Notes from the Turkeyground: All the Turkey's a Stage

For the first time since I started writing these Notes from the Turkeyground four years ago, we're doing something different. The Turkey Challenge, to inform those not in-the-know, is an annual competition in which visitors of the IMDb Horror Board can watch horror movies rated below 5.0 and gain points based on their score. In previous years, additional points were earned by watching multiple 'turkeys' by a single director, five points for every three, or "trifecta." This was very successful and led to a lot of fantastic discoveries. This year, we've opened the doors to earning points from watching multiple turkeys, trifectas again, with a single actor. And I am very pleased with the results.

There are two kinds of actors who appear in multiple 'turkeys,' generally. Those that do b-movies as a rule. Actors like Tony Todd, Jeffrey Combs, Michael Ironside, Tiffany Shepis, Debbie Rochon, Linnea Quigley--they're all committed to the b-movie industry. Maybe they have or had dreams of making it big, but they seem content to stay in the world of horror conventions, gratuitous nudity, artificial blood and guts, and monsters. And we love them for it. The others are the actors who had already made it into the upper echelons and, for whatever reason, ended up with little A-list work. They took to b-movies to ply their trade and pay their bills.

My wife and I decided to start our challenge with some of the latter, Corin Nemec and Eric Roberts (no relation). Y'know, we often take our less successful actors for granted. We find it funny or ridiculous to see C. Thomas Howell in cheap b-movie after cheap b-movie, Eric Roberts in made-for-SyFy movies, and the same for Corin Nemec, Michael Madsen, Casper van Dien, Sean Patrick Flannery, amongst others. I'm sure these actors are not where they wanted or expected to be in their careers. They've either made bad choices in life or in agents and have found it harder to grasp roles in A-list movies. Or it may simply have happened with no particular reason standing out.

The thing we forget is that these actors really are professionals. The screenplays they're given are not always fantastic, the dialogue often foolish, their screen partners are bimbos and CGI monsters--but they're pros and they're often really good at what they do. They try to make these silly lines and roles work, and they often succeed. They take the time to put in an actual performance. They don't just draw in a crowd from name recognition. They actually do elevate these movies with their talents and professionalism.

First up was Endangered Species (2003), a fantastic blend of cop action, sci-fi, comedy, and horror. Of course, it's written and directed by one of the greatest b-movie directors of all time, Kevin Tenney. That helps. It also stars Eric Roberts in a role where he can shine--the kind of role with lots of snide remarks and glib comraderie. Arnold Vosloo and John Rhys Davies only add to the entertainment. A movie of sweet tatas, lots of alien killin', explosions, car chases, and tons of Tenney's jokes. This is how the Turkey Challenge is meant to start and what it's all about. Finding movies like this.

The Eric Roberts trifecta took us through Self-Storage (2013), another highly-enjoyable independent movie, starring and directed by Tom DeNucci. This one is about a stoner loser who lives and works at a self-storage facility. On his last day, he throws a party and stumbles upon his boss's more nefarious activities. Roberts is always a great, sleazy villain, because he's just so glib. He's the cold, always bemused villain. This is one of those b-movies that offers the sex, tits, and blood, but tries to have heart and romance. Sean of the Dead influenced, I guess. Then came Camp Dread (2014), an even more independent and lower-budgeted movie. Eric Roberts plays the director of some thinly disguised Sleepaway Camp movies and decides to resurrect it for a new generation using an actual camp for juvenile delinquents. Soon the kids are really getting murdered. The plotting and pacing of this movie is dead-on, showing a lot of control. I was impressed. Eric Roberts makes his wacky character work very well, putting real conviction behind some lines that just shouldn't be convince at all. It was fun just to see him at work, not just putting in a five minute cameo, like Danielle Harris does in this movie.

Corin Nemec's movies were a little more sedate. We'd enjoyed Nemec's Sand Sharks (2011) last year. Jurassic Attack (2013) was a phoned-in five-minute role with little real connection with the rest of the plot. The movie itself, however, wasn't too bad. A more exploitative approach to The Lost World involving submachine guns, CGI, and gore. Sea Beast (2008) and RoboCroc (2013) had a lot more Nemec, but he wasn't up to his goofy self. He was the responsible, hero dad in Sea Beast, fighting off amphibious monsters intent on killing his slutty daughter. RoboCroc was the best of the three, giving Nemec room to be more of a weirdo. It's what he's good at. Dee Wallace also shows up as the evil scientist. Scientists are always bad news in these movies. Her nanoprobes make a good croc go real bad. No tits or outstanding gore to remark upon, just some good monster movie fun.

