Turkey Day

            When I think “Thanksgiving,” I think “pancreas.” It was on that celebratory November day back in the early 70s when, after partaking of a memorably delicious Thanksgiving with friends, my pancreas literally exploded and I was rushed to a hospital where I was listed in critical condition for nearly a week. So, it’s not surprising that I approach that special day with a certain amount of trepidation, and react with suspicious alarm any time my stomach rumbles after a second helping of stuffing. 

            You really can’t win on Thanksgiving. You have to scramble on a standing-room-only train and travel untold miles to spend the day making small talk with a roomful of relatives you have absolutely nothing in common with. Not to mention the horror of gathering around the TV to watch hellish sports-related programs while waiting for the goddamn 200-pound turkey to finish cooking.

            I prefer to celebrate by calling my relatives and say I plan to spend Thanksgiving with friends, and then promptly call my friends and tell them I’m going to spend the day with family. Frankly, I feel I am carrying on a historical tradition, like when the pilgrims sat down with Native Americans in 1612 and said, “We’re going to be great friends!”

            Then I throw a turkey TV dinner in the oven and plan what movies I’m going to gorge on that day. I try to make the films lean more to food-related if I can, and here are a few that have always worked to make my holiday bright.

            Criminally Insane. Two-hundred-fifty-pound Ethel Janowski (played by the great cult favorite Priscilla Alden), just released from a mental hospital, doesn’t react calmly when her grandmother locks up all the food in the house to help her lose weight. Nobody comes between Ethel and her Nilla Wafers. Soon the bodies start piling up in the upstairs bedroom- grandma, delivery boys, doctors, you name it- and Ethel keeps snacking and spraying Glade air freshener. A must see for Overeaters Anonymous members over the holiday.

            The Worm Eaters. This disgusting bit of whimsy was produced by legendary exploitation director Ted. V. Mikels. It was directed by Herb Robins, who plays the lead, a club-footed hermit named Unger, who gets revenge on the entire town of Melnick, California by slipping special worms in their food, transforming everyone into worm monsters (they writhe around in what looks like slimy sleeping bags). The actors actually eat live worms, and there are countless revolting shots of mouths chomping on wriggling nightcrawlers in hot dogs, hamburgers, ice cream and milkshakes. Ted V. Mikels once said in an interview, “It takes guts and your entrails and your soul to make a film.” Not to mention a hundred buckets of live bait.

            Shriek of the Mutilated. An anthropologist leads an expedition of college students in search of the Abominable Snowman (that’s Yeti to you). It turns out the monster hunt is a big ruse- a way for a cult of cannibals to get a free meal. In the final, gruesomely romantic scene, the only remaining student is forced to stand over his dead girlfriend while a servant named Laughing Crow, about to slice her up with an electric knife, asks the hapless youth, “light meat or dark?”

            Feed. Deliciously sick 2005 Australian shocker, directed by Brett Leonard, is about a serial killer who kidnaps obese women and force-feeds them until they die, videotaping the whole thing for the internet. An Interpol cop from Sydney tries to track the fiend down. Believe it or not, Alex O’Loughlin– the hot cop lead on TV’s Hawaii Five-O– is co-credited for story idea and plays the lead psychopath. This movie just screams “Thanksgiving.” It can be used to force relatives to flee your house before desert is even served.

            The Corpse Grinders. Directed by Ted V. Mikels, this loony film is about a cat-food company that finds a unique way of recycling bodies by grinding them up into gourmet cat food. Unfortunately, the tabbies get a real taste for the stuff and attack their masters. Mikels was a real character of exploitation films. A big, burly, Ernest Hemmingway type, he used to live in a castle in Los Angeles with seven “castle ladies” and directed some memorably bizarre films like Astro Zombies, Ten Violent Women, The Doll Squad and Blood Orgy of the She-Devils. But I always consider The Corpse Grinders his trash masterpiece.

            The Stuff. Fabulously entertaining paranoid thriller by Larry Cohen about a strange white substance that is mined from the ground and turned into a popular, wildly addictive, dessert food that takes over people’s minds. Scott Bloom plays a youngster fleeing from his transformed family trying to warn others of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers-like conspiracy. Cohen was a real New York maverick filmmaker, never quite given the acclaim he deserved. He always made horror and genre films but with a sardonic political bent- from the It’s Alive films to the amazing God Told Me To, to an offbeat sci-fi monster movie like Q (with a frequent Cohen collaborator- the wildly eccentric Michael Moriarty). Then there are oddball entries like The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover and Bone. The Stuff works on many levels- from wry political commentary to suspenseful thriller. And it will make you look suspiciously at your yogurt in the morning from now on.

            Blood Freak. Directed by Brad Grinter, the movie opens with a seedy, chain-smoking man sitting at a desk in a cheesy wood-paneled room as he narrates the tale of poor Herschell (Steve Hawkes) a sideburned biker who falls in with two sisters. One is Angel, a Bible-quoting Goody Two-Shoes, the other, bad Ann, who fucks him silly and gets him “hooked” on marijuana. Herschell gets a job at their father’s turkey farm, but dad is a renegade scientist and uses him as a guinea pig by feeding him drugged poultry that transforms him into a murderous, turkey-headed monster who drinks the blood of heroin addicts (he gobble-gobbles audibly all the while). Eventually he is saved by prayer. Yes, believe it or not, this is a faith-based anti-drug film of sorts. A high point is reached when the narrator rants about substance abuse while coughing on his own cigarette smoke. This demented Florida-made oddity is from the same man responsible for Flesh Feast, starring an aged Veronica Lake as a scientist who breeds flesh-eating maggots in an attempt to resurrect Hitler.

            Pass the cranberry sauce…