Notes from the Turkeyground: Back from the Dead

Long-time Turkey Challenge participants my remember I would write a Notes from the Turkeyground every year in early December. The point was the reminisce over the whole experience of the previous month. It was just a month ago, how much reminiscing could one do? If you're asking that question, you haven't been turkeying right! The Turkey Challenge is a time-bending ordeal, a gauntlet of cinematic atrocities, out of which you emerge... pretty much the same, except you've seen a lot more shitty movies.

But sometimes they're not shitty at all! That's why I started writing these in the first place. To highlight the best and the worst moments of the Turkey Challenge. Well, after a few years hiatus, the Notes are back and the Turkeygrounds are moist with gravy.

In previous years, I was always amazed by how many low-rated movies were actually good. Really, really good. My wife (Alchemie) and I would make so many discoveries. Either we lost the Turkey lottery this year or imdb ratings are finally balancing out, but most of what we watched this year pretty much deserves the rating it has.

Standing out are the very strange shark movies of Misty Talley. I know nothing about Misty. I've seen her headshot and her films. From that alone, I've formed a judgment: she has a BA in Fine Arts from some women's university in the Mid-West. She's had a string of shitty boyfriends who cheat on her. She likes to read difficult novels in her spare time. Has seen Shakespeare on stage more times than she's been swiped right on Tinder. Probably voted most likely to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in high school, even though she was routinely harassed for being a nerd. Well, all the potential in that ugly duckling has blossomed into Santa Jaws, Ozark Sharks, and, of course, Mississippi River Sharks.

I say her movies are weird because they have a distinctive cheapo style that's atypical even for SyFy/Asylum shark movies. A quaintness that feels more at home as a made-for-Hallmark movie about cats saving Christmas. You know the kinda movie I mean. Except they're not quaint. They're full of busty chicks in bikinis and man-eating sharks.

But the sharks and tits almost feel like a candy coating for the pill of truth she's trying to shove down our throats. What truth is that? Fuck if I know. She definitely has obsessions. All of her movies involve families. In two out of three, a grandparent is eaten and the family must band together for revenge. In two out of three, the action is interrupted for a heartfelt plea about bullying and what a dead-end high school sports is. Despite these Hallmark intrusions of After School Specialism, random high-brow and meta references are peppered around the façade. Most of the "badass" lines delivered after killing a shark, as much happen, are so ridiculous they're almost non-sequiturs. Very odd movies, but I'm glad I've seen them.

The lowlight of this Turkey Challenge, as he almost always is, is David DeCoteau. David pisses me off, because I know he can make a good movie and he chooses not to. He makes these neither-fish-nor-fowl wastes of time that I firmly believe only make money in November when we do the Turkey Challenge. We did a trifecta this year, starting with Bigfoot vs. DB Cooper. Bigfoot spends half the movie shaking the same three scraggle trees in the middle of a mid-town park in Columbus, Ohio, while the hapless, innocent meatheads in a rented mansion decide to go '˜turkey hunting.' You know what turkey hunting is? That's where you take your toy gun, go upstairs one after the other at ten-minute intervals, so you give the guy ahead of you time to strip down to his underwear and pose in front of the first mirror he finds with the toy gun. Turkey hunting. Always say no.

Next up was 666: Kreepy Kerry. That one at least had a plot. But something occurred to me watching these movies. Now I'm a straight man. And I'm watching this with my wife. I still know what a hot guy looks like. I would think, if you're gonna make a guys-prancing-around-in-underwear movie, you want hot guys, don't you? Like, not just having abs. Guys with faces that don't look like the last page of OKCupid results, because their only interests are "bee keeping and boobs." So that's strike one. It's probably strike two and three as well. Let's move on.

Here's a good one. I'd hoped to do a Griff Furst trifecta, but it didn't happen. Instead, we got only a single Griff movie: Nightmare Shark. This movie is out there. It's a mad scientist Hawaian mythology shark movie in which the demonic shark deity can kill you in your dreams like Freddy Krueger. This should be stupid, but it's actually filled with kinda interesting characters and inventive film techniques. The desert nightmare is downright eerie. Griff Furst is the best of the SyFy directors, hands-down. SyFy directors are not made equal, believe-you-me. And he stands head and shoulders over the next-best, probably Steven R. Monroe or Anthony Ferrante.

I can tell you who isn't one of the best SyFy directors. Sheldon Wilson. This guy made The Stickman, Mothman, and The Night Before Halloween. He seems to be allergic to good lighting, so that's a problem right there. While the plots are mildly interesting, he has no idea how to build good tension and the characters inevitably get sacrificed to "y'all die" endings. Mothman is the best of the three, as most of it is shot in daylight. It's your standard brain-off popcorn SyFy movie.

On the more independent side of things, I somehow never came across David A. Prior in all my years doing the Turkey Challenge. And you can make four trifectas off this guy! He's been making these war-themed (mostly) horror movies since the '˜80s, all of them written by his brother Ted. Ted also stars in most of the movies. And it's clear why when he inevitably takes off his shirt. He's hit the gym a few times. Normally finding a new prolific turkey director from the '˜80s bodes well. Could I be finding Fred Olen Ray's long-lost twin?

Nope! Most of you will know the Brothers Prior from Killer Workout. Killer Workout was a silly, fun movie. A violent whodunit set in an aerobics class where only busty bimbos in great shape already are allowed to participate. As the murders in the gym mount and the detective is visiting daily—and not to work on his lats—you'd think they would shut down and hire a grief counselor or something. No sir. The aerobics must go on! To the last act, the action is punctuated by '˜80s titties jiggling in their leotards. I do not complain.

The rest of his movies are over-serious snoozefests in which soldiers discover the real horrors of war is inside us. Or something. Mutant Species at least has a murderous beast. And his first film, the SOV Sledgehammer has... videography effects that were considered cool in the '˜80s. I don't even want to talk about Night Claws.

Other standouts: The Green Slime for that kickass intro song; Attack of the Killer Donuts for ending a killer donut movie with ten straight minutes of romantic banter; The Devil's Chair for ruining an incredibly creepy introduction with a dumbshit twist; and The Bye Bye Man for just being a good, spooky supernatural horror movie.

So maybe I just picked poorly this year. Or maybe I'm running out of the true hidden gems. But y'know what? It's not gonna stop me. I'm going to keep on turkey hunting. Now excusive me while I grab my toy gun. Until next year!