We then moved onto a b-movie master, one Mr. Tony Todd. We started with Jack the Reaper (2011), because it was on Netflix. I wasn't expecting much from this. A bunch of misfit teens go into the desert and find a mysterious amusement park. Anyone with half a brain already knows this is a Reeker (2005) rip-off. But so what? I kinda like the character interactions. While nothing original, it is handled well enough to be quite fun. Tony Todd wasn't in it enough, but he was his usual, intimidating self for the four minutes he's there.

The next Todd movie was a much better hit. Dark Reel (2008), an underrated picture by Josh Eisenstadt, starring Edward Furlong and Tiffany Shepis. Just an average horror fan and nice guy, Furlong wins a competition for a non-speaking part in his favorite scream queen, Shepis, latest epic. As he arrives, someone decides to start killing everyone involved in the cheap pirate movie. Tony Todd gets one of my favorite Todd roles ever as the neurotic detective who suspects Furlong. I'd never thought of Todd as a comedy actor, but I haven't enjoyed him this much since Night of the Living Dead (1990). Very well written and shot better than most Hollywood movies, Dark Reel should be seen.

The Todd trifecta ended on a lame, British note, the found footage movie Dead of Nite [sic] (2013). Todd plays the proprietor of a supposedly haunted house. Some loser ghost hunters go in with their cameras and die. A waste of time and Todd.

On my own, I decided to indulge in the gift that keeps on giving that is Michelle Bauer. Of all the Big Three scream queens from the '80s, Bauer was probably the most talented overall. Linnea was the cutest, Brinke had the best body and that raven hair, but Bauer could act--and do comedy! She was also the wildest, having done hardcore. I watched my favorite Bauer films: Beverly Hills Vamp (1989), which has become one of my all time favorite movies and probably my top cheer-up movie; The Phantom Empire (1984), where she's the always nearly-naked 'cave bunny'; Evil Toons (1992), where she gets a brief cameo as Dick Miller's dildo-loving wife; Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-o-Rama (1988), Witch Academy (1994), oh my! I also got some new Bauer movies under my belt, namely the zonked-out bigfoot epic, Demonwarp (1988). Vampire Vixens from Venus (1995), a movie with all of the right content and somehow just falls short of the mark--the tits, monsters, and comedy is there, but it feels wrong. And Gingerdead Man 2 (2008), a worthy entry in the annals of really weird sequels--right up there with Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) and Return to Salem's Lot (1994). Bauer appears to have had some implants in Gingerdead Man 2, but she never popped 'em out, so who can say? (If you're reading, Michelle, help me out here.)

A few more memorable experiences came from our late-in-the-month Karen Black trifecta. She was her busty, seductive self as the vampiress in the unique vampire movie, Children of the Night (1991), an unjustly forgotten movie from Fangoria back when Fangoria was still relevant. She was the TV-obsessed old lady in Ooga Booga (2013), a Full Moon killer puppet movie (it's about all Full Moon does anymore) we liked enough to rewatch. I forgot there was a huge-hootered skank in this movie, apparently played by porn star Siri. Worth watching for them melons alone. But the movie that made me miss Karen Black most was Auntie Lee's Meat Pies (1992), a crazy backwoods cannibal movie in the vein of TCM and Spider Baby, except this one has tons of sexy, big-titted girls in skimpy clothing. Auntie Lee's nieces may be worth getting cannibalized over. Also stars Mr. Miyagi.

We spent some time with our pal, Sid Haig. Night of the Living Dead 3D (2006) was nowhere near as bad as we were lead to believe. Not a remake at all, but a case of life imitating art, with a flair of modernization, humor, and some zombie titties, I thought this movie was a lot of fun. Haig was also in the NotLD-themed Mimesis (2011), another, more logical, case of life imitating art, that was another good time. Never accept a random slut's invitation at a horror convention--moral of that story. Finally, Haig's most expansive role was as the amicable shopkeeper in the Louisianan monster movie, Creature (2011), a perverse tale of incest, backwoods rituals, bunch-of-douchebags-in-the-woods, and horny monsters. I loved it. Far from flawless, but it's everything a movie called Creature should be.

