“The Customer is Always Ripe: My Tromatic Summer”

By Louie Podlaski

Working with Lloyd Kaufman and the Troma team on Poultrygeist in July and August of 2005 was an experience I like many others involved will never forget.

From the audition process to my last day of shooting I can tell you that not an unkind word, phrase or chicken was thrown my way by anyone. I applaud and respect Jamie Greco for making all of the extras be they chicken zombies, protestors or chicken bunker customers feel like they were every bit as important to this production as everyone else. There was no such thing in his vocabulary resembling the phrases: “I don’t have time for you.” “Leave me alone you’re just an extra.”  Or “Do you know who I am?” his comments were more along these lines: “Do you need anything?” “I’m sorry this is taking so long we’ll get to you soon.” “Thanks for coming in.” Jamie was and is a class act. In the audition process there were several times I thought being in this movie would never happen. It started off by me not being able to take the entire month of August off for a part -a boy has to eat. Then it was a part I might have had if it had not been for a very famous Troma vet being interested in the role (sigh!). One last attempt e-mail to Jamie to see if there is ANYTHING I can do…? “Why don’t you come in for a death rehearsal?” Success! I am in the movie! My filming days consisted of driving for approximately two hours from Rochester to Buffalo and then waiting and waiting and waiting some more. I luckily had people in the same predicament I could chat with: thanks to Trevor and to Jason Yachanin and several others whose names escape me for keeping me in check. They should call it filmwaiting not filmmaking but hey that’s what happens in movies as I now know while other scenes are being shot and effects are being prepped there is not much that can be done. It’s just too bad Buffalo was so hot during those days.

Which brings me to Lloyd -here is a man who like the rest of the team would make me laugh while he shot scenes and afterwards pose for pictures with anyone who asked and be willing to graciously chat with everybody. It seems funny that a man responsible for what the Hollywood brass would call grotesque, inappropriate, sickening, vile filmmaking turns out to be the most gentile, funny and loving soul you could possibly imagine. Lloyd was always there for us. He was like a favorite uncle you couldn’t wait to hear tell another story. He was the best.

My final night of filming was the longest one. I got there at 3:00 PM and waiting in the sun for hours while literally hundreds of buckets of blood spilled inside the chicken bunker and the noise from within was almost a terrifying secret that you didn’t want to know about but couldn’t resist the temptation to take a peek. Finally at about 11:00 PM, I was on call. I walked into the chicken bunker and it looked like the worst evening news footage of the most horrible disaster of all time. The interior of the Bunker I had come to know and love was gone and in it’s place was carnage, feathers, body parts, blood, sweat and tears. I’ve never seen so many people look so gruesome at one time and now it was my turn after a couple hours getting make-up applied and Chris Bowen staying with me saving me from boredom and insanity, I was ready. I won’t divulge the details for fear of giving away the movie. I will say the scene left me a complete mess and by the end of it I realized that your spine follows the curvature of your body because the blood followed it’s way down my back like a railroad track right into my ass-crack. So here I am a very tired man covered in blood and underwear that looks like it’s my time of the month at about 3:00 AM now, after all the prosthetics and make up and filming and removal of the effects which I never actually got to see myself considering where it was on my body but I’m told it looked awesome. At this point all I want to do is go home but it’s starting to sink in slowly but surely that this is my final hurrah. One last goodbye to Jamie, to Lloyd who hugs me in full gore make-up, and to the beloved American chicken bunker, now it’s off to drive back home sitting on a trash bag so I don’t soak my car seats and I pray to god I won’t get pulled over and have to explain why I look like Jeffrey Dahmer after one of his meals.

So at last eight months later the blood has been washed off, the back problems are gone, my laundry has finally been exorcised of all corn syrup and chicken feathers. I’ve worked on other projects and met the woman of my dreams, and I think back on if I would, with the knowledge I have today, go and do this again should Lloyd call upon me… in a New York minute.

-LP