Everything You Need to Know About ThanksKilling 3 (2012)
“ThanksKilling 3” may easily be the most ridiculous movie ever made, but through all its insane self-awareness and surreal scripting rests its value as a significant piece in film history. Jordan Downey is behind the wheel of this absurdity, expectedly as off the rails as its predecorder, “ThanksKilling 2,” which is set post a parody of Thanksgiving themed slasher films and released back in 2009. Also worth mentioning, “ThanksKilling 3” is an indie ultra-low budget flick, a first for the genre, and not a high strung venture like it’s predecessors.
And here’s the twist: There is no “Thanks Killing 2.” The fandom around turkey decapitation would easily burst out into laughter when thought of as a parody revolving said motif. But it’s not a joke that ThanksKilling 3 attempts to construct an entire narrative off around its own skipped sequel that had never existed. Interactive and elusive like the movie itself, the concept did wonders in its execution. What was created is best described as a fever dream executed on puppets, swearing, and violence.
Plot Summary: The Search for the Worst Movie Ever Made
To put it mildly, the plot is simply centered around ‘Turkie,’ an overly violent, masterfully voiced by a duck, and bad-mouthed decapitated Thanksgiving turkey that first debuted in the series. After being part of the universe that spawned ThanksKilling 2, a brutally bad movie that apparently ‘for some reason’ gets a lot of hype, hurting interdimensional domination of universe becomes a goal for every other character in the show along with Turkie whose mortally bound copy needs to be retrieved.
Prepare yourselves, because what comes next crosses genres like there is no tomorrow: it’s a bisexual space worm, a time-traveling bisexual space worm, named Rhonda, who helps Yomi on her journey; a muffin-doll named Muff who proudly identifies as a robot; and a mindless puppet called Yomi who is in search of her brain – a psychedelic adventure packed with pure nonsense.
ThanksKilling 3 is anything but reasonable: a mix of grandma-rap battles, death beams, and mutant turkeys, it sprints past the boundary of sanity with a chainsaw. No, make that drills.
Puppets, live performers, costumed creatures, and things out of a screenwriting handbook, which completely defy description, merge to create a blend of absurdity too chaotic for even the most vivid imagination.
Turkie: the leading installment of the franchise. Yet again, he seems vulgar, feathered and homocidal! His catchphrases have already etched their mark on the lore of late night shows.
Yomi: the puppetrical heroine of the sequal stricken by the need to voyager beyond the puppetrical realm. While surrounded by madness she is looking for her brain, aka: the film’s odd yet heartwarming core.
Uncle Donny: a wig mother and father to Yomi. Having no bounds his creativity manifests bounds — why not.
Muff: Child like Jefferson his doll doubled with Daddy the cyborg/robot, it’s as wild as it reads.
Turkish Yomi, a wide-eyed puppet of my imagination.
Visual Style and Humor: Bizarre by Design
If ThanksKilling was a bad joke, then ThanksKilling 3 is that same joke but rewritten in crayon, smeared in gravy, and blended.
The visual style is a patchwork quilt consisting of low budget green screen effects, puppetry, amateur animation, and the aesthetics of lo-fi horror. It’s like watching an Adult Swim fever dream that had been sewn together with glitter and hot glue.
The humor hits at different levels of filthy, crude, juvenile, and unapologetic extremeness. If you are the type of viewer who revels in fart jokes and decapitated puppets alongside sentient Thanksgiving food, this one is definitely for you.
The show gleefully parodies everything from The Dark Crystal and Sesame Street to The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings. It makes no sense and doesn’t care to.
Themes (Kind Of): Satire, Consumerism, and Existential Poultry
Amid the chaos, there is a faint semblance of thematic subtext – yes, traces, of actual subtext.
🧠 Mindless media – The mindless media culminates in the singular quest to locate the last copy of ThanksKilling 2. Each attempts to masquerade as a commentary on trash cinema, sequels, and cultural sleaze. The film literally dismantles itself in the process of self-mockery.
🍗 Consumer Culture and Exploitation – In an aside to these terrible ideas, infomercials and sidekicks featuring mogul Turkie sell everything including the kitchen sink, illustrating how even the dumbest ideas can be packaged and sold.
🌀 Mental Health and Identity – The “find your mind” journey of Yomi is figuratively described using puppets and acid trips where she loses and rediscovers herself, allegory-style.
They utilize turbo chicken giblet stuffing and toilet humor to mask as much depth as they possibly can, but it’s there if you look hard enough.
Reception: Cult Favorite or Cinematic Disaster?
Very much pro and anti in equally violent split perspectives.
🟢 Some considered it a one-off bizarre phenomenon essayed through an anti Thanksgiving film.
🔴 “The absurdity reached an unparalleled level,” one user commented. “99 mins of utter insanity playing out in front of puppets, only to have everything feel stretched beyond limits, it’s both exhausting and endlessly boring,” noted another.
While the Rotten Tomatoes score sits well below the 50% mark, the cult following surfaced with thanks to late night viewers, cram-sessions of ‘bad movies,’ and affection for bizarre bad — sorry, bad-but-thanks-for-the-weird-gift cinema.
Legacy and Cult Status
ThanksKilling 2 due not achieiving the virality that its predecessor “ThanksKilling” did, is still considered a cult classic among niche plater groups. Why?
It is descried as:
So-bad-they’re-good (or worse);
Myriads of throwaway humor and otherworldly linguistics interwoven with puppetry and violence, constituting a gory spectacle; and
Campy and chaotic.
The term “midnight movie” encapsulates this film perfectly: unknown, horrific, disgusting, and somehow unforgettable.
Final Reflections: Is ThanksKilling 3 Worth Watching?
YES, if:
You enjoy low-budget indie films that are quirky and unconventional
You’re a fan of specialty horror-comedies like Poultrygeist, Troll 2, and Rubber
You admire chaotic surreal satire driven through puppetry and minimalistic budgets
You want to claim you watched a movie about a vengeful turkey planning a revenge for a non-existent sequel
NO, if:
You’re used to engaging plots with polished aesthetics and emotional depth
You are leaning towards expecting a classic slasher film or even a straightforward comedy
You don’t like gore and over-the-top puppet humor mixed with mindless absurdity
The Bottom Line
If Thanksgiving dinner was put in a blender and mixed with vodka, narrated by a psychotic turkey, the result would be ThanksKilling 3. It is crude, chaotic, and bizarre in nature. Although, it does provide a degree of cult-like pleasure for those who prefer disorder and don’t mind plunging head-first into madness.