We also followed Rutger Hauer through Argento's Dracula (2012), which was sexier and better than I expected, thanks to Miriam Giovanelli. And Kretschman actually makes a pretty good Dracula. But what was with the giant insect? I don't get it. Then through Dead Tone (2007), half fun slasher-movie, half anti-prank call public service announcement. The more you know. Finally, the British ripoff of graphic novel Preacher, The Reverend (2011). The best way to clean up a sleazy town filled with thugs and prostitutes? Anglican vampires. This was a surprisingly fun movie, like Walking Tall with more vampires and busty prostitutes.

We decided to end the challenge with a series, going through the Killjoy trilogy from Fullmoon. Like a turkey itself, we began with the dark meat of the first Killjoy (2000) and ended with the white meat of the third. Because the first Killjoy has an all-Black cast. A cheap film with limited inventiveness, it still manages to have some moments, as the evil clown takes revenge for a nerd's demise. The second and worst of the series, inventively titled Killjoy 2 (2002), has mostly Black teens in the woods with Debbie Rochon and a blond, hillbilly racist. Killjoy is elaborated as a revenge demon in this movie. They run with it in Killjoy 3 (2010), where Killjoy's mythology is described at length. This is probably the best movie in the series, just because it's the most inventive with the kills and has some decent writing. Strangely, there's only one Black cast member.

So that was our Turkey Challenge for 2014. We got to spend time with some old friends, like Tony Todd and Karen Black, meet some new friends like Tifany Shepis and Tom DeNucci. I learned a little more about some of them, got to appreciate them more for what they do. Best of all, I found a lot of great movies I'd never seen and rewatched some old favorites. The lowest point, Marina Monster (2008), at least was worth laughing at. A successful challenge, but we're full for now. We gorged ourselves on turkey again, and can't wait to do it again next year.

Notes from the Turkeyground III: A Month in Bad Movie Asylum

Yet again, the annual tradition of watching allegedly 'bad' movies dawned in our household. November 1st is eagerly anticipated like a harvest feast. We stockpile for it all year long. "We can save that movie for the Turkey Challenge!" So we do. It's the Saturnalia, the Carnival season, when all the checks and guards can be dropped and taste is turned on its head. The usual measures of taste, value, and pleasure are no longer so restricted. The gates are open and one never knows what will wander in. Movies that would seem a waste of time in June are, in November, a discovery, a gem, or just a damn good time.

This year, we knew what to kick off with. Those wacky SyFy movies, often produced by The Asylum, that just seem to be getting wackier all the time. There was always a tongue-in-cheek element to those giant shark movies, but they were still playing at being serious. That is, they were still about a giant shark or some other massive terror. I think, as they've come to realize they don't have to play serious, they've gotten better. They've given in to their worst impulses and that kind of perversion is always rewarded in a creative element. The best of these are directed by Griff Furst.

The anaugural film of the challenge this year was Furst's Ghost Shark, a film whose very concept is preposterous enough to amuse. It plays out almost as good as it should. A shark is assaulted by grenade-tossing rednecks, as all good sharks must be, and retreats to a semi-submerged druidic temple to die. The druidic powers that be make the shark not just a ghost, but a ghost that can materialize in any body of water, anywhere, no matter how small or shallow. The shark appears in puddles, cups, sweat, condensation, swimming pools, eating children, teens, more children, and a boardroom executive. This is what we waited all year for, and it was worth it. Thank you, Griff.

Furst also delivered in Arachnoquake, a severely underrated disaster flick about flame-breathing spiders and the all-girls softball team and the drunken tour bus driver that kick their bulbous asses. But he outdid himself with Ragin' Cajun Redneck Gators, where Louisianan yokels are chomped by gators with actual red necks and then themselves transform into angry, you could even say ragin', Cajun redneck gators. Such flagrant disregard for making sense deserves to be seen, however average the result. Hopefully Griff continues in this direction.

Next on the list was similar director, Mark Atkins, whose films are quite a bit more hit-and-miss, but also quite a bit more varied in style. His worst, Alien Origin, is an almost silent film, with a bunch of Filipino non-actors whispering in the jungle and the back of a restaurant with no music or special effects to speak of. His best, The Haunting of Winchester House, is a rehash of the same thing seen many times before, just done better than its larger-budget comparisons. Sand Sharks also deserves mention for its relentless goofiness, thanks largely to Corin Nemec's brilliant portrayal of a massive ahole into which all sharks must flow.

