the first three boxes!”

“Lloyd - the cards say we need to make more fun of the gays!”

“America has spoken, Lloyd - we need more shaved lesbians!”

But yeah - “test screening”.

The film screened at the now-deceased Crossroads Theater in Merrillville, Indiana. I grew up there, forty miles outside Chicago - and the Crossroads Plaza remains a font of fond memories…like donning a Don Post “Shape” mask and coveralls and creeping about outside fast food jernts back in junior high…or staging pretend fights in the giant parking lot…or playing “hide and seek” in the various shops (we were hiding - I have no idea what the cops were doing)…getting propositioned by guys whilst shooting pool (again, in junior high - I musta’ been a stone cold fox back then)…doing impromptu improvisational song-and-dance routines in front of the supermarket (and I wonder why I was being hit on by men)…or plotting to steal the vintage Megaforce one-sheet inexplicably hung in the bedroom furniture store…

I’d not roamed those grounds since 1996 - when a bunch of us went to take in a screening of Jackie Chan’s Rumble in the Bronx on its second run. But that is a story for anot - nevermind.

The Crossroads was the perfect venue for Poultrygeist, in that it still had a bit of the ol’ Grindhouse vibe left in it (the last “first run” I saw at the Crossroads was Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, so it had been awhile since a fresh print of anything had shipped there). It was the kind of theater where the patrons didn’t always come to watch the flick - they showed up because it was closer than a soup kitchen or cheaper than a motel. What was onscreen didn’t matter to them - or to me, if Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare is an indicator.

Poultrygeist was a flick I went into with no expectations - and one so high-concept I got a nosebleed thinking about it. Sure, sure - it’s not like the Horror/Comedy/Musical hasn’t been done before (Rocky Horror, Happiness of the Katakuris, and Sweeney Todd spring immediately to mind, of course) - but Poultrygeist takes “high concept” into rare air. This is a film wherein the displeased spirits of displaced Native Americans possess the deceased chickens at a fast food franchise…who then attack humans…who in turn are possessed by the spirits of both the Indians and the chickens…creating havoc for the poor (and, in many instances, stupid) humans still trapped NotLD-stylee in the restaurant…a film in which the voice of reason is a talking homosexual Hispanic BBQ sandwich…a film in which the only noble character is a Muslim suicide bomber. But really - it’s the story of us all.

I might be laying it on a bit thick, but I’ll be damned if the sentiments espoused by many of the characters (and the filmmakers behind the madness) aren’t things we should all be considering right now. This is a film that takes on institutional hypocrisy at every turn, with Corporate America (or do I spell it “AmeriKKKa”? I never know for sure) set squarely in its sights.

On the eve of the film’s official stateside premiere (after sold out playdates in the U.K. and screenings at Cannes and South Korea’s Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival) I sat down with Troma founder Lloyd Kaufman to “peck” his brain (judging by my use of puns, I stayed too long) in an attempt to deduce just how a Romantic-Musical-Horror-Comedy featuring reanimated foodstuffs happens in the first place. It turns out that the gears of madness began turning when the Fast Food Nation beat a path to Troma’s door.

Kaufman explains, “McDonalds moved in next to Troma - and they screwed up the Troma building. They put a hole in our building to put their sign up…they put their garbage in front of our place - because they didn’t want their garbage near their own building - and then we had these enormous rats running around our basement…”

Attempts at dealing with the company in a civil fashion went unanswered, and Kaufman was stunned to see such an iconic corporation literally shit on everything around it. Wondering aloud how the franchise could be so flagrant in its grotesquerie, some of his employees began telling tales of their time served in the bowels of the Fast Food Devil.

“Gabe Friedman, who edited Citizen Toxie and Terror Firmer - he’s been with us for about 10 years - worked in a fast food place. A chicken place. He’s the guy who inspired the whole movie - the way it’s so realistic…”

“‘Cause Friedman fought off undead chickens…”

“It’s not autobiographical - but what makes Poultrygeist interesting is that it is real in terms of…calling the people taking orders the “Counter Girl” - if a man worked at the counter, he was still the “Counter Girl”…or the people whacking off into the "special sauce"…all, uh - all the things that happened during the workday…uh-oh…”

Lloyd reacts to something over my shoulder, and I turn to spot two sheepish teens - a boy and a girl - being led out of the theater by a thoroughly incensed older woman. She looks like someone just tried to feed her a tshit sandwich.  Poultrygeist has been playing for less than ten minutes.

“I see an elderly lady with a young couple…it’s obvious they want to stay, and she…oh no…”

“Why in the hell did they bring the old lady?”

“They probably don’t drive…”

“They don’t look that young, Lloyd.”

