2008 was a wild time and not only for Horror movies. Wikileaks, Tibetan Demonstrations, an earthquake in China, and an American slasher film titled ThanksKilling all happened in the same year. While I won’t be covering the tragedies I mentioned, instead I’d like to focus our attention on celebrating one of my most beloved Horror movies of all time.
The first, and I mean the exact first frame, there is a topless woman. That said woman is immediately killed by this wretched and bumpy Turkey puppet with a tomahawk.
Already, I was enthralled. I had to know what was happening in ThanksKilling.
After the topless lady is slain, we are then taken to the modern era. We meet our 5 protagonists, a group of college kids, who are in the car and on their way towards meeting their families for Thankskgiving. Unfortunately, their car breaks down and they are forced to camp out the night. As they set their camp up, one of the boys named Darren begins telling a tale of a group of Native Americans that used necromancy to raise a turkey from its grave and slaughter all white people that it encounters.
If the campiness of the film doesn’t hook you from here (or the literal first shot), you will not like this movie. If you, like me, giggle at the idea of a 500 year old necromanced turkey with a “No White Survivors” attitude and a butcher’s knife, by all means allow me to go on.
We get the B story now as a dog pees on a totem pole somewhere else in the woods, which does in fact summon “Turkie”, the aforementioned turkey. Turkie kills the dog and scampers away as one of the kids see him. The kid tells her friends and they laugh at her. Turkie literally hitchhikes with a guy, and the driver gives him the good old, “Ass, Gas, or Grass.” options.
Yeah, guess what? Guess what the turkey picks.
No, he does not pick Ass. Turkie shoots him in the head and steals his car.
The kids make it to their homes respective homes by now, and the turkey begins his insane murders, killing two of the kids in their homes. The rest of the gang discover their dead friends and, nope they don’t call the cops. Nope, they don’t call an ambulance or a funeral service either. They go to their other friends house and look for books on undead turkeys.
Lo and behold, Turkie is in a set of Groucho Marx glasses and pretending to be the other kid’s dad. More killing, and the kids find out there is a macguffin in the form of a magical talisman that is hiding information in the turkey book.
Darren from earlier cracks the talisman code and finds out that Turkie must be witch-style burned at a stake and the kids must say a demonic prayer backwards. Then the turkey possesses a boy and has a shoot out.
It’s too insane to make up. This is a real film. Go watch it.
The kids prepare to do the magical thing, and Turkie is shot in the head. The kids all believe that since he was domed, that they are free to go home. There is a nice romantic scene and BAM THE TURKEY IS NOT DEAD. Turkie rips a kids heart out and stabs another. Turkie is finally set on fire by one of the last living kids, and he is actually dead.
We cut to a thanksgiving table. All is well. Then, of course, their turkey comes to life and yells, “Do I smell a sequel, **@#$!?”.
It’s a one of a kind and unique story, incredibly campy, and unbelievably insane plot. And yes, in 2013, it got a sequel titled ThanksKilling 3. That’s right. They didn’t call it ThanksKilling 2.
You have to see this.
