Throwback Thursday: Thankskilling (2009)

Spend your Thanksgiving holiday getting stuffed by a murdering turkey puppet. “THANKSKILLING” is an unsavory but satisfying holiday treat.

I don’t imagine that many fans of horror and cult movies envision wanting to see a foul-mouthed killer turkey who has sex with women while wearing an extra small, gravy flavored condom. While many may not imagine a movie like this existing, I can assure you that it does thanks to the 2009 direct-to-video horror movie THANKSKILLING.

Shot on Video, THANKSKILLING opens with the promise of a crude and debauched experience.

At the time of the first Thanksgiving, a pilgrim (Wanda Lust) is running through a field, away from something horrifying. Notably, her top is down, and the camera makes sure to get plenty of close-ups of her impressive chest. Soon it’s revealed she’s being chased by a turkey who proceeds to run down the topless pilgrim and chop her up with a tomahawk.

Hundreds of years later, a group of school friends are planning a Thanksgiving holiday trip together to visit family. On their way, their car breaks down, and they decide to camp out. After the friends set up their tents and are seated around a campfire, the nerdy friend Darren (Ryan Francis) recounts the legend of the Indian Shaman, Feathercloud. Dishonored by one of the original pilgrims, Feathercloud uses necromancy to raise a killer turkey, named Turkie, to avenge him. Turkie, once his mission of death is complete, is slated to re-appear in 505 years to kill the first white people he sees.

Turkie, however, is awakened from his ancient slumber by a dog peeing on an enchanted, tiny totem pole. He kills the dog and targets the camping group of school friends, following them to their family hometown of Crawl Berg. Once in Crawl Berg, Turkie begins to slash, rip, and rape his way through anyone he encounters, quipping away like an obscene turkey version of Howard the Duck.

Who will survive this Thanksgiving slaughter and send Turkie back to the Hell he was conceived from?

Writer/Director Jordan Downey has given fans a loud, boorish, raucous, irredeemable Thanksgiving movie. The acting is atrocious, the script is wildly inconsistent, and in today’s climate, this movie might not exist. But, luckily for us, it does.

THANKSKILLING offers no apologies for its crude humor and seems to go out of its way to offend everyone.

And I love it for that attitude. My only true complaint is that Downey and crew didn’t take it far enough. The opening scene of the topless pilgrim is a promise to the viewer: settle in for a wild ride, and if you’re offended, you should get out now. But Downey never fully delivers on that early promise. Nudity, blood, ridiculously graphic murders — give me more!

THANKSKILLING is not, in any conventional way, a good movie.

It has oddly sentimental flashbacks to establish emotional investment in some of the kids, an animated flashback to tell the story of Turkie’s creation and, again, truly awful acting. But, somehow, Downey makes it all work. THANKSKILLING is a hoot!

This movie may not be the first movie you reach for when you’re jonesing for Thanksgiving horror, but when you want to annoy that hard-to-deal with family member at the Thanksgiving table, THANKSKILLING should be the first and only movie you cue up on our television.

Sit back and let Downey take you on the wild ride that is THANKSKILLING.

Currently, THANKSKILLING and its sequel THANKSKILLING 3 (which I have not watched), is streaming on Amazon Prime.