Unfortunately, as a dog that turns to lick its own feces, we returned to David DeCoteau for another try and got more of the same. In 1313: FrankenQueen we found very little Franken and even less Queen. A milfy scientist is supposedly conducting Frankensteinian experiments, but spends 20 minutes straight running a 'probe' (a dollar store flashlight) along one of the buff boys' half-naked body. The boys walk around in a trance a little. Then are merged into a single buff boy who kills her. But 1313: Giant Killer Bees! was totally different, a breath of fresh air, it was--just kidding, it was the same garbage with some bad CGI bees inserted into a few of the frames. DeCoteau's Hansel and Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft, however, was a predictable, but entertaining private school drama with a playful witchcraft element. I'm assuming it was
ghost-directed.

At this point, we decided to return to Griff Furst and see what his earlier career had to offer. Swamp Shark proved a much more average 'ancient shark awakens from the deep and wreaks havoc' film. His take on the Richard Matheson classic, I Am Omega, starring Mark Decascos, was quite a lot of fun. Decascos unleashes his usual martial arts moves on some monstrous non-CGI creatures, hooks up with a city girl, kills some rednecks, and blows stuff up. The more independent film, 30 Days to Die--a title that describes nothing in the film, really--is a combination of serial killer slasher mayhem and women-in-prison flick, with a deranged sheriff running headfirst into a very mismanaged teen girls' juvenile rehabilitation camp, at times very dull and at the same time one of the month's highlights.

The third of our SyFy heroes was Steven Monroe, who provided us with the very entertaining Mongolian Death Worm, which used the wise technique of overstuffing the plot and making good use of its washed-up actor star, Sean Patrick Flannery, as a charming rogue. Monroe's Grave Halloween was a strange Japanese ghost story, set in a spooky forest. Although a great setting, as the only setting the forest provided highly monotonous to the point of sopor.

Unfortunately, not all SyFy directors are created equal. Leigh Scott offered up Flu Bird Horror, in which silly pterodactyls attack teen delinquents in the woods and spread a plague. These plots awkwardly converge with little satisfaction. The Possession of Gail Bowers, starring Griff Furst, was the average possession movie, copying all The Exorcist's moves. The film's vulgarity is what it really has going for it. Finally, Hillside Cannibals, which tries to be deep and anthropologically serious as well as grim and gory while ripping off The Hills Have Eyes ends up being tedious and shrill.

Relief from the SyFy movies came from the UK thanks to Jonathan Glendenning. His S.N.U.B! was a boring mix of Yes Minister without the comedy and unduly slow apocalyptic zombie film. Night Wolf was a little better, hiding the werewolf for far too long and giving us only irritating characters who never get naked. But Strippers vs. Werewolves, a goofy, playful, comic-booky splatter movie with lots of good gore and nudity delivered everything a b-movie ought to deliver and in abundance. Perhaps the most outstanding film of the whole month.

At last, we decided it was time to stop waiting and give Sharknado a try. Can it be as fun as the premise? Can it offer all the pleasures it should? Of course not. The premise is hilarious, but when it comes to stringing it into a plot and real humans, you're stuck taking it too seriously. It's impossible not to take that plot too seriously, as any seriousness is too much. It should only exist as a lost Monty Python skit. At any rate, Sharknado is still fun in its gleeful nonsense, particularly the skydiving climax that so eagerly pisses in Newton's face.

Having watched Sharknado, we had to give director Anthony Ferrante another shot. Hence Hansel and Gretel, a very enjoyable if often wilfully stupid backwoods slasher about a clan of cannibals. Dee Wallace is excellent as the madwoman at the heart of the cannibal mayhem. The Headless Horseman is also a very enjoyable SyFy movie about a backwoods town with an ancient curse. It delivers: a. sinister inbred yokels. b. an ancient curse. c. a malevolent spirit that steals people's heads. d. a pit to hell with little ghostly hands. and e. a sexy hillbilly with pigtails. Sharknado may just be the least of Ferrante's ouevre.

The last of the new directors we met this year was Dennis Devine and hoo boy this fella's a basket case. All of his movies are shot with three ingredients: a bunch of girls from the local college's acting class, a digital camcorder, and Randal Malone. He bakes them not so much to perfection, but to a bizarre, lumpy hodgepodge of catfights, bitchy comments, dark pasts, flashbacks, Agatha Christie style reveals, doughy bodies in bras and bikinis, and cheap stage blood. Yes, every Dennis Devine movie has a large number of cat fights. The most enjoyable part of each of these slashers must be Randal Malone's earnest delivery, used best in Don't Look in the Cellar. Alice in Murderland comes second, thanks to its cat fights, and last and least is Blood Mask, a confusing possession movie with braindead teens, priests, robes, and cheap goth makeup. I'm not sure how I feel about these movies, but I'm glad to have watched them.

