What was Thanksgiving made for if not watching terrible movies with loved ones while eating way too much of way too much? We tried out some new turkeys this year, here are our impressions.
Horror/Comedy, 70 Minutes, 2009
The first movie we have is holiday-appropriate but not family appropriate. We still watched it, but we did not feel good about it. As promised by the poster there are “boobs in the first second” (for those that care, they are, in fact, the only boobs but that’s probably beside the point).
Anyway, an ancient Indian shaman summoned a demonic turkey to kill all the pilgrims and now he return every 505 years (except the movie actually takes place 400-some-odd-years after the intro) to kill the first batch of white people he finds.
The movie is a hell of lot of fun. Terribly acted, terribly realized, raunchy, family-unfriendly fun. There’s actually some clever, introspective gags here. The cast can’t deliver them but you’ll laugh at them trying either way.
“Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan” on IMDB
Horror, 90 Minutes, 2013
The first scenes of this movie, set in the 1800’s, had me worried. We do see a monster-killer with an ax and he’s… maybe, 5′ 10″? The word “giant” didn’t really come to mind. But it’s okay! Turns out he was just a little baby Bunyan back then. He was afflicted with a terrible disease, you see. One that let him live for hundreds of years and grow into an invincible giant. Terrible, it was!
So now it’s 2013 and a bunch of attractive teens are in the woods. They find the remains of Bunyan’s best friend, the blue ox Babe, and steal one of his horns. This angers Bunyan. He approaches the group and shares his feelings of violation and sadness. They apologize and return the horn. They then help the sobbing giant to rebuild his makeshift monument as modernized, but respectful, rendition of Minnie Riperton’s classic, “Loving You” plays out the scene.
Nah, I’m just fucking with you. He axes them all. He axes them good.
Comedy, 95 Minutes, 2013
The wife decided that all the killing wasn’t in keeping with the the spirit of a holiday celebrating the start of a genocide, so we moved on to a comedy. Or, more specifically, we thought we did. If you never laugh – I mean ever – does it still count as a comedy?
Honestly we only had this in our queue because it popped up when we saw Danica McKellar [IMDB] in the differently terrible “Tasmanian Devils” [Our Review]. Sue us, we still like her! Just because her career has ended with movies like this doesn’t mean she’s a bad person or anything!
The movie blows. It tries to be a raunchy, bromance romp but ends up just raunchy and gross for the sake of being gross . It’s slow, scattered and joyless. But, Danica, we’re still rooting for you!
Comedy, 99 Minutes, 2012
For our last turkey we decided to give this a shot. The first one was awful but the non-existent budget and terrible acting made it exactly the kind of terrible that you share with those you love. This one isn’t.
I don’t what the fuck this was. Imagine enough mescaline to drown congress. Now imagine doing all of it while watching “Pee Wee’s Playhouse”. Now imagine that, while you’re doing that, somebody is periodically hitting you in the face with a hatchet while reading “War and Peace” in Hebrew. Now, just for shits and giggles, imagine what kind of singing voice a fax-machine made of jelly-beans would have.
It’s kind of like that. Not at all good and not bad enough to be fun. There might be drugs that would make this movie great – the people that made it clearly had them – but I’m not sure what they might be and I have no desire to experiment.
So, as we wrap up, I think we have to give the non-existent “Golden Turkey” award to the original “Thankskilling”. The sequel was a huge disappointment, but the original was a hell of a lot of stupid fun.