“No - they do look older.”

“We should tell her that we could give the kids a ride back.”

“Yeah - we’ll give ‘em a ride all right…at any rate - we’d read Fast Food Nation, and I interviewed people who worked in fast food…”

And everybody’s got a horror story about that - when you’re a teen looking for a job, you’ve got almost no choice. It’s either fast food or porn - or a sitcom-style combination of the two, as I recall from my own days of high school-aged Meximelt manufacturing. I look back, and it was people on both sides of the counter being thoughtless, ignorant, and unkind. And crazy. And funny. Fast food is a lot like life - only smellier. Friedman scripted a film that zeroes in on the observations of working-class youth, using his own awful truth for seasoning - which made me wonder how much of Kaufman’s own life philosophy colored (tainted?) the project.

“Every film I make is very personal,” the director states in earnest fashion. “Just because Troma films are filled with sex and violence and slapstick doesn’t mean they can’t be personal, you know? Charlie Chaplin’s movies are broad and filled with slapstick - but his movies are extremely personal.

They did have too much sex and violence, perhaps…but…”

The timing on this gag - coupled with Kaufman’s very serious demeanor - makes me laugh harder than I feel like I should have. I imagine The Tramp moving undercrankedly through a frame, stabbing at people with a butcher knife…bending some ingénue over a chair…

Kaufman smiles. “I think Arbie’s immaturity is definitely a reflection of my own personality.

The owner of the theater stops by to tell us that Poultrygeist was savaged in the day’s newspaper. Lloyd’s mood completely sours, and he asks the guy if he’s got a copy of the fish wrapper on the premises.

“This idiot who reviewed the movie in Milwaukee - he’s gotta’ be an idiot if he doesn’t get that this film has some great things going on below the surface - this is a movie that has amazing subtext - and not just the fast food element. There’s the Muslim element…the plight of the Native Americans…a comment on alternative lifestyles…the animal rights message-“

His righteous indignation on the rise, he adds - “Wolfgang Puck saw Poultrygeist - and he now doesn’t want the egg-laying chickens to be cooped up in these horrible torture machines!”

He says stuff like that with such a flatline deadpan that you’re not sure what to think. This causes confusion constantly - a fan-submitted trivia blurb at the IMDB states that Kaufman claimes he wanted to title his film "Good Night and Good Cluck" - until George Clooney pilfered the title. I’m pretty certain that you could chalk that Puck quote up to Lloyd riffing, but considering the nature of his output…you never can be too sure. Maybe Lloyd did slip into the kitchen after dinner at Spago to drop a disc on Wolfie…

“It’s absurd this guy panned the film, when so many really informed critics love Troma - I think a lot of critics who don’t know anything about movies, you know…they see a little bit of Grand Guignol - they don’t even know what that means, Grand Guignol - and they just switch off. But if Harvey Weinstein distributed Poultrygeist…”

Harvey Weinstein should distribute Poultrygeist. If “Splat Pack” guys who’ve obviously been influenced by Troma can populate Dimension’s slate…and the Weinsteins see themselves as champions of raw, edgy fare - why not pick up the Poultrygeist domestic rights at AFM? Whither Lionsgate - those purveyors of low-ball (and, in many instances, no-balls) splatter films? They do direct-to-video acquisitions on all manner of shoddy no-budget creature features - why not try on a really cool no-budget creature feature for size?

Lloyd, for his part, says that he’s been “economically blackballed” - which suggests no small amount of paranoia. But we’re not there yet - we’re still talking about critics…

“Critics are all the same - they just want TV shows. So they’ll beat up on a guy like me and give some…they’ll give a terrible Weinstein horror movie a good review…they’ll give Freddy vs Jason a good review because it comes from a division of Time Warner-”

“Lloyd - I don’t know that anyone gave Freddy vs Jason a good review.”

“Well, this little twerp probably did! Or he gave this crappy movie with Mandy Moore a good review - although I like Mandy Moore…”

“There is nothing wrong with Mandy Moore” I agree.

“No - she’s fantastic. And she picks her projects - Dedication is a good attempt, it’s just a shit movie. It’s not her fault. Her other movies are great.”

“I really liked Saved.”

“Saved is great, American Dreamz is good. She’s terrific. Mandy Moore makes up for all of the other young people who seem to be destroying their careers. And Lindsey Lohan is talented - it’s a shame she just can’t get her act together. Anyway…that’s enough of that…”

“No, no - go for it. Go where you need to - I want you to go home clean tonight.”

“The point is - a lot went into Poultrygeist. Our movies are very sophisticated. (New York Times critic) Stephen Holden said, ‘You’ve got to be smart to get Troma.’”

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