Not much time, with all the new friends, to revisit our old buddies. I trekked through Fred Olen Ray's backyard on my own, enjoying my annual treat of Beverly Hills Vamp, and this year Fred's tna classics Evil Toons and Witch Academy. I also paid Steckler a 'What's up, dude?' by rewatching Blood Shack and The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher. But it was really Charles Band my wife and I spent the most time catching up with, enjoying the political incorrectness of Ooga Booga and the mindnumbing pleasures of the latest Evil Bong movie, Wrath of Bong. I'm not sure I know who Charles Band really is. He can make a brainless titty movie like Doll Graveyard, a heady French philosophy-referencing surrealist gem like Blood Dolls, and then a wacked out stoner-flick like Wrath of Bong. He's hard to peg. I just realized this.

I'm glad to say we closed out the year on Wrath of Bong and not the wretched Witchcraft movies we decided to try out. Overall it was a fine month of turkeys, where The Asylum scored a lot more hits than I would have ever imagined. Yet, a month where nothing mindblowingly great was discovered, and a lot of our new company proved little more than fleeting acquaintances. Most of all, I'm glad to have met Griff Furst, a gang of strippers and werewolves, crossed Mongolia with Sean Patrick Flannery as guide, and enjoyed the familiar comforts of Michelle Bauer's bosom and Eddie Deezen's flailing-hand emoting.

Until next year, stay hungry and hold the cranberry sauce.

Notes from the Turkeyground II: Another Month of Bad Movies

November is always a month my wife and I look forward to. Sure, for us horror zonks, October is the Halloween month. And we always watch a series of good movies. But sometimes we get bored of quality. We don't take it for granted--we get bored of it. Quality is always the same and all too stable, unless it's accompanied by a genius like Roman Polanski. But 'bad' movies are unpredictable, bubbling over with the unconscious, and capable of achieving greatness even without genius--or perhaps it's just a different kind of genius. That's where the November Turkey Challenge comes in. Hosted by Mr. Zombie CPA on the IMDb horror board, the Turkey Challenge is a race to watch as many 'bad' movies (rated lower than 4.5 on IMDb) as you can in a month.

My wife and I deliberately began the challenge on a risky note. We tried Dying God, a poorly-rated film from a new director. All we knew to expect was Lance Henriksen. What we got was a perverse, gritty detective movie about an Amazonian demon that rapes women to death. All the detective and monster-rape cliches are there in abundance and they come together to make a fairly entertaining SOV movie. As always, we asked ourselves, 'Why is it rated so low?' That our first movie raised that question boded well.

From there, we moved on to some 'turkey' favorites, namely, Roberta Findlay, Fred Olen Ray, and David DeCoteau. Roberta's movies are always bizarre, incoherent, and in a world of their own, but peculiarly entertaining. Blood Sisters, the only of her horror films we hadn't seen, proved her worse, however--and that was the end of our Findlay for the month. The Oracle and Lurkers still come recommended, though.

DeCoteau came to our rescue with his series of made-in-one-day-in-his-personal-mansion-with-a-series-of-moderately-attractive-twinks-in-their-underwear movies, 1313. Cougar Cult was the first. We were dazzled by the resurrection of scream queens Linnea Quigley, Brinke Stevens, and Michelle Bauer, and asked ourselves, 'Which one aged like fine wine, and which like an abandoned grape in a Frenchman's underpants?' Quigley seemed to have had some work done--I don't recall her canteloupes being quite so...canteloupey. Weren't they more like peaches before? They all looked good. I can't pick. I couldn't--I was distracted by the incredible werecougar transformation sequences. Who needs elaborate practical effets when you can just paste an non-animated gif image on screen, riht? Screw American Werewolf in London. Watch Cougar Cult.

Fred Olen Ray, however, was more our savior. He is every year, really. His Paul Naschy epic, Tomb of the Werewolf (2004) was a delightful fusion of two very different aesthetics, namely Ray's b-movie, T'n'A-fests, and Naschy's bonkers werewolf movies. My wife loved it. I just enjoyed it. I enjoyed Phantom Empire a lot more--a rewatch for me, but a very pure Fred Olen Ray film: it follows likable, goofy characters thrown into a confusing adventure-horror-sci-fi-fantasy plot that they joke their way out of while exposing plenty of tits along the way. Witch Academy followed. While a very enjoyable film, particularly Robert Vaughn's portrayal of the devil, it's one of those films from the end of Ray's really creative movies, closer to Evil Toons than to Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers.

