(1972)
Director: Brad F. Grinter & Steve Hawkes
Starring Steve Hawkes, Heather Hughes, Dana Culliver, Tina Anderson, Brad F. Ginter, Randy Grinter

If there ever was a movie that defines what a “turkey movie” is, this is it. This has to be one of the strangest and most bizarre pictures ever to grace the silver screen. It is one that while you’re watching it, you stop and wonder if what you’re actually seeing is happening. Or if you’re with others, look over to them to make sure they just saw the same thing!

Here’s the basic plot: Herschell, a Viet Nam vet, comes riding into town on his motorcycle, and meets up with a young girl named Angel. She invites him back to her house, but before they go in, she warns Herschell of his sister that his having one of her “drug parties” with her friends. While Angel is changing clothes, her sister tries to put the moves on Herschel, offering him drugs as well, which he declines both. The sister returns to start preaching the gospel to her new friend and some of the “drug party” members, which oddly enough doesn’t go over too well. Soon after, the Herschell gets a job at the turkey farm owned by her father, doing odd jobs, which includes taste-testing some turkeys that have been ‘experimented’ on. Before we know it, Herschell turns into a turkey-headed monster that kills people and drinks their blood. Yes…a man with a giant turkey head. That’s the movie.

Or…that’s part of it. Because throughout the entire movie, we cut to a narrator who discusses and informs the audience what is happening on screen. He also preaches about the evils of doing drugs and putting harmful chemicals in your body, all the while he is chain-smoking cigarettes. So much so that at one point, he goes into a coughing fit where he can barely talk!

This was made in the early ’70s and on a very small budget, with very few if any real actors in front of the camera, aside maybe from Steve Hawkes who plays Herschell and the narrator, played by Brad Grinter, who both directing the film as well. And I use the term “real actors” very loosely. But even the profession that Grinter is, he is constantly looking down and reading his script, not to mention most of the other cast doing the same.

Hawkes had made a couple of Tarzan movies in Spain before really moving into obscurity. He was burned in an onset accident which you can sort of see the damage in this film. 35 years later, he came back to the film world (or video world) by making two even more cheesy films. He spent his later days running an animal sanctuary in Florida before running into trouble when one of his tigers escaped and was killed by authorities.

Brad Grinter was known for the exploitation market in the Florida area, both directing and acting in a few films. He directed Flesh Feast, starring Veronica Lake, and Devil Rider!, both films from 1970. He also directed and acted in a couple of nudist films, Never the Twain and Barely Proper, both in 1975.

The most impressive part of this film was that it was actually financed by a religious group to show the evil ways of drugs, which is probably why the “drug party” looks like something they figured it would be like back then. Of course, there is no nudity here, other than a quick butt shot, but surprisingly there is a bit of gore, which will surprise the viewer. In one sequence, a band saw is used during a fight with the turkey monster, and it doesn’t end well for one of them. Upon my first viewing of this, I was blown away when this happened since I was not expecting something so graphic.

But it makes total sense that Grinter & Hawkes made the film they were hired to make. So, the decision to make the monster a guy with a turkey head mask on, as if he had really transformed into this monstrosity, makes complete and total sense. It sure doesn’t feel like they are trying to make any real lasting art here, but a quick exploitation film, which is exactly what it is. In fact, it’s more than that. Maybe it’s just the absurdity of it, the crazy mask, or that our narrator (and co-director) never thought about just reshooting the part where he’s damn near coughing up a lung while trying to get through his speech! But all of that is what makes it so damn fun.

Unfortunately, while this film has been released on DVD by Something Weird Video, it has never gotten a nice, upgraded treatment to Blu-ray. Maybe one day someone will come across an actual 35mm film print or negative and we’ll get to see a remastered print in 4K… one can only hope. It needs it because a lot of the night sequences were really filmed at night and is very muddled and dark, making it hard to see what is going on in some parts.

Until that time, I’m pretty sure you can either find a copy online or that Something Weird DVD. Because if you’re a fan of weird and wild cinema, this HAS to be in your collection. And if you want to start your own Turkey Day Marathons, then this film needs to be in that first lineup. I would advise getting a few other like-minded cinephiles to join in the viewing to make it even more mind-bending and enjoyable.