Horror Movie Review: ThanksKilling (2009)

Horror comedy…a genre that can be very hit & miss. Get it right & we have the likes of What We Do in the Shadows, Tucker & Dale vs Evil, An American Werewolf in London & Braindead. Get it wrong though & we’re left suffering through the likes of Lesbian Vampire Killers, The Gingerdead Man, Evil Bong & Leprechaun in Space. Rough stuff.

ThanksKilling unfortunately joins the list of bad horror comedies thanks to its near total lack of cleverness & actual funny moments. It’s a horror comedy that is light on horror & comedy.

The DVD cover proudly displays a warning in the top left corner that says, ‘boobs in the first second’ & that is no joke. The movie literally opens with an up-close shot of a boob, singular. The camera then pans out to show a woman in a pilgrim outfit (Wanda Lust) with her boobs out.

The year is 1621, the year of the first Thanksgiving (maybe) & the woman is being hunted by a killer demonic turkey called…Turkey. It kills her with an axe while quipping “nice tits, bitch”. Yeah, Thankskilling is ‘that’ kind of horror comedy.

Centuries later we meet five students, who are all clearly way older than the part they are playing. A group of cookie-cutter horror characters. We have Johnny the jock (Lance Predmore), the nerdy Darren (Ryan Francis), the dumb slutty Ali (Natasha Cordova), the redneck Billy (Aaron Carlson) & the final girl, Kristen (Lindsey Anderson).

Characters that are as deep as a puddle but in a 70-minute movie there really wasn’t time anyway. The actors aren’t terrible but you’re not going to be blown away by their performances either.

The real star of the show is Turkey who is resurrected by dog piss & goes on a rampage killing off the cast. All while spouting turkey related puns. It’s not funny, it’s not clever & truth be told we’ve seen it all before.

Extremely silly to the point of ridiculousness at times, it’s impossible to take even a second of this movie seriously. That wouldn’t be a problem if it was an entertaining movie but it’s not. Only once, during an absurd dinner table scene between Turkey & the Sherriff does it really stand out from the creature/quip talking killer pack.

Disappointingly the ending misses a trick. Turkey is presumed dead having been shot into a bin of toxic waste. This stuff revives him & the presumption is that we’re going to get an over-sized monstrosity version for the finale. Instead all we get is Turkey but glowing green. That’s it…I mean low budget or not, even Class of Nuke Em High 2 managed a mutant giant squirrel!

A cult classic? Why!?