Filmmaker Jordan Downey is quickly cornering the market on all things Schlock. He brought us the Schlock classic "ThanksKilling," featuring our favorite fowl-mouthed (see what I did there) turkey, aptly named Turkie (Downey) and now he delivers a sequel to the 2010 release.
Now he give us "ThanksKilling 3." Now don't worry if you're thinking to yourself, "Oh crap, I didn't catch ‘ThanksKilling 2.’ ” That's because it doesn't exist in our realm, only in Turkie's.
The original "ThanksKilling" knocked my socks off because the filmmakers went for broke and, on a budget of only $3,000, going broke wasn't far from their reality. It was down-and-dirty filmmaking, but it was fun and one helluva ride.
We were introduced to Turkie, a homicidal turkey who came back from the other side to seek revenge. It followed the format of old-school slasher flicks and pulled it off. Could we tell the blood and gore were fake? Yup. Could we tell Turkie was a puppet? Yup. But that was what made the movie great.
When I reviewed it, I gave it the Schlock Vault Seal of Approval and rating of five Yaps. It was an instant classic and stands at the top of my list of Schlock flicks of all time.
Turkie gained a cult following, and a sequel was inevitable. With $100,000 in their pockets from a successful Kickstarter campaign, Downey and company went to work and produced "ThanksKilling 3."
The biggest difference between the two movies is the look. Where the original looked gritty and cheap, which is part of the charm, "ThanksKilling 3" looks slick and well-produced.
When we meet up with Turkie, he's living a life we'd never dream. He has a little house, a wife and a son. He's living the dream. But his dream becomes a nightmare when his film "ThanksKilling 2" is proclaimed the worst movie of all time and the order is sent down to destroy all copies — erasing it from existence.
He snaps and becomes the Turkie we all know and love. His quest is to find the last remaining copy and unleash it on an unsuspecting public that will die upon watching it.
Standing in his way is Yomi (Downey), a puppet in search of her mind, Uncle Donny (Daniel Usaj) and Jefferson (Joe Hartzler), two Thanksgiving-obsessed friends, a rapping grandma and the Wise Turkey (Downey). Oh yeah, how could I forget bisexual space worm Rhonda Worm (Kevin Stewart) and his robot "friend" Muff (Downey).
It's up to this gaggle of misfits to stop Turkie and send him and his movie into the space vortex and out of this world.
While I liked "ThanksKilling 3," I found myself longing for the simplicity of its predecessor. The movie looks great and the story is more complex, but I missed Turkie's one-liners. He has a few in this movie, but nothing compared to the original movie.
But for all the bells and whistles the movie has to offer, you still see all the strings and rods for the puppets and plenty of blood. This time around, it seems Downey chose to go for raunchy humor instead of the campy wisecracks that made "ThanksKilling" so memorable. It took some time to get used to it, I will admit.
The fact remains, though, that Downey understands schlock and what audiences want. I love and embrace the campiness, the blood and guts and the fact Schlock needs to be ridiculous to be great.
The DVD comes with a few Behind the Beak featurettes, a drinking game, some trailers, a photo gallery and a commentary with the filmmakers.
I didn't get to see Turkie wear a man's face like he did in the original, but he still sucked me in nonetheless. Downey and his crew gave us a much better-looking film but didn't completely deliver on what makes the original so fun. But I have a feeling this isn't the last we've seen of Turkie.
In fact, I hear the foulest of the fowl could be making his stage debut very soon — in a musical. Well, I think there's only one thing left to say:
"Gobble, Gobble, Mother F*#ker!"