I, however, gave myself a mega-dose of Ray's creative, '80s epics on my own. As my wife slept, I ingested The Tomb (1986), Scalps (1983), Alienator (1990), Bad Girls from Mars (1990), and my favorite, Beverly Hills Vamp (1989). Watching Beverly Hills Vamp, I realized it was one of those few films that gives me true joy--a desert island movie, a cheer-up movie, a watch over-and-over movie. Whether it's Eddie Deezen's flailing-arm approach to emoting, the 'this isn't going to be a habit with you' woman, the bizarre masochistic butler, the sexy vampire babes, or the unique vampire hunting team of Deezen, Robert Quarry, and Jay Richardson, I don't know--but I love it.

I would also be remiss not to note another 'savior' of 'bad' filmmaking, Mr. Jim Wynorski, the truest disciple of Roger Corman. His career followed pretty much the same trajectory as Ray's. I'm convinced Fred Olen Ray's creative arc started downward just when he teamed up with Wynorski, actually. Fred just couldn't do titty movies the way Wynorski could--Wynorski's somehow more convincing. Not of This Earth, a Corman remake, is one of the best b-movies ever made and watching it thrilled me. The made-for-SyFy epics, Bone Eater and Pirahnaconda were just silly fun. Cleavagefield was rubbish, but amusingly so.

What really makes the Turkey Challenge, however, is not revisting old budies like Ray and Wynorski. It's meeting new friends. And if there's one I did make this challenge, it was definitely Jeff Leroy. I knew nothing about this filmmaker before last month--though I had heard of Werewolf in a Woman's Prison--but I gave him a shot entirely on the basis of--well, I liked the title of his movie, Creepies. It's fun to say. Creepies. Creepies turned out to be a fun, ambitious, giant insect movie. Anyone with Leroy's budget wouldn't have tried the giant spider vs tank warfare he went for, but he did--and it works mostly due to his enthusiasm. Creepies 2 was pretty much the same thing, just a lot more, with pretty much the same budget. It's a fantastically fun homage to Harryhausen, Godzilla, and giant insect movies. Werewolf in a Woman's Prison is also an homage to various b-movie subgenres, but is ultimately a much more mature work. Like An American Werewolf in London crossed with Caged Heat, it's every bit as exciting, salacious, and enjoyable as the title promises, with great practical effects and some nice tits--especially on this one Mexican girl. Leroy keeps her in the movie a lot longer than justified, bless him.

Some other interesting acquaintances were Jeffrey Scott Lando, whose Alien Incursion, rated a whopping 1.9, is actually a pretty fun alien-beasts-attacking-idiots-in-the-woods movie. Bill Rebane, the outdoorsman-cum-b-movie auteur who made the apocalyptically boring Monster-a-Go-Go--a film not unlike getting one's face dragged through mud--turns out he made a good movie about an old American town with a haunted past, Demons of Ludlow--check it out. Richard Friedman. We started by watching Dark Wolf, his werewolf epic made in the 2000s. A sensual, arty, and meandering werewolf movie that's overlong and tries hard to create its own mythology. It has its moments. We were plenty surprised to find his career began in the '80s with the extremely goofy Doom Asylum--like a National Lampoon horror movie made for $500. We also watched Phantom of the Mall, which is somewhere between Dark Wolf and Doom Asylum and is every bit as uneven as that sounds. It also contains ample Pauly Shore.

A somewhat less interesting acquaintance is James Nguyen. The kind of acquaintance you snub on the street, because he'll just keep talking to you about his haemorrhoids, even though you just told him you're on your way to your little girl's first dance recital. You might know him as 'the Birdemic guy.' Because he made Birdemic. A very bad boy-meets-girl movie, involving the blandest, most robotic human simulacra, that gets interrupted by some terrible animated gifs of eagles he found on google image search. The movie ends when Adobe Premiere crashed. You can learn all about it in my upcoming interview with Jimmy N., "Nguyen Nowhere: The True Story of Birdemic."

But the excitement of the Turkey Challenge, unfortunately, does peter out about halfway through the month. The unconventional starts to become the norm, I start craving a good western, and my wife insists we play a video game instead. We still enjoyed a few Charles Band movies--The Dead Want Women and Evil Bong II being recommended--and the frustratingly bleak Wrong Turn 4 and 5 movies--why are those damned inbred hicks so invincible? shouldn't they have trouble standing up? They can't learn multiplication tables to save their lives, but they can rig elaborate Saw-esque traps? Shouldn't they spend all day biting the callouses that formed a natural boot over their feet? I dunno, maybe it's just me. But the challenge did end on the pleasant note of Haunted High, a Jeffrey Scott Lando made-for-SyFy haunted highschool movie. Best part of the movie? The fat computer nerd. Can't get enough of that guy.

As always, we come out of the Turkey challenge renewed, refreshed, with a new appreciation for quality, genius, animated gifs, and tits. Anyone who hasn't done the Turkey Challenge yet, I invite you to participate, see with new eyes--it's an education and a fun, unpredictable ride. For those who have participated, thank you for being my Comrades-in-Arms.

Until next November, stay hungry!

Notes from the Turkeyground: Reflections on a Month of Bad Movies

To a person whose transfigured and transfiguring mind can see the All in every this, the first-rateness or tenth-rateness of...a painting will be a matter of the most sovereign indifference. - Aldous Huxley

Every year I participate in two film-viewing 'challenges'. Both are managed through the online community of the IMDb horror genre message boards. One is the October Challenge, in which one has to watch 31 horror movies in 31 days, half of which must be first-time views. This October Challenge excites us all around the board and has even spread to unrelated blogs and facebook groups. The Challenge is an opportunity to marshall one's energies toward enriching one's cinematic experience, broadening horizons, deeper education in the treasures of our beloved horror genre. For the chosen few touched by some wonderful perversion, however, the October Challenge loses its lustre midway through and we see in the distance some more perillous yet infinitely more interesting mountain to climb: the Turkey Challenge. This challenge, which lasts throughout November, consists in watching as many 'bad' (rated below 5.0 on IMDb) horror movies one can for points.

The films that challenge us to see them, and through them the world, in new ways are at the highs and lows. The great films, however, give us a paten to read the code and come equipped with a guarantee, New Way of Seeing or Your Money Back. When you come to the bad films, you're on your own: it's up to your ingenuity to make them work, your mind to find the way to see them, your will to enjoy them in spite of their own protean efforts at evasion. Here are creatures that don't want to be caught, don't want to be enjoyed; and we're the Zeus to their Europa, seizing and impregnating them with value.(1) These are the turkeys and we're the perverse who find the treasures in the rough.

This year I kicked the challenge off to a wonderful start with my girlfriend and I watching some Roger Corman and Fred Olen Ray. Yes, we watched DeCoteau's Grizzly Rage, too, and it remains one of the worst of the month. But it was easily forgotten in the delirious enjoyment of Ray's Deep Space, in which the great Charles Napier fights a slimy-tentacled alien monster, and Corman's Swamp Women, which contains women and eventually a swamp, but no real swamp women. We enjoyed it so much we indulged in more Corman with the Shakespearean and brilliant The Undead and the underrated The Wasp Women. Corman's ability to entertain and have fascinating, enjoyable characters whatever the budget proved an affable start to the challenge, imparting a feeling that we were already discovering underrated treasures in what, to the ignorant public, appears to be dungheaps. Soon even DeCoteau redeemed himself with the pure '80s vomit that is Dreamaniac.

We then embarked upon a course that we would be on throughout the Turkey Challenge: the viewing of every Jerry Warren horror film. Here we were delighted. How could we be having so much luck? Even the maligned films of Jerry Warren were exciting and fun. They all had unnecessary, and unnecessarily long dance scenes, islands, looped sound effects (listen for the "Boo yeah! Boo yeah!" in Terror of the Bloodhunters), but I'll be damned if the stories weren't interesting in a zany way and the characters likable. I'll also be damned if we didn't just have the luck of picking the only original Jerry Warren films in our first three tries, kind of like winning the lottery twice. From there on, we found the hideous depths of Warren's Conquistador tendencies, pilfering the treasures of the Aztec peoples, overlaying awful narration, and inserting endless scenes of fat men receiving massages. What a guy.

Meanwhile, on my own time, I'd been educating myself in Andy Milligan. I was already familiar with, and charmed by, Milligan from previous Turkey Challenges. But this was the first time I decided to watch as much Milligan as I could. I began with a total dud, the wretched Carnage, possibly the worst film of Milligan's career. Even Surgikill, written by rejects from a Jewish fraternity and directed by Milligan for the money, is more enjoyable than Carnage, if only because it elicits some emotion (primarily embarrassment) from the audience. Still, much of Milligan is enjoyable and original. His ability to create intense drama, dwell amongst the dysfunctional, and sympathize with the deformed certainly gives his work distinction.

One of the finest ideas in the Turkey Challenge is the 'trifecta', whereby we gain extra points for watching three turkeys by the same director. Trifectas allow us to enjoy a large sampling of a frequently-unappreciated director's oeuvre and receive rewards for the dedication. My girl and I were on the lookout for new trifectas, ideas others hadn't thought of yet. So we went with Sam Newfield and Roberta Findlay. Newfield's films, all with PRC and two starring George Zucco, were mysterious, atmospheric, well-written pictures whose only flaw was having a low budget. But for 1940s horror, all a low budget really means is that the sets weren't as impressive as Universal's. I really can't say Dead Men Walk is significantly inferior to Tod Browning's Dracula, because it isn't. Nor is Newfield's The Monster Maker at all inferior to any of the highly-respected spectacle horrors from Universal, like The Hunchback of a Notre-Dame, a film whose only real merits are in the sets and Lon Chaney. IMDb ratings can be so puzzling; persistance in the Turkey Challenge will have one losing faith in them entirely. So, no surprise, we found Roberta Findlay's films to be quite good as well, all of them concerned with the same idea: a woman in a relationship begins relating to the supernatural and has to struggle against her boyfriend/husband for her autonomy in doing so. Her best film, Lurkers, slightly twists the formula in that the woman wants to avoid the supernatural, but her controlling boyfriend manipulates her into it. More wonderful discoveries! I feel we're explorers in an alien land! Why have so many observers failed to see what we see if they haven't been viewing it with the telescope of preconceptions?

We were now coming to an inevitable point in the Turkey Challenge: we were stuffed. I haven't asked my girl where she thinks it happened, but I think the last film on which we had that early thrill, that sensation of being discoverers and that we were seeing what no-one saw, or at least seeing it in a new light; the last film on which we had that elation was Witchtrap, which we watched in the second week of November and from which we learned the truly remarkable term 'neanderfuck'. The first week is always one of exhilaration. Then the abnormal becomes the normal, heaven starts looking a little like earth. We were planning to take breaks and watch a normal film now and then during the challenge, but it didn't really happen; I was too keen on beating other participants who were beginning to outstrip me. So, we were tired, but we pushed on. We continued our Kevin Tenney trifecta, started a new Corman trifecta, and even started a Freddie Francis trifecta. Sure, we encountered some good films. The Cormans were good, we enjoyed the Jeff Burr films, and William Fruet's Blue Monkey reminded us of Fred Olen Ray's Deep Space. But we'd had too much of a good thing. Our tastebuds were exhausted.

On my own time, I'd more or less given up on Milligan, puttered around with Donald Farmer films, the best of which is Scream Dream for its costumes and jokiness, but finally, despite vowing David DeCoteau, as director of Grizzly Rage, is too horrifying a prospect to return to, I plunged into the homoerotic nightmare depths of The Brotherhood. And I haven't looked back. Seven DeCoteau trifectas later, I find myself exhausted, but not regretful. I actually enjoyed the first eight or so DeCoteaus. Then it got to be too much. No, of course I never tired of the young studs in tightie-whiteys; I tired of the rigorously-pursued blandness that is DeCoteau's non-trademark.

With my girl, I still managed to enjoy a good number of the films we watched. Somehow penetrating into DeCoteau's depths left me more satisfied with non-DeCoteau turkeys and rejuvenated me a little. The Anaconda series was fun, but I clearly got more out of it than she did. The same happened with Rage of the Yeti. But we shared some DeCoteau moments at the end with Final Stab and The Frightening, and closed this year out with a bang in the form of Andy Milligan's very talky The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here! together, myself with the Master, Fred Olen Ray, and she with a Wynorski double-feature.

We both found a lot to enjoy this month, though it feels like far longer than a month now that I look back. Can it be only a little over a week ago, I thought as the month ended, that we watched Anacondas: Trail of the Blood Orchid? Can it really have been but 28 days ago that we watched Swamp Women and Dreamaniac? Somehow the Turkey Challenge is outside of the ordinary laws of Time and Space. 100 movies in 30 days, countless treasures tangible and intangible; I invite everyone reading to participate next year and find yourself, as well as your relationship to movies, transformed for the better.

(1) - On the subject of viewing movies, especially bad movies, in new ways, I've already written at some length in The Question Concerning